Rumours are circulating that Zoran Tosic is about to be released on loan to Cologne with a view to making the deal permanent.

Tosic arrived just over twelve months ago and made his debut in the FA Cup fourth round against Tottenham when he came on as a 72nd minute sub for Ronaldo. This was on the 24th January 2009.

A few days later (27th January 2009), he came on a a 77th minute sub in our 5-0 win over West Brom.

That was the last we saw of him.

Sure, he has played lots of football for the reserves and has done well for them but there hasn’t been even a hint of him getting another chance in the first team.

The deal that brought Tosic to us was part of a double deal with his old club Partizan, the other player who was part of the deal was Adem Ljajić.

He was all set to join us this January (after it was agreed that he should stay at Partizan for twelve months) but we pulled out of the deal at the last moment.

United have cited the reason as being work permit problems.

Some rumours have suggested that Ljajić was our main target all along but Partizan would only play ball if we made Tosic part of the deal and took him too. Fergie never actually wanted Tosic and this is why he has more or less ignored him since his arrival.

This sounds like nonsense to me. If a club comes in to buy a player, you agree a fee and sell them that player… you don’t start lumping other players into the equation, it just doesn’t make sense. The selling club loses a decent player, United buy someone they don’t want and so never use him which in turn leads to the player wasting a year of his career. No one really wins.

It all just sounds like a messy and pointless bit of business. There’s clearly more to it all than meets the eye but we’ll probably never know the full ins and outs.

If Tosic is indeed on his way out then I hope his talents are better appreciated by his new club and he goes on to have a long and illustrious career.