Football transfer rumours: Manchester United to hit the button on Mario Gómez?
As anyone who's hastily consulted the esteemed chinesefortunecalendar.com website can tell you, that means that Van Gaal is all set for a particularly happy year because "when Rabbit meets Monkey, Rabbit will become a favourite and popular figure".
Chinese zodiac sages do counsel Van Gaal against further jousting with the media - "You shouldn't have disputes with others during this period" - and suggest "pay attention on your arms, legs, liver and nervous system", but aside from those caveats 2016 will be a year of triumph for the Dutchman: "You're the favourite person in your group. You will win good reputation from everybody ... Your people relationship is pretty good. Everything will come in your way. The result will be very satisfactory to you."
So the only question now is: does Mario Gómez want a piece of that action? The rumours are that Van Gaal wants the Besiktas striker who was born in the Year of the Ox (or Cow) to fix United's scoring problems and, indeed, the aforementioned site warns that "When Cow meets Monkey, it's time for Cow to stand up on the performance stage". So will Gómez accept the challenge?
OK, since this is not the Year of the Dead Horse, we'll stop flogging this riff now. But we'll carry on with the Manchester United chat for a bit, as Van Gaal is also said to be scouting Fulham's 19-year-old striker Moussa Dembélé. But the French forward has other admirers, too, including Tottenham Hotspur, whose fans may have to ditch that "There's only one Mousa Dembélé" chant.
Liverpool are also looking at Dembélé (the young French striker rather than mercurial Belgian midfielder). In addition, Jürgen Klopp is eager to bolster his team's defence so he's checking out Martín Cáceres, the Uruguayan centre-back who is out of favour at Juventus. Inter and Fenerbahce are also on the case. Meanwhile on the goalkeeper front, there are suggestions that the talk about Simon Mignolet being offered a new contract was just a gag aimed at alarming Liverpool fans, with the club now being linked to several others No1s, including Marseille's Steve Mandanda and even the Mexico international Guillermo Ochoa, who was outstanding at the last World Cup but has been mainly sitting out at Málaga since moving to Spain. If Liverpool go for Mandanda, Marseille will move for Ochoa, the Guardian reports.
Norwich are also eyeing up Mandanda and the ambitious Canaries are also plotting a £7.5m bid for Inter central defender Andrea Ranocchia. Rémi Garde has been attempting to persuade Paris Saint-Germain's back-up goalkeeper Salvatore Sirigu, to move to Aston Villa. Unfortunately for Garde, Sirigu has seen Villa play. PSG, meanwhile, are out scouring the world for the next superstar and believe they have found him in the form, and indeed the person, of Giovani Lo Celso, a 19-year-old currently with Argentinian club Rosario. Chelsea are also eager to sign the teenager: but Juventus are said to be closest to agreeing a deal.
Rémy Cabella will soon make his loan move from Newcastle to Marseille permanent. Roma want to offer Mathieu Debuchy a regular run-out, and Arsenal aren't expected to raise many objections. Finally, spoilsports Manchester City are determined to ruin the Leicester City fairytale - or perhaps make it even better - by splashing out around £40m to bring Isco from Real Madrid.