Spare a thought for Anthony Martial. Perhaps because nobody bothered to monitor what was going on in Manchester United’s youth ranks the talented young Frenchman was brought in at great expense to be the club’s token precocious forward. Then someone thought it might be a good idea to remind the powers that be about a lad called Marcus Rashford. And now it would seem that nurturing two highly-talented youngsters is certainly one job too many for renowned polisher of raw talent José Mourinho. Which is why he might well wave au revoir to Martial if PSG come knocking with a fistful of euros and the offer of regular first-team football for the 20-year-old in January. If Martial scores four more goals he will cost United many more millions due to add-ons in his contract being monitored closely by his former club Monaco too.
If United do sell would they just bank the money and take it easy in the coming transfer window? Pfft. Of course not. It says here they’ll continue to be ridiculous by waving £180m in the direction of Barcelona in the hope of airlifting Neymar away from his trouble with prosecutors in Spain, who have recommended he spend two years in the big house for alleged wrongdoing related to his transfer to Barça from Santos.
Having watched his side concede their first goal in 987 years, Antonio Conte wants to fortify his blue wall. To do so he’ll get Chelsea owner Roman Abramovich to write a cheque for £24m and pop it in the post c/o Napoli president Aurelio De Laurentiis. In return he’ll get the 25-year-old rock-solid Algeria left-back Faouzi Ghoulam. He may also return next summer to steal away centre-back Kalidou Koulibaly for £50m. Conte quite likes the cut of the Atalanta midfielder Franck Kessie’s jib too. The 19-year-old Ivory Coast international has scored five goals and can run all day, which means he might even be able to keep up with his potential midfield partner N’Golo Kanté. He’d cost £15m, which is equivalent to 50p last season.
Arsenal are planning a serious move for a Real Madrid forward. But cool your guns Gunners, it’s not Karim Benzema; it’s not Álvaro Morata; it’s not even James Rodríguez, if you can call him a forward or even a footballer for that matter these days. No, it’s Marcos Llorente. Heard of him? Thought so. Well, he’s on loan at Alavés where he’s scored exactly no goals this season. But he does run around a lot and has smart hair.
And finally, both Jürgen Klopp and Slaven Bilic have been alerted to Polish forward Lukasz Teodorczyk’s impressive Soccerbase page. The 25-year-old has scored 17 times in 22 games this season at Anderlecht, where he is on loan from Dynamo Kyiv. West Ham may hold the advantage over Liverpool in attracting Teodorczyk though, because they would probably play him due to the fact that they actually need a striker who isn’t injured or rubbish. He’d cost £12m, whatever his preferred destination.
