The Mill is too depressed for the banter, so let’s proceed straight to the news that Juventus want Alexis Sánchez to replace Álvaro Morata, who is leaving for Real Madrid, or Chelsea, or Arsenal, or somewhere.
For years, Arsène Wenger has been accused of buying too many playmakers. Now he’s discovered the joy of playbreakers: in addition to Francis Coquelin, Granit Xhaka and Mohamed Elneny, he wants to sign Duracell bunny N’Golo Kanté from Leicester.
Manchester United, meanwhile, want to sign absolutely everyone. Today they are in for Paul Pogba and Henrikh Mkhitaryan. The latter now looks more likely amid reports that Borussia Dortmund will accept a fee of €40m which works out at around four billion quid.
Across Manchester, Pep Guardiola will take time off from sculpting his stubble in the contemporary style to sign John Stones and the Dinamo Zagreb midfielder Ante Coric. Meanwhile, Jürgen Klopp still wants a piece of Southampton’s Sadio Mané; all of him ideally. He also wants the Hull left-back Andy Robertson after reluctantly coming to the conclusion that Alberto Moreno is almost entirely useless.
And then there’s Leicester, the champions: they still want Troy Deeney and Michael Keane, despite having had bids for both rejected.
Slaven Bilic has taken time off from being the star of Euro 2016 to place bids for the Marseille striker Michy Batshuayi – who is also wanted by Spurs and Juventus – and the Besiktas winger Gokhan Tore.
Sunderland want Yann M’Vila on a permanent deal and Stoke will pay around £20m for the Napoli forward Manolo Gabbiadini.
That’s it. Well done everyone!
