Football transfer rumours: Danny Ings and Nicolò Barella to Tottenham?

Like 48% of Britons, Danny Ings thinks his life would be better if he was part of an elite European club and is stalling on signing a new Southampton contract in the hope of attracting interest from a team that has the Champions League anthem queued up on their PA system. Tottenham are one such club and are said to be monitoring the situation though Ralph Hasenhüttl believes Ings can get what he wants by firing Saints into the top four by bagging another 10 to 15 goals.

It says here that Spurs are also keeping a keen eye on Inter’s 23-year-old midfielder Nicolò Barella, who has been running the show in Antonio Conte’s side with a stacked highlights reel of assists since debuting for the club in 2019. He would cost a pretty penny, though, given he has a contract that runs until 2024. Liverpool scouts are also sniffing around. In other Spurs news, Dele Alli and Mauricio Pochettino look increasingly likely to be reunited at PSG.

Related: Crystal Palace poised to land Mateta but West Ham fail with Laborde offer

Fikayo Tomori may just escape from Chelsea before the walls finally cave in at Stamford Bridge. The defender’s loan deal with Milan is almost done and dusted, with the Serie A leaders having inserted a set price of £26.6m for the 23-year-old should he prove a hit at San Siro.

After seven – SEVEN! – years at Real Madrid, Martin Ødegaard has slapped down a transfer request and demanded a move. The footballing Macaulay Culkin, who is now 22, was in fine form at Real Sociedad last season and is miffed that he’s only been given 367 minutes of playing time under Zinedine Zidane this term.

Another wunderkind of 2014 whose career has stalled is Demarai Gray. The Leicester winger is considering the option of jump-starting his career at Bayer Leverkusen, who are partying like it’s 1999 all over again having settled into second place in Bundesliga. Leicester want £10m for Gray, though, so expect a loan deal.

Over at Bayern Munich Jamal Musiala is dragging his heels over signing a new deal. The word is that the German champions have scoffed at the 17-year-old’s £100,000-a-week wage demands and now Liverpool, Manchester City and Manchester United are hovering and primed to swoop should the impasse not be broken. Musiala has had an impressive season, becoming the youngest player to score and appear for Bayern in the Bundesliga and he believes he is due a considerable upgrade from the youth contract he is on.

It appears that Newcastle are concerned that Emil Krafth might actually be pretty decent so they’ve put the stoppers on his proposed £2.7m move to Istanbul Basaksehir until Steve Bruce has investigated this interesting development. Krafth himself seems to be pleased to be finally getting a game and would prefer to live by the Tyne instead of the Bosphorus.

And Ukraine boss Andriy Shevchenko appears to be leading the race to replace Frank Lampard if Roman Abramovich turfs the golden boy out of Stamford Bridge after the 2-0 defeat at Leicester. Shevchenko at Chelsea? What could possibly go wrong?