The Mill loves the smell of gossip in the morning. How better to start a new day than with that fresh, invigorating, hopeful, malodorous, fetid, putrid, fecal scent wafting up our freshly tweezered snout. It’s true that 95% of football tittle-tattle makes us retch, but it’s worth the pain and suffering for the 5% of rumours that turn out to be true.
There is something persuasive and thrilling, for example, in the suggestion that Liverpool want to sign Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain from Arsenal, thus prompting all kinds of banter-based hilarity about Arsenal being a feeder club. Chelsea and Manchester City have also set up an RSS feed for Oxlade-Chamberlain.
Antonio Conte and Pep Guardiola are keen on Dani Alves. Chelsea have reportedly offered £6.1m a year to Alves but, while Spurs are also in the market for a maverick 34-year-old Brazilian right wing-back, Alves’s platonic love for Guardiola is likely to guide him to Manchester.
On the subject of Manchester, Daniel Levy has apparently said he will “refuse to pick up the phone” to anyone who wants to sign Harry Kane. Levy did not specify what he’ll do if it’s a withheld number.
Mauricio Pochettino wants to bolster Spurs’ squad with Sporting Lisbon’s Adrien Silva and Barcelona’s YouTube-friendly teenage midfielder Carles Aleñá. A buy-out clause means Alena would cost £2.6m, ensuring a mark-up of around £97.4m when he is sold to one of the Manchester clubs in a few years’ time.
Barcelona are keen on PSG midfielder Marco Verratti. If that doesn’t happen, they’ll get the 54th-next-best thing: Spurs alumnus Paulinho from Guangzhou Evergrande. But their indecision over Riyad Mahrez may be final; he’s had enough of waiting and is preparing to throw himself into the welcoming bosom of Arsène Wenger.
Chelsea have a busy summer ahead as they prepare to play more than one game a week. Softly spoken hardass Antonio Conte wants to persuade Sevilla winger Vitolo, Juventus left-back Alex Sandro and Monaco’s Tiemoué Bakayoko to run through brick walls for him next season.
Manchester United will sign Álvaro Morata and James Rodríguez from Real Madrid – Morata’s wife is following the club on Instagram!!!!! – while West Ham are desperate to party with scorpion-kicking hunk Olivier Giroud. Slaven Bilic is also feeling tingly at the thought of signing Colombian striker Luis Muriel from Sampdoria.
Finally, Mark Hughes wants a bit of Colombian too: Stoke are keen to sign Inter defender Jeison Murillo. How’s that for going out in style?
