Next time you break into a cold sweat after seeing that your team’s star player is being linked with a move to a bigger club, spare a thought for Tottenham fans. Transfer news for these poor blighters gets more harrowing by the day.

First, Dele Alli was linked with Real Madrid, then Harry Kane was linked with Real Madrid, then Dele Alli was linked with Barcelona. And today, the Mirror – via Spanish paper Marca – reveals that Real Madrid and Barcelona are BOTH planning double swoops for BOTH Dele Alli and Harry Kane. Now that’s just silly.

But true, allegedly. Real boss Zinedine Zidane has apparently identified Kane as an alternative to Kylian Mbappe, who he failed to sign in the summer.

Meanwhile, Barca coach Ernesto Valverde has reportedly turned to Alli after missing out on Liverpool’s Philippe Coutinho.

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And both managers have evidently decided that they may as well take Tottenham’s other attacking starlet too, seeing as they’d be in north London anyway and all that.

And it gets even worse for Spurs fans. Because while Kane and Alli turn heads in La Liga, Danny Rose is winning admirers at the top of the Premier League.

The Star says Manchester United and Chelsea will both make January moves for the left-back, who has been out since January with a serious knee injury but has managed to stay in people’s minds and hearts by saying outrageous things in the media.

Barca want Griezmann ‘on the cheap’

The only glimmer of hope for Tottenham is that all these stories might be completely made up, a theory bolstered by the Mirror’s claim that Barcelona are actually more interested in buying Antoine Griezmann.

The Catalan (probably best to not to refer to them as Spanish) giants are said to be plotting to get the Atletico Madrid forward “on the cheap”. By that, the Mirror means they are aiming to pay the Frenchman’s £89m release clause, rather than the £178m it will rise to after July 1 next year. It’s all relative, see.

This may come as disappointing news to Manchester United fans, although they will find in the Express the consolation that Jose Mourinho reportedly scouted Eintract Frankfurt winger Mijat Gacinovic during Serbia’s recent World Cup qualifying defeat by Austria. It is, admittedly, a rather small consolation .

Elsewhere, Manchester City are eyeing a cut-price £3m move for Napoli left-back Faouzi Ghoulam as a January replacement for the injured Benjamin Mendy (Sun), Liverpool have been linked – not for the first time – with a January swoop for Lazio’s Dutch centre-back Stefan De Vrij (Mirror) and Arsenal have agreed a deal to recruit former Gunner Marc Overmars as their director of football in the summer (Express). Arsene Wenger does not feel remotely threatened by this and, to prove it, he is already planning to play Overmars on the left wing next season.

@darlingkevin