Having ‘won’ last summer’s transfer window by signing Paul Pogba for the price of a small nation, Manchester United are already making plans to retain that important close-season title. It says here that an almighty battle with who else but Real Madrid will ensue as the season nears its end for the tricky playmaking delights of Bernardo Silva, the 22-year-old Monaco and Portugal string-puller who will cost £70m, which seems to be the rough price being put on ensuring that a club that was once better known for fighting for actual footballing titles and such, are regarded as the undisputed European champions of splashing cash for a third season in a row. If United do sign Silva, Ed Woodward can put a little replica of him in his own personal trophy cabinet alongside Pogba and Angel Di María because, as the hipsters have known for quite some time, real trophies are so passé these days, aren’t they?
West Ham have told Marseille not to bother coming back with an umpteenth bid for Dimitri Payet until they’ve cobbled together £25m for a player they were only too happy to sell to the Hammers for £10m in June 2015.
If Marseille wanted to save themselves from the shame and anguish of being held to ransom, they could just join the chase for The Glaswegian Payet instead. Robert Snodgrass is a playmaker with a terrific free-kick and a few useful tricks and would cost them less than half the price of the Frenchman. Burnley will test Hull’s resolve with a bid of £7.5m for him. Meanwhile, Hull manager Marco Silva will try to lever the Olympiakos and Norway right-back Omar Elabdellaoui away from the club for around £5m. And it’s all happening at Hull. Tony Pulis likes the cut of Jake Livermore’s jib. So much so that the West Brom manager is considering raising his £10m bid for the Hull midfielder to £15m.
And do you remember Saido Berahino? Mark Hughes does. And it turns out he’s considering rescuing the striker from his Hawthorns hell by waving £12m around in front of Jeremy Peace until West Brom finally let him leave. Stoke see Berahino as the perfect replacement for Bojan Krcic, providing he can still remember how to play football.
Sam Allardyce has identified what it is that his Crystal Palace team needs to stay up. An adaptable left-back, that’s what. And Ben Davies of Tottenham Hotspur is the one that he wants most. Jan Vertonghen’s injury has just sent Davies’ worth through the roof, mind, with Spurs likely to want £20m for the defender who cost them £10m when they bought him from Swansea three years ago.
Sam Allardyce has identified what it is that his Crystal Palace team doesn’t need to stay up. Andros Townsend. He might end up back at Newcastle just six months after leaving them for £13m. Well, he might do if he actually gets his head up and looks where he is going for once.
Having stockpiled about a thousand strikers in the past year – Patrick Bamford being the latest – Middlesbrough could do with offloading one or two of them. Aston Villa would dearly like to help out by relieving them of the Championship Gerd Müller, Jordan Rhodes, but their initial offer of £6m has been roundly laughed out of town.
And Everton and Swansea have been linked with “assist-machine” Yoric Ravet. The Young Boys winger has only 18 months left on his contract and both Ronald Koeman and Paul Clement wouldn’t mind somebody with a bit of old-school crossing prowess in their ranks. Meanwhile, Swansea may let unfulfilled potential’s Wayne Routledge leave for Birmingham City for £3m. Routledge is 32 years old. How did that happen?
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