Manchester United have returned to Crystal Palace with a second offer for Aaron Wan-Bissaka, this time a downpayment of £35m with another £15m to come, but the Eagles are still not interested – the Mail and the Times both say that an offer of £45m now with a bit more to follow – either £5m (Mail) or £10m (Times) – would be accepted. United might turn their attention to a cheaper option in the shape of Paris Saint-Germain’s Thomas Meunier, available for a mere £25m, but missing out on Wan-Bissaka would, according to the Mirror, “deal a huge blow to Ole Gunnar Solskjær’s transfer plans”.
In further defensive reinforcement news, United hope that Leicester will be more inclined to sell them Harry Maguire if they are given Andreas Pereira, once a target for Brendan Rodgers at Celtic, on loan in return. And in further Leicester defensive news, the Foxes are ready to pay £12m for the Luton full-back James Justin, for whom Aston Villa have already had a £7.5m bid rejected, even though he is only expected to be a back-up for their first-choice right-back, Ricardo Pereira (that’s right, Leicester could have a pair o’ Pereiras next season).
Now, back to Manchester United – a phrase Paul Pogba very much hopes he won’t be saying when pre-season training gets under way in a couple of weeks. The wantaway Frenchman continues to hope that Real Madrid will make a decent bid – several papers report that they have offered £90m, which is barely enough to buy you a Wan-Bissaka these days – but in the meantime the Spaniards keep spending: with £275m already lavished on players including Eden Hazard, Luka Jovic and Ferland Mendy, Tuesday’s A Bola says they are in the process of wrapping up a €20m deal to sell Raúl de Tomás to Benfica. Besides, according to the Mail, United have resolved to retain Pogba and will sanction a bumper pay rise from his current meagre £290,000 a week to a more generous £500,000, matching the amount being pocketed by Alexis Sánchez. “United chief Ed Woodward is adamant a player who is as central to the club’s commercial interests as he is on the pitch will not be sold,” it writes.
Arsenal want a new defender, and are deciding between RB Leipzig’s Dayot Upamecano and Saint-Étienne’s William Saliba. The latter is their first choice, but the 18-year-old’s club are demanding both a £26.7m fee and a one-year loan-back arrangement, neither of which are filling the Gunners with glee. Unai Emery has a transfer budget of only £45m, and such a move would leave him without much left to spend, but on the other hand there is talk of interest from Manchester City, and seeing him elsewhere in the Premier League would be galling.
City, meanwhile, are in pursuit of greater depth at left-back and might end up re-buying Angelino from PSV Eindhoven, says the Sun. A buy-back clause was inserted into the deal that took him to Holland for £5m last summer, and with the player now rated at £23m and attracting interest from PSG and Arsenal they could bring him back for less than half his market value.
The Mirror predicts that Frank Lampard’s No 1 top priority at Chelsea if and when he gets the job will be to persuade Willian to snub a potential move to Barcelona and instead commit himself to a new two-year deal at Stamford Bridge, which would tie him to the club until he is 33. Atlético Madrid have also been interested, but Chelsea have turned down offers of £35m and with Atléti in the process of completing a massive €120m deal for João Felix their wallet may now be empty (though Benfica released a curious statement yesterday insisting “it is false that any negotiation process is currently under way”).
Sheffield United have a £20m transfer budget and Chris Wilder’s toppermost priority is the Brentford striker Neal Maupay. The only problem with that is that the Bees value him at £20m, and the Blades don’t want to blow all their spending money at once. Thus Maupay might be sold to Sevilla instead while West Brom’s Jay Rodriguez and Swansea’s Oli McBurnie end up at Bramall Lane. Meanwhile Stoke are finalising deals for Wigan’s Nick Powell and Millwall’s Lee Gregory, and have identified Barnsley’s Adam Davies as the perfect replacement for Jack Butland should anyone prise the England stopper from their grasp.
