Manchester United and Arsenal are getting desperate with last-ditch bids for Cesc Fabregas and Luis Suarez and Spurs are planning for life with or without Gareth Bale by moving for a helluva lot of players.
We’ll say this about the guys in charge of Manchester United’s transfer policy; they’re a persistent bunch.
Like an eager young lad looking for the shift at a rural disco, they simply won’t take no for an answer from their desired target, with reports in the Telegraph this morning suggesting that they will make ANOTHER bid for Cesc Fabregas, for whom they have had two bids already rejected and who has gone on record about his desire to stay at Barcelona.
The Telegraph seem to think that Cesc might be swayed by a lack of a pivotal role in the Barcelona starting XI and the need to play first team football in a World Cup year, while the club themselves might find it hard to say no to an offer of £40 million from the Red Devils.
If that doesn’t work out – and recent history suggests it won’t – there have been whispers that Moyes might instead move for Mesut Ozil or Luka Modric from Real Madrid, while the possibility of Marouane Fellaini and/or Leighton Baines coming to Old Trafford remains, despite Roberto Martinez’s confidence that both will remain with the Toffees.
Despite being linked with so many players, there is a chance that United will make no further additions to their squad before Deadline Day and that prospect might not go down too well with United fans. Arsenal fans could certainly empathise, however, after it was all but confirmed that another of their summer targets, Bayern Munich’s Luis Gustavo, will be on his way to Wolfsburg.
As far as their main target, Luis Suarez, is concerned, The Telegraph also suggest that they will return to Liverpool with a last-ditch take it or leave it £49million bid, having been encouraged by Suarez’s admission that he didn’t say that he was going to stay at Liverpool because of the fans, as had been suggested in the Uruguayan press.
While Arsenal have been humming and hawing over potential arrivals, North London rivals Spurs have been getting very bizz-ay in the market and according to the Daily Express they’re far from finished yet and are weighing up moves for Christian Eriksen from Ajax, Liverpool target Willian from The Black Eyed Peas Anzhi Makhachkala and Roma forward Erik Lamela. The Mirror, meanwhile, reckon they’re going to throw £8million at Blackpool in the hope of landing the highly-rated Tom Ince.
The natural question to ask is where they’re going to get all the money to acquire these very promising players indeed and The Sun say that it will come from the sale of Gareth Bale, who Real Madrid are confident of landing for a world record £81million.
With talk of Wayne Rooney gone quiet for the time being at least, numerous papers are claiming that Jose Mourinho will try and snap up a man he knows pretty well from his time at Inter, Samuel Eto’o, on the cheap from Anzhi Makhachkala but The Mirror say that Eto’o has been claiming that Manchester United also want him on board.
Elsewhere, The Star say that Manchester City could turn their attentions to Daniel Agger or Napoli’s Paolo Cannavaro having been foiled in their attempts to take Pepe from Real Madrid, Crystal Palace have joined the race to sign Darren Bent from Aston Villa (The Sun), Stephane Sessegnon is a target for Qatari outfit El Jaish (Daily Mail), while Sunderland are mulling over a move for Valencia’s Aly Cissokho, who has been linked with Liverpool in the recent past (The Mirror).
