Oleg Tinkov made an April fool joke about merging with Cannondale to sign Peter Sagan but in his Cyclingnews blog he reveals that the Slovakian is actually close to the top of his wish list. In fact, the Russian owner of the Tinkoff-Saxo team thinks he has a great chance of getting the classics star on board for the coming season.

Much of the press - especially the Danish media - fell for Oleg Tinkov's April's fool where he played with the thought of merging with Cannondale to get Peter Sagan on board. Even though it was all a joke, the Russian owner of Tinkoff-Saxo reveals that his plans to sign the Slovakian are real.

Sagan's contract with Cannondale expires at the end of the season and the talented Slovakian's future destination is the hot topic on the transfer market. He has been linked with both Fernando Alonso's new team and Tinkoff-Saxo while Cannondale are also keen to keep their biggest star.

Nonetheless, Tinkov thinks he has a great chance in the battle for one of the sport's biggest stars.

"Who wouldn't like to have Peter Sagan in their team? For sure I want him for Tinkoff-Saxo;" he writes. "Of course we face some tough rivals such as Alonso, the Kazakh government (Astana), some other rich European teams but we will continue to fight to sign him for 2015.

"But I think we've got a great chance. Cycling is not the GP Monaco, and so Alonso doesn't have an advantage on us. I'd never be able to beat him in a Formula 1 race but maybe I can beat him in the race to sign Sagan."

Tinkov was also pleased to see Alberto Contador return to his best after a disappointing 2013 season that saw the pair fall out with each other after Tinkov had publicly criticized his biggest star.

"Although some of the cycling fans wrote him off last year, I knew it wasn’t the case and that's why I criticized him and tried to motivate him; I knew he could deliver so much more. Now he has shown it," he writes. "He did a superb ride at Tirreno-Adriatico. I think it was one of his best performance in many years. He showed his strength and ability and rode a clever race that blew everyone else away.

"Then he was also good at the Volta a Catalunya. He lost to Rodriguez by a few seconds in Barcelona because the parcour was much better suit to Purito but he beat Chris Froome and that has not happened for quite a few months. At Pais Vasco he defeated Alejandro Valverde with an intelligent performance in the hills and then with a fantastic time trial.

"It's nice to see my team near the top of the UCI WorldTour team rankings and Alberto on the top of the individual ranking. It's where we deserve to be. Our goal is clear: to be number one in both rankings at the end of the season. Our early success will also give us the necessary moral boost going into the Ardennes Classics and the Grand Tour season, which we approaching very fast."