That's right, but they backed away at the first suggestion of negotiation from Villareal. I think this was all an act to help their cause with Sanchez. Rossi would struggle to make the bench at Barcelona.
Apart from that Rossi has been bitching about "coming home" to Italy for about 3 seasons now, so I reckon if our interest was concrete then his representatives would be pushing this deal hard and making a lot of noise in the media.
It's still going to be us vs Man City by the looks of things, hopefully Tevez has another 'change of heart' (£50,000 pay rise) once he is back in sunny Manchester.