Mats Hummels is Arsenal's top transfer target but could cost £32m, West Brom will demand £30m for Saido Berahino and Newcastle don't want Andy Carroll back 

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Arsene Wenger’s promise to bolster Arsenal's squad in January, made at the club’s AGM last week, will be put to the test over Mats Hummels and whether the Gunners can prove a bigger lure than Manchester United.

Hummels has been identified as the No 1 target during the next transfer window but the 25 year old is also wanted at Old Trafford.

Wenger, who doesn’t really like buying in January, would rather not be involved in a bidding war.

VIDEO Scroll down to watch Mats Hummels and his Dortmund team-mates training

Mats Hummels was unable to prevent John O'Shea earning a point for Ireland against Germany last week

Hummels is a target for Arsenal and Manchester United but could cost as much as £32million

In previous years he would never have considered paying £32million for a defender but that is the fee Borussia Dortmund are said to want for the German international.

That said, Arsenal thought they had won the race for Hummels before the August window closed.

But just when a deal seemed to be going through, Dortmund made Hummels their captain and the player opted to stay. It is also believed that offers for Hummels had not exceeded £25m.

Arsenal have sufficient funds to meet Dortmund’s asking price and challenge United for the World Cup-winner, although a tug-of-war could come down to personal terms.

Hummels, however, could also be drawn to Arsenal given the prospect of teaming up with his former international team-mate Per Mertesacker.

Real Madrid’s Sami Khedira also remains on Arsenal’s wanted list to toughen up their midfield but again the German is also on United’s radar.

Real Madrid midfielder Sami Khedira is also wanted by both Arsenal and Manchester United 

Tottenham will have to pay close to £30m if they are to prise striker Saido Berahino from West Brom in January.

Berahino emphasised his growing reputation with fine displays for England Under 21s as they beat Croatia over two legs to reach the Euro 2015 finals.

Spurs, who need to bolster their strike force, have turned their attentions from Swansea’s Wilfried Bony to Berahino, who has already struck five Premier League goals this season.

It has been reported that Spurs are willing to offer £15m for the player who was born in Burundi.

But given the 21-year-old's age and potential, Albion would only be tempted to sell by a package fee of double that.

Ideally the Baggies will want to keep hold of the player until the end of this season at least.

But if Spurs do make a mega offer in January, Albion would find it hard to resist.

Saido Berahino (right) is wanted by Tottenham but West Brom do not want to sell for less than £30m

Newcastle are unlikely to be tempted to sign Andy Carroll in January.

It has been reported that Newcastle are lining up a bid of less than £10m to take back the striker they sold to Liverpool three years ago for £35m.

As previously reported in this column, West Ham will be ready to offload Carroll in January.

But the problem the Hammers will have is Carroll’s injury record - he is still on the sidelines - and the size of his wages.

Carroll is currently West Ham’s top earner on £85,000 a week. I am told there is no way Newcastle can get anywhere near that figure.

Indeed it’s hard to see which Premier League club would pay anything like those wages for such an injury-prone player.

Newcastle are unlikely to be able to afford to bring back Andy Carroll from West Ham

Carroll has struggled for fitness this season and remains on the sidelines at Upton Park

West Ham want to sit down and thrash out a new deal with centre half Winston Reid and talks could even start next week.

But the club fear Reid will reject any new deal and so be free to line up a move at the end of the season when he becomes a free agent.

If that is the case the Hammers could try to offload Reid in January and pick up a fee of up to £5m.

He has been strongly linked with a move to Liverpool while Arsenal and Manchester United would also be interested.

Stoke’s Ryan Shawcross and Aston Villa’s Ron Vlaar are two centre backs under consideration by United boss Louis van Gaal if they lose out to Arsenal in pursuit of Hummels

I am hearing

The success of the England U21s side challenges the argument trotted out by many that there isn't top talent coming through. There is. But it is worrying when one hears about 'scientists' and statisticians at clubs having an ever bigger presence and influence amongst back room staff in terms of honing young talent.

I was told that a coach at the academy of a top Premier League club was recently berated by one of the fitness gurus for telling some 15-year-olds to spend ten minutes during their warm up kicking the ball 'left foot –right foot' against the wall of the indoor hall. The fitness guy even told the kids to stop, arguing this old-school training technique recently championed by Glenn Hoddle was bad for the boys because it was over loading their muscles!

I am also hearing

The next wonder kid of English football tipped to follow the rapid rise of Liverpool’s Raheem Sterling and Everton’s Ross Barkley is Tottenham’s Marcus Edwards, who although still just 15, is already representing England U17s.

Tottenham's Marcus Edwards has been tipped as the next big thing and has already represented England

I-Say

Mon: Roy Hodgson played it right by leaving out a 'tired' Raheem Sterling in Estonia. The player then came on and helped England win 1-0 on Sunday. But Hodgson then talked himself into an unnecessary row with Liverpool boss Brendan Rodgers over training regimes and rest times. More and more Hodgson is going down the foot and mouth root that ended up seeing Graham Taylor eat his words and himself.

