AUGUST is a lively month in football, but July is tedious.
I tend to think that July is tedious, August is lively, September is interesting, and October is a month full of teams who think they have arrived.
In July, we cannot see what is happening.
Clearly, Ashley Cole lost the plot a long time ago.
But Arsene Wenger wants him to stay. And he certainly doesn't want to sell him to Chelsea.
My thumbnail on Ashley Cole is this : he proved he was a world class left back in the lost quarter-final in Valencia in 2001, and Henry, Pires and Vieira helped him to become England's left back, and he continued to be a terrific player for the next four years.
But he was underpaid and felt undervalued and when his contract negotiations were badly handled by Arsenal he had a meeting with Mourinho and Kenyon, for which he was fined £100,000 by the Premier League. Since then he has listened to a lot of bad advice and become such a big celebrity that some of his England teammates did not go to his wedding yesterday.
If Chelsea sign Zambrotta, they will not sign Ashley Cole.
If Real Madrid sign Zambrotta, they will not sign Cole either.
Do Arsenal really want Buffon?
If they have Lehmann,36, and Buffon,28, they will have the World Cup's best two goalkeepers.
What is the point of that? Will he play Lehmann at centreback ?
I reckon Arsenal need to replace Sol Campbell with an experienced centreback.
The Rome sports tribunal has relegated Juventus, Lazio and Fiorentina, but the tribunal is not a court of law. The legal process has only just started and we do not yet know what the real fall-out will be.
Insiders say everyone is waiting to see which players Real Madrid will choose, then other clubs can sign the Serie A stars left over.
The Buffon-to-Arsenal story is baffling.
But it may be about money owed on Patrick Vieira.
Last year's deal was £13 million, and if it was £7m now and £6m later, then that would be £6 million off the alleged £12m price of Bufffon.
It's all guesswork right now, so it's quite tedious.
When I come back from holiday, squads will be taking shape. On September 1st, squads will be finalised.
Then we can see who will be strong and who will be struggling.
In the meantime, July is all guesswork and gossip.
Coming off 70 World Cup pieces here, you'll understand if my appetite for guesswork is low right now.