Paper Round: How City-Valencia dispute boosts Liverpool's Falcao dream

City's Negredo wrangle with Valencia boosts Liverpool's hopes over Falcao: The Telegraph reports that Valencia may be out of the running for Radamel Falcao, boosting Liverpool's hopes of signing the Colombian. The Spanish club were interested in signing the striker, but Manchester City are insisting they honour the compulsory buyout clause in their loan deal for Alvaro Negredo. Valencia would violate Financial Fair Play rules if they tried to take on both Negredo and Falcao, so Negredo could rule them out of the Falcao chase.

Paper Round's view: Okay, so let's get this straight: X could sign for Y because Z, who bought A from B last year, aren't able to pull out of the deal? Welcome to the 21st century transfer window, folks. But when you cut through the noise, the message is simple: if Valencia are out of the running for Falcao, bidding will be tempered and potentially allow Liverpool - who are apparently very interested in the Colombian - to sign the striker at a knockdown price. Which is just about all he merits based on his last two seasons, of course, given his serious injury and even more serious loss of form.

As for Valencia wanting out of the Negredo deal? Well, that's just tough, if a deal is structured as loan-to-permanent for the sake of balancing the books, there's no way they can get out of it now. Manchester City have their own very serious FFP problems as well, so if Valencia are suffering buyers' remorse, well, that's Valencia's problem.

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Man United interested in Pjanic again: Manchester United are chasing Miralem Pjanic once more, according to The Mirror. The Red Devils were interested in the midfielder a year ago, but Pjanic signed a new contract with Roma and the Red Devils were shut out. They're preparing to make another run at him this summer, though. United will have to hold off Liverpool for Pjanic, with the Reds having already expressed interested and been quoted £37 million for the midfielder.

Paper Round's view: Louis van Gaal has done a brilliant job putting together a good team this season without a properly functioning midfield. But with a boatload of cash to spend this summer, there's no reason not to fix that midfield now, and Pjanic would be a nice addition. The 25-year-old is a fabulous player, but it will come down to price. £37m is a lot of money for Pjanic and the Red Devils might be wiser to let Liverpool have him if Roma demand that much cash.

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Yaya Toure won't be forced out of Man City: Manchester City have made it clear that they plan to make several changes this summer and one of them might be selling Yaya Toure. But The Mail reports that Toure won't leave just because City want him gone. He is happy at the Etihad and has no interest in taking any sort of pay cut to make a deal happen. The Ivorian will listen to offers, but they'll have to match his £220,000-per-week wages.

Paper Round's view: Toure hasn't done anything wrong at City and has absolutely no reason to take a pay cut so that the club can sell him. That's Man City's problem, not his, especially since he's good enough to continue playing regularly with the side. Inter Milan were hoping to tempt him with a five-year deal instead of matching his wages, but it looks like they can bid that dream goodbye.

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Newcastle hope signing Austin will lure McClaren: Mike Ashley is willing to spend £10m on QPR's Charlie Austin to boost Newcastle's group of strikers - and he hopes that by doing so he will convince Steve McClaren to take over as manager, according to the Mirror. McClaren is Newcastle's top choice to be their new manager, but they are concerned McClaren wouldn't want to join a club that has sold so many players in recent years and hope Austin would change that.

Paper Round's view: Newcastle have been linked to Austin more than any other club and have the £10m to land him. Ashley seems willing to spend it, too, and if that is a sign of what is to come than McClaren could be interested in the Magpies. Newcastle need a lot of help in defence in addition to finding a striker so Austin can't be the end of their spending; if McClaren believes he'll have the funds to rebuild the back line then he could probably jump at the job... particularly if he doesn't bring Derby into the top flight next month.