Having watched his Everton side transformed from a pedestrian pudding into a pesky and punchy force with the introduction of Oumar Niasse’s pace on Saturday, you’d have thought a cartoon lightbulb might have pinged into view above Ronald Koeman’s golden locks. But no, the Everton manager apparently wants to be the first to take a walking football team into the top six – and he plans to do this by returning to Arsenal in January with £40m for Olivier Giroud, a player who is 31 this week and about as mobile as Wayne Rooney. And it says here that Niasse – who says he has never had it easy under Koeman – will be cast out again and told to find another club in January, with Bournemouth’s Josh King – who scored against the Toffees on Saturday – a possible £25m target.
Down the M62, José Mourinho won’t be satisfied with his Manchester United midfield until it resembles a field of towering young trees. The latest big man on the club’s radar is Lazio box-to-boxer Sergej Milinkovic-Savic. But the Serbia enforcer, who measures up at almost 6ft 4in, wouldn’t come cheap. He’d cost a cool £75m. Or maybe that is peanuts these days. Your poor old Rumour Mill just can’t keep up. There’s some fluff wafting around here that says Juventus playmaker extraordinaire Paulo Dybala is on Ed Woodward’s shopping list too. But Juve would want £155m for him – and even we know that’s a big number. But we just can’t see that one happening. No way José. He’s only 5ft 9in tall. He’d suit Barcelona, where he’d resemble a giant. And apparently, the Catalans are keeping a watchful eye.
Manchester City are worried that they will have to pay Alexis Sánchez a lot more beans to persuade him to play football in east Manchester instead of west Paris after they got wind of news that PSG are willing to replenish the Chilean’s bank account with £400,000 per week. In exchange they will get a player who regularly pulls his shorts up really high to expose his shiny thighs in between energetic sprints and a sprinkling of goals. Pep Guardiola has also got wind of news that Barcelona have left a flimsy £35m release clause wafting around in Sergi Roberto’s release clause – and unless the club secure the midfielder on a new deal – he’ll trigger it quick-sharp this summer.
As he has done throughout his Arsenal career, Arsène Wenger will look to a teenage Frenchman to solve all the club’s problems. So he’ll do battle with Nice, Bordeaux and Red Bull Leipzig for 19-year-old Le Havre centre-back Harold Moukoudi, who is presumably strong enough to help Wenger carry the weight of the world on his shoulders.
Ross McCormack is going to take a pair of leads to Australia where he’ll attempt to jumpstart his career at Melbourne City. The 31-year-old, who cost Villa £12m from Fulham back in the days when he was the Championship Gerd Müller, had been wanted by Sunderland but The Mill’s presuming he saw sense over that one.
Milan want a marauding chest-beating hunk up front and they reckon Edinson Cavani is the man to fill that role. The 30-year-old is feeling a little left out at PSG since Kylian Mbappé and Neymar pitched up there. Maybe he’s not in their WhatsApp group or whatever it is that grinds kids’ gears these days. And the Rossoneri reckon a stonking wage offer could lure him to Serie A.
And Roy Hodgson has identified the man who might score a goal for Crystal Palace this season. Step forward Khouma Babacar, Fiorentina’s 24-year-old striker who would cost them around £10m. Only three more months to wait, Palace fans.