Tue: England U21s put on a great display to win 2-1 in Croatia, prevailing 4-2 on aggregate in the play-off, thus making the Euro 2015 finals. Let’s hope next summer the squad is bolstered by Jack Wilshere, Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain, John Stones, Ross Barkley and Sterling .That way England could win this tournament for the first time since 1984. What a boost that would be for confidence and hopes of success at the 2016 European Championships.

England's Under 21 side celebrate on their way to reaching the Euro 2015 finals

Wed: So after all that time recovering from an injury sustained with England, Daniel Sturridge returns to full-time training with Liverpool and gets injured again in the warm-up. There is more 'science' surrounding training methods at football clubs these days but it would seem there are more and more non-impact injuries. Certainly I hear there are increasing disputes between the medical men and football men over training regimes, as mentioned above.

Thurs: Arsenal fans were understandably unhappy at the club’s AGM when once again they voiced frustration about failing to invest heavily in the two players who could turn the team into title winners rather than just contenders. Arsene Wenger insisted he would splash the cash in January. For many Gunners fans those words echo of deja vu. Let’s see if Wenger backs up his bold words and lands Hummels for starters.

Fri: When Harry Redknapp was asked at a press conference if he felt under pressure about his position as QPR boss ahead of Sunday’s match against Liverpool, he responded: 'Pressure? What is pressure? I could give you a million examples of what pressure is and it is not worrying too much about football.' Quite right Harry.

BTW

The scenes from Belgrade last Tuesday when Serbian and Albanian players went on the rampage were so bad the match had to be abandoned by English referee, the admirably cool Martin Atkinson. 

UEFA must surely consider punishing both nations by booting them out of qualifying.

But there is a bigger issue to consider - one which the football authorities will need help from security forces across Europe to tackle. 

Home fans are pictured during Tuesday night's ill-fated game between Serbia and Albania

The ugly scenes, which included Serb fans fighting on the pitch (officially Albanian fans had been barred from the fixture) were sparked when a remote control drone presumably operated by an Albanian agitator had hovered over the pitch and provocatively dropped down an Albania flag.

If that can be done by someone from either inside or near the ground they are supposed to be banned from, then what could a terrorist achieve with such a device that has a 'pay load' far more dangerous than a flag?

It’s a chilling thought in these uneasy times. 

Libero

For a few years many pundits and scribes sat back smugly and told us that Barcelona had re-invented the wheel and most other teams were living in the dark ages especially, of course, in England.

They marvelled at a 'new invention' called tika-taka and insisted it was the future of football.

Barcelona had become the best club side on the planet and for a period they were by some distance one of the best teams of all time.

The simple perception was that they were so good because they had taken the game on to another level based entirely on passing the opposition to death with a constant wave of short pass, move, pass.

Of course the passing game is a wonderful way to play and to watch, providing there is penetration. 

More often than not, that came from the individual brilliance of Lionel Messi, whether with stunning dribbling, a decisive pass or flick, or rapier shooting.

Lionel Messi has been at the heart of Barcelona's emergence as the greatest side in the world 

The Barca team was also underpinned with the sort of high line, play it out from the back, defending that actually Liverpool specialised in the 70s and 80s.

Barcelona were undoubtedly brilliant, not least midfielders Andres Iniesta and Xavi who set the tempo but it was, and still is, the magic of Messi that sets the team apart even if they are not the force they were. Not an intellectual concept of pure tiki-taka as many 'football hipsters' would have it.

Who says so? None other than the manager who presided over it all, Pep Guardiola, who goes even further by rejecting the hype about tika-taka.

This is what Guardiola, now boss at Bayern Munich, had to say on the subject recently: 'I loathe all that passing for the sake of it, all that tiki-taka. It's so much rubbish and has no purpose. You have to pass the ball with a clear intention, with the aim of making it into the opposition's goal.

'You need to dig into your own DNA. I hate tiki-taka. Barca didn't do tiki-taka. In all team sports, the secret is to overload one side of the pitch so that the opponent must tilt its own defence to cope. You overload on one side and draw them in so that they leave the other side weak. And then you attack and score from the other side.

'That's why you have to pass the ball, but only if you're doing it with a clear intention. It's only to overload the opponent, to draw them in and then to hit them with the sucker-punch. That's what our game needs to be about. Nothing to do with tiki-taka.'

Back Heel

You only have to go back to the final day of the season before last when West Brom and Manchester United played out one of the most memorable matches between the two clubs down the years.

It was Sir Alex Ferguson’s last game and United - already crowned champions - were strolling home 5-2 only for Albion to storm back and draw 5-5.

Older Baggies fans though will still suggest that the their best-ever display againt United came at Old Trafford in 1978.

Albion stunned United with a tour de force of cavalier football. Laurie Cunningham and Cyrille Regis led the charge with some devastating play brimming with panache and pace, as Albion won 5-3.

The mastermind was manager Ron Atkinson who would go on to manage United the following season and of course Albion’s midfield driving force that day was Bryan Robson who would follow big Ron to Old Trafford.

Have a look at this:

I-Bet

For those who believing lightning can strike twice then odds of 400-1 are available for a 5-5 draw between Albion and United on Monday.

Corals offer a rather conservative 150-1 for United winning 5-3. I will have a little flutter on United winning 3-1 at 14-1.