Having long ago eclipsed the League and FA Cups as England’s second biggest domestic football competition, the transfer window finally draws to a close on Monday night with many of the big-spending usual suspects still in contention early on deadline day.
English league clubs have already spent £78,450,000 in this window, a figure that is likely to resemble chump change once the army of breathless and excitable Sky Sports News reporters deployed to stand in the perishing cold at stadia and training grounds have packed up and gone home to thaw out.
If various morning papers are to be believed, Manchester United are white-hot favourites to add this January’s transfer window to the one they won last summer, with Wesley Sneijder rumoured to be just one of several decidedly expensive players en route to Old Trafford.
The Dutch midfielder had been rumoured to be leaving Galatasaray for the Serie A leaders Juventus, but with the Old Lady of Italy having cooled her interest in the 30-year-old and decided she prefers Borussia Dortmund’s Armenian No10 Henrikh Mkhitaryan instead, Louis van Gaal hopes to secure the services of Sneijder, who has made little secret of his desire to leave Turkey. Although Galatasaray want him to stay, United will get their man if they trigger the €20m release clause that prompted Juve to take their business elsewhere.
The stand-out player in Wolfsburg’s thrilling Bundesliga win over Bayern Munich on Friday night, the whey-faced forward Kevin De Bruyne, is also being linked with a move to United in the coming hours, while that low drone you can hear is incessant babble concerning the imminent departure of Mats Hummels from Borussia Dortmund for Old Trafford. A whopping £67m is the fee being mentioned in conjunction with what can only be described as a classic “double swoop”.
With so many players en route to Manchester United, club officials will need to free up some parking spots at their training ground and Anderson is already thought to be in Brazil, where he’ll ink a deal worth £25,000 per week (net) plus a hefty annual bonus to play for Internacional in Porto Alegre.
And having failed to impress his new manager in the same way he impressed David Moyes, Adnan Januzaj may find himself farmed out on loan to Everton for the rest of the season. Of course, should the Toffees accept the £5m and Aaron Lennon-shaped winger reported to be on offer from Tottenham Hotspur for Kevin Mirallas, young master Januzaj will almost certainly find himself kicking his heels on the United bench for another four months at least.
West Ham central defender Winston Reid is another player being linked with a move to Spurs, but the £6.5m-rated Kiwi may not leave until his contract expires in the summer. The Mirror reports that Reid has already agreed a £60,000-per-week end-of-season move to Tottenham, but Liverpool are also rumoured to be interested in the 26-year-old, who could be replaced by Lokomotiv Moscow’s Croatian defender Vedran Corluka at West Ham if he does head elsewhere today.
A move to Hull City has been mooted for Corluka, who is also the subject of speculation linking him with Leicester City. With Hull in all sorts of relegation bother following their home capitulation to Newcastle on Saturday, Steve Bruce is expected to embark on quite the recruitment drive today, with Liverpool striker Rickie Lambert believed to be among his targets.
West Brom are ready to cut their losses on record £10m summer signing Brown Ideye by selling him to the Qatari club Al-Gharafa for £5m, in order to fund the purchase of a replacement striker who might actually go so far as score more than one goal for them. West Ham’s Carlton Cole and the aforementioned Lambert are believed to feature prominently on the shopping list of Tony Pulis. According to the Shields Gazette, West Brom are also keen on signing Newcastle left-back Davide Santon, but will face competition for the Italian’s services from both Inter and West Ham.
Ronald Koeman has an undeniably keen eye for young Eredivisie player who’ll be able to hack it in the Premier League and Tonny Vilhena may be the latest of his former Feyenoord changes to pitch up at Southampton. The departure of Jack Cork to Swansea City has freed up £3m for potential transfers, but the Rotterdam club want £5m for a player once likened to Edgar Davids by Dutch football coach Aad de Mos. Southampton are also reported to be hopeful of bringing the midfielder Filip Djuricic to St Mary’s on loan from Benfica.
Chelsea hope to announce the £26.8m signing of Juan Cuadrado this morning, in a deal that will not be rubber-stamped unless André Schürrle moves to Wolfsburg. Despite rumours that the clubs had agreed a £22.5m fee, Wolfsburg general manager Klaus Allofs told reporters that this was not the case. “There is no agreement at the moment,” he said. “The clock is running out. Our options are getting less hour by hour. It depends on money. We still would like to sign him.”
The Tottenham purgatory of Emmanuel Adebayor could come to an end today, with the Stoke City manager Mark Hughes believed to be interested in offering the 30-year-old a career lifeline. Of course, no deadline day Rumour Mill would be complete without a mention of Harry Redknapp, so it’s unsurprising to learn the Queen’s Park Rangers manager is interested in bringing the Togolese to Loftus Road. In the event of his mooted move to Everton falling through, Adebayor’s team-mate Aaron Lennon might find himself signing for Harry, while Bakary Sako has also been lined up in the QPR gaffer’s cross-hairs. A popular fellow around the Midlands, the Wolverhampton Wanderers winger is wanted by Aston Villa and West Brom. Gentlemen, start your fax machines ...
