Emilio Butragueño, the former Real Madrid striker who is now a senior executive at the club, has dampened the prospect of Cristiano Ronaldo returning to Manchester United this summer.
Sir Alex Ferguson has stated he would like to bring the Portuguese back to United, the club he left in the summer of 2009, and Ronaldo has also spoken of his ongoing affection for the Premier League leaders.
However, Butragueño, who is now a key powerbroker at Real, said: "Ronaldo is 28. He is under contract [until 2015] and we are very happy with him. We are delighted he is at Madrid. He is a fantastic professional and very ambitious in a positive way. His contribution to the team and the club has been amazing since he arrived. We are very grateful he came to us. We are very lucky that he plays for Real Madrid.
"He scores a goal a game on average. This is incredible. I have been watching football since I was three and never saw anything similar. When Ronaldo is on the pitch, you know you are going to score. It is an incredible advantage."
Madrid knocked United out of the Champions League last week and Butragueño added: "We are all focused on the important matters: the Champions League, Copa del Rey. These are our objectives. That is the most important thing for everyone at the club. We will see the draw for the quarter-final [of Champions League]. It is very difficult to win this competition. We will do our best. Every detail is important. We are very excited to be there. We will see what the future is for us."
Two months ago Ronaldo said: "I want to see out my contract at Real Madrid: I'm very clear about that. After that, well, I don't know what'll happen in the future." Despite this the subject of trying to prise him from Madrid is thought to have been raised at executive level at United.

No. No. No. It may be early in the morning but the Mill is a busy Mill and so hasn't got the time for those flatulent, rather portly, adjective-wet, joke-dry introductions full to bursting with obscure references that are plopped in needlessly – I can't go on. I'll go on – with the forlorn hope that one reader, just one, no more, taps their nose twice and goes: "Yup, I know where that bit is being stolen from."
No. No. No. The Mill must get on with what it does worse than any other mill known to man or Martian. It must go straight to the point. No filler, no packing, no padding, no quilting, no wadding. Absolutely not. It won't be stood for. Not on this watch. There is work to be done. And done it must be. No more rambling sentences that are on a road to nowhere, filled with counterproductive clause after counterproductive clause that are of zero use to reader – who just wants the Mill to get the meat of the rumours – and which, ultimately, and frustratingly, bear no relation to the gossip of the day. Oh.
Speaking of the gossip of the day, one red-noser has an exclusive – sorry, there is a typo there, that should be spelled EXCLUSIVE – for y'all, which is about as exclusive as shopping at Iceland. You may or may not have noticed this, dear reader, but Manchester United have been playing without a decent centrally-based midfielder under the age of 83 since around the time that the first mountains in the in the eastern part of the Appalachian area began to form in the Paleozoic Era.
To fix this particular problem, Lord Ferg of Manchester has decided to loosen his purse strings and splash a certain amount of the cash inside on the man who masterminded Manchester's move out of this season's Champions League, Luka Modric. The move works well for the lank-haired Croat as he has been crying into his pillow and making long-distance calls punctuated with tears telling anyone who will listen that he is sick of tapas and fine wine and wants to be back in Britain quicker than Speedy can outsprint Sylvester.
One player who won't be joining Luka on the private plane to Manchester from Madrid, however, is Cristiano Ronaldo. The Mill can't imagine why Ronaldo would not prefer to play along side the likes of Michael Carrick and Anderson rather than Mesut Ozil and Xabi Alonso but according to another redser that seems to be the case. Don't be too upset about it, though, fans of United. Said redser has, conveniently, put a picture beside this story of one they had a few weeks ago, one they called a world exclusive – sorry, there is a typo there, that should be spelled WORLD EXCLUSIVE – detailing how Ronaldo was definitely moving to Manchester, just so y'all know that this one is absolute twaddle too.
Leaving behind Manchester and moving south, Arsène Wenger, sick to the teeth with his defence being devoid of the ability to defend, has got out his Random Entry Idea Generating Tool, switched it on, waited for it to warm up, then typed in the question: who would be the best player we could buy to shore up things at the back? The answer? Liverpool's Pepe Reina – sorry Arsenal fans, that's not a typo. If that move fails, and Arsenal fans get down on your hands and knees and get praying that it does, Wenger will try tempt Víctor Valdés away from Barcelona. Tempting a player away from serial winners and serial sunshine to north London? Should be easy-peasy-lemon-squeezy, eh?
If Reina were to make his merry way to the Emirates, he can take up the place in the dressing room left by Lukas Podolski. The German had a regulated amount of fun tweeting his way around London's landmarks and now wants to do the same elsewhere. The two destinations available to him are the Juventus part of Turin or the Atlético area of Madrid. If the move goes through, the Gunners will receive an oversized cheque for £15m which will then be invested in a job lot of mediocre mercenaries who are not up to Arsenal's standards of yore.
All of which leads us nicely to the final rumour of the day. After a stressful week's holiday's that saw the Mill's jaunt-o-meter dip well below the point of fun, there was good reason to flash the Colgates this morning when word filtered through that the Mill's absolute favourite gob of gossip, Nicklas Bendtner, was back in the headlines. It has not quite worked out for the poor Nicklas in the city twinned with Quetzaltenango, what with the 11 appearances and zero goals. But dry your eyes mate, Hamburg are here to welcome you into their warm bosom. It's a safe move. Yes, it's safe, it's very safe, it's so safe you wouldn't believe it.