COOPER AND O'RIORDAN ON WAY IN BUT LOOVENS ON WAY OUT (Sunday papers)

Who knows how many more twists and turns before the serious action starts versus Southampton in 13 days and before the transfer window shuts firmly at the end of August but there is more news and counter-news today.





Wales on Sunday have splashed big on Cardiff City agreeing a fee with incentives totalling £2M for MLS star Kenny Cooper who they want to feature against Ajax in City's keynote final friendly this Friday.





However they revealed that Cooper is to choose between City and Norwegian Champions League side Rosenbourg and will fly in to visit both clubs this week before making a final decision.



A quick trawl of the net, though, reveals some gossip that any move by Cooper to Europe may be on hold or scrapped altogether and that he has been named in the FC Dallas squad to play Devid Beckham's LA Galazy tonight which suggests he isn't coming at all this week.





Meanwhile, while Rangers still seem to be deciding whether they want to make a more appropriate offer and increased bid for Glenn Loovens, the rumour mill suggests Celtic and Gordon Strachan are going to gazump them. Loovens was mightily impressive making Celtic's forwards look ordinary in last Thursday's friendly and it has alerted Strachan.









(O'Riordan - is it me or does he look like a midget in this picture?!?!?)

Another twist is that he may offer past City target Derek O'Riordan as a sweetener. The 25 yr old forward who chose Celtic over City 2 years ago has only has 25 games since and been told he has no future there and can move on.

Finally, it's believed Cardiff City are currently talking to 4 strikers in the hope of landing 2 so we may end up with players completely different to these names ... on current form, if we get anyone at all, they almost certainly will be!