Hot Football Transfer Gossip: Chelsea want Matuidi, Lacazette and N'Koulou

Let’s start, counter-intuitively perhaps, in midfield, where Paris Saint-Germain’s  plays. According to the Daily Star, he’s the man Jose Mourinho wants to replace John Mikel Obi and John Obi Mikel, his two tough-tackling Nigerians that he likes to alternately use as substitutes. The energetic Matuidi certainly seems a more exciting option than either Mikel Obi or Obi Mikel, and although his wages might be higher he would require half as much food, laundry etc. so the appeal of bringing him to Stamford Bridge is obvious. PSG won’t let him leave without a fight though, with the Star predicting it would require a “mega-money offer” to prise him away from Paris. How much money is mega-money, you might ask, and we can tell you: upwards of £30m.

Moving into attack, where Costa’s fondness for slapping and scratching opponents like a teenage One Direction