A trip to the newsagents might not be the most useful way for fans to spend a few minutes this morning as there is precious little new in the papers where City is concerned.

Not surprisingly, all of the titles have a version of a James Milner story with the Times capturing the tone in their piece jointly penned by Peter Lansley and Neil Johnston.

‘James Milner finally looks set to move to Manchester City after Aston Villa accepted a £27.5m package in which Stephen Ireland would move in the opposite direction,’ one or other of the authors wrote.

‘The England midfielder was pulled out of Villa’s friendly with Valencia last night as the Barclays Premier League clubs grew ever closer to a compromise deal.’

The value of the deal is the only thing the publications dispute with the Mail and Express reckoning the package is worth £26million and the Telegraph totting it up to £24million.

The Guardian meanwhile joins the Times with a guess of £27.5million while the Independent is with the Telegraph and quotes £24miliion.

In other possible deals, the Guardian links Wayne Bridge and Shaun Wright-Phillips with a switch to Liverpool and Nedum Onuoha is again mentioned in the same sentence as Sunderland by the Guardian.

Away from transfer news the Telegraph, Express and Star tip Adam Johnson for a place in next week’s England squad – probably not the most difficult bit of crystal ball gazing given how close he was to going to the World Cup this summer.