Has Mesut Özil played his last game for Arsenal? The Rumour Mill wouldn’t presume to know, but talk elsewhere suggests the German international is fed up with being played out of position by his manager Arsène Wenger and wants to move elsewhere in January. Currently sidelined for up to three months with a knee injury, reports suggest the 25-year-old from Gelsenkirchen could be the subject of a £30m bid from Bayern Munich during the next transfer window.
Should Arsenal sell their record signing, various reports suggest they’ll attempt to sign one or all of the Real Madrid defensive midfielder Sami Khedira, Borussia Dortmund’s central defender Mats Hummels and Schalke’s No10 Julian Draxler. Alternatively, they’ll bank the cash and bring in some promising 14-year-old French full-back they don’t really need from Lille or Metz instead. In other news pertaining to Arsenal, the French newspaper L’Equipe reports that the club will face competition from Ajax in their quest to secure the signature and services of Paris Saint-Germain’s defensive midfielder Adrien Rabiot in January.
The Spanish daily Marca claims that Manchester United’s goalkeeper David De Gea is hankering after a move back to his native Madrid, where he began his career with the Spanish champions Atlético, but is now wanted by their bitter city rivals Real. De Gea has failed to convince many more parochial British pundits of his class since arriving in England in 2011, thanks largely to the fact that he’s foreign, isn’t named Joe Hart and looks more like a whey-faced college stoner than a professional athlete. But with Iker Casillas having let in another soft goal in Spain’s defeat against Slovakia before making way for his compatriot for Spain’s 4-0 Euro 2016 qualifier win over Luxembourg on Sunday night, it looks like the 33-year-old may also end up surrendering his place at Real Madrid to De Gea.
Having offloaded Andy Carroll to Liverpool for a preposterously large fee of £35m a little under four years ago, Newcastle could be on the verge of welcoming their lanky, injury prone cash cow home for just £6m in January. Currently a fixture in the treatment room at West Ham, who signed him from Liverpool for £15.5m, Carroll may be open to a return to his native Tyneside and is apparently on Alan Pardew’s fairly short shopping list.
Tottenham Hotspur are keeping an eye on the 24-year-old Toulouse striker Wissam Ben Yedder. Fast and nimble, decent shooting off either foot and fond of a step-over, the forward’s finest hour to date came when he was one of five France players punished for taking a taxi 200km from a training camp to a Paris nightclub just two evenings before an important France Under-21 international against Norway. It seems the striker’s sense of industry and endeavour extends beyond the dance-floor, as he has scored six goals in nine appearances for Toulouse already this season after registering a none-too-shabby 16 in 38 in the last campaign.
Born in Lisbon to a Portuguese mother and English dad, the 20-year-old Belenenses midfielder Fabio Sturgeon has got antennae twitching at Liverpool and Benfica, who are both rumoured to be interested in signing him up.
Sacrificial lamb Juan Mata will be unceremoniously turfed out of the exit door at Old Trafford and put on the first available flight to Turin if Louis van Gaal feels it will increase his chances of getting the unsettled Juventus and Chile midfielder Arturo Vidal to sign up with Manchester United. In slightly less encouraging news for United’s Dutch manager, the Italian newspaper Corriere dello Sport claims Vidal’s “people” are in talks with Real Madrid.
