Today’s Transfer Talk features potential moves to the Premier League for two German stars and that big signing that Brendan Rodgers was talking about. Sort of.
If Liverpool fans weren’t excited enough by their magnificent 4-0 hammering of Everton in the Merseyside derby last night, manager Brendan Rodgers increased the giddiness amongst the club’s support by revealing that he expected the arrival of one ‘major’ signing before the end of the January transfer window this week.
Who could that major signing be? Edinson Cavani perhaps? Diego Costa maybe? Nope, try again and keep trying because no matter how often you take a stab at it, chances are it’ll take a while before you arrive on the name Yevhen Konoplyanka, a Ukrainian winger from FC Dnipro Dnipropetrovsk who has been linked with the Reds in The Times today.
Now Konoplyanka isn’t a nobody, far from it; he has nearly 40 caps for his national team and scores pretty regularly for his club but he might not have been the ‘major’ signing Liverpool fans were expecting.
Speaking of major signings, Arsenal have been linked with Julian Draxler for yonks now and despite Arsene Wenger being incredibly coy on the matter, the Daily Star think that the Gunners will make a push to get him in this week with a ‘take it or leave it’ bid of nearly £25 million.
Staying in Germany, Man United will have been encouraged by recent quotes from Pep Guardiola in their pursuit of Bayern Munich’s Toni Kroos, whose contract is up next summer and is dithering over a potential extension with the German giants.
"He is an important player," Guardiola said earlier this week. "But it can go fast in football. Here today, there tomorrow." David Moyes did watch Kroos in action for Bayern against Borussia Moenchengladbach on Friday night and was pictured talking to his agent, but could this all be a ploy to scare Bayern into paying top dollar to secure the services of the German international on a long-term basis? Let’s just say we wouldn’t be surprised if it turns out to be the case.
Whatever about Kroos, United seem set to miss out on another target in Southampton’s Luke Shaw, whose heart is set on Chelsea according to the Daily Mirror and is likely to move to the club he supports during the summer.
We expect it to change between now and Friday but those bits of gossip aside, the rumour mill is eerily quiet with only three days of the window left.
The Mirror say that Southampton will look to loan troubled striker Dani Osvaldo to Juventus rather than sell him to West Ham, while Tom Ince appears to be keeping his options open ahead of what looks like an inevitable move away from Blackpool, with Liverpool and Cardiff monitoring his situation according to TalkSport, although he has had meetings with Swansea and Stoke already.
Gus Poyet is mouthing off in the Metro over Mark Hughes’ attempts to bring walking red card Lee Cattermole and striker Steven Fletcher to Stoke, while although the Daily Mail say that Borussia Dortmund are favourites to sign Lewis Holtby from Spurs, respected Bundesliga correspondent Raphael Honigstein says the move is off because Dortmund want a loan deal and aren’t prepared to fork out the €6 million Spurs are looking for.
