Hot Football Transfer Gossip: Busquets 'to Manchester City', Payet 'to Barcelona', Ramos 'to Chelsea'
Boss of Goss Kevin Darling is back after a spell in the physio's room - and in his 24-hour absence, the Barcelona rumour mill has gone into overdrive
Sergio Busquets has always seemed like a classic one-club man. A world-class player who would always reject the chance of earning more money elsewhere to remain with his boyhood club, like Steven Gerrard at Liverpool or Steve Potts at West Ham. But that was before Manchester City came along.
The Express claims that Barcelona’s midfield general has had his head turned by a £7.5m-a-year offer from the Etihad – the kind of dough that even Pottsy would have found difficult to turn down. The paper adds that Busquets now has “no intention” of signing a new contract at the Nou Camp and is eager to reunite with his former manager Pep Guardiola, despite rival interest from Manchester United.
The only potential hitch to City pulling off this coup is that Busquets’ contract actually runs until 2019, so they might have to wait three years to sign him.
Alternatively, Barca could cash in Busquets now and spend the money on West Ham’s Dimitri Payet, who appears to have somehow usurped Hammers legend Potts on the basis of a few decent free-kicks. Talksport declares that the Catalan giants are “plotting a sensational £50m move for Hammers sensation Payet”, which is bad headline-writing in anyone’s book, and suggests that – despite the likelihood that any bids will be rejected - the Frenchman may ultimately decide he’d rather play for Barcelona than West Ham.
Another player who could fetch a rather hefty transfer fee in the summer is Real Madrid’s Sergio Ramos, who the Metro says is the subject of a £63.5m bid from Chelsea. Smashing the British transfer record for a 30-year-old defender may seem like a strange move from the Blues, but they already broke it once to sign Fernando Torres so it can’t really work out any worse than that.
Meanwhile, Chelsea’s reigning player of the year (yes, still) Eden Hazard has denied that a summer transfer to Madrid has already been agreed, reports the Mirror. “For now, I am at Chelsea,” he said, very reassuringly.
Elsewhere, Tottenham and Leicester are interested in 21-year-old Pescara goal machine Gianluca Lapadula (Gazzetta dello Sport), 19-year-old Charlton defender Regan Charles-Cook is attracting interest from Arsenal and Liverpool (South London Press) and Manchester United are set to “miss out” on Germany striker Mario Gomez because he is going to sign for Besiktas (Star). And also, we suggest, because they didn’t want to sign him in the first place?
Finally, there are some players who just don’t know where they’re not wanted. Kieran Gibbs and Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain are “reluctant” to leave Arsenal despite their lack of first-team football (Standard) while Christian Benteke is happy to fight for his place at Liverpool despite Jurgen Klopp clearly thinking he is rubbish (Independent). Take the hint, guys!
