The Sunday Times:
Ballack will explore the market first. He will be 30 next September, which makes him only a little younger than Patrick Vieira, Juventus’s Brazilian, Emerson, and Chelsea’s Claude Makelele among the most respected of the game’s midfield governors. Of the next generation, Xabi Alonso, Michael Essien, Steven Gerrard and Frank Lampard would all make a nominal top 10 and Chelsea and Liverpool would expect to keep them.
Perhaps United will have to buy a pair of Next Roy Keanes. Some of the best reputations in central midfield tend to be forged in couples: think Vieira and Petit, Keane and Scholes. Porto owed their European Cup triumph of 2004 significantly to Costinha, the sentry, and Maniche, for his drive. Those two are off the radar now, having moved in tandem to Moscow, where they get paid nicely but are unlikely to advance their names much. Valencia’s sequence of three major prizes in three years under Rafa Benitez had at its heart the pairing of David Albelda and Ruben Baraja. Eighteen months ago, to mention Baraja’s name next to Ballack’s would have insulted neither. It wouldn’t be said now. Here’s another couple, either of whom United could use: Milan’s Gennaro Gattuso and Andrea Pirlo have complemented each other for the past three seasons, Gattuso the warrior with the gargoyle face, Pirlo the eye-of-the-needle passer with a previously unsuspected toughness in the tackle. Prising either from Italian football might be hard, although Milan need success this season to prevent what could be a radical break-up of their team. Pirlo was reinvented as a deep-lying midfielder; he had been an aspiring No 10, an artist playing behind the strikers. United have looked at transforming Alan Smith from a striker to holding midfielder.
Sometimes alchemy is the answer, often it’s not. Real Madrid have been trying to recast footballers into a holding berth since they sold Makelele in 2003, and it’s possible they’ll be casting off another good midfield player by the end of the season. Thomas Gravesen, the Dane who played a more attacking role for Everton, had a good stab at protecting Madrid’s flakey defence in his first six months, although he is now competing for the role with Pablo Garcia, recently arrived, more conditioned to protecting a back four and currently preferred to Gravesen.
The Dane is a player with a swagger and authority about him and will not be content being a Real substitute for long. So his name, inevitably, has been linked to United.
A clutch of younger players are also making their cases as the fulcrums of clubs outside the Champions League.
Daniele De Rossi of Roma is 22 and much admired, not least by the Italy head coach, Sir Alex Ferguson’s old friend Marcello Lippi. Javier Mascherano, of Argentina and Corinthians, emerged last year as many coaches’ idea of what a mobile, aggressive, athletic central midfield player ought to be.
A strong suggestion has United interested in a West African playing in France. Didier Zokora of Saint-Etienne is 24, goes by the nickname "Maestro" and is persuaded that United have been specifically monitoring his performances in the French championship. He is an Ivory Coast international, was playing in the Champions League when was 21, with Genk, and has an EU passport.