PLUS CA CHANGE

Foreign newspapers have always been a rich source for the sort of speculative sports story in which we specialise over here.
Armed with Babel Fish and a few keywords (Chelsea, Arsenal, Manchester United, Capello or England for starters), UK-based hacks regularly raid the online pages of La Gazzetta dello Sport, L'Equipe or El Pais for titbits.
This week, with the January transfer window imminent, they hit pay dirt when Nicolas Anelka gave a long interview to L'Equipe during which he mentioned the attractions of a move to Chelsea.
The interview was intended for the newspaper's Saturday magazine but L'Equipe, in their guileless way, flagged it up in advance. The British press pounced and in their inimitable fashion gave the story its "legs". Talks between the Bolton and Chelsea chairmen were invented and a price - around £10m - agreed by hack consensus. The justification for the move - Didier Drogba's injury - was also carefully logged.
It goes without saying that most of the UK redtops - and even The Times - claimed the "Anelka Bound for Chelsea" story as an exclusive. The Telegraph excepted, not one of them acknowledged L'Equipe as the source.
It was not, to be honest, a great story. In the case of Anelka, we have all been here before and despite his reputation as an eight-club man, not one newspaper wondered if the player may just have had an agenda of his own.
Deliberately or otherwise, the UK sports press also missed a couple of other salient points in L'Equipe's article that should have rung a few alarm bells.
One was that Anelka's agent, Doug Pingisi, was quoted in the piece. Something on the lines that "Nicolas is ready for a club to match his lofty talents" - familiar agentese for "ten per cent of £10m, make my day". Anelka's combined transfer fees, thanks to Pingisi, currently total £66m.
Anelka also told L'Equipe that he would consider moving back to Sven-led Manchester City and that "it wouldn't hurt me to stay with Bolton", statements that were also ignored for the simple reason that they weakened the Chelsea angle.
Anelka, incidentally, signed a four-year contract with Bolton earlier this season, played for Bolton last night and earned praise from his manager Gary Megson for "chasing a ball that he lost himself with five minutes to go".
In every sense then, the boy done good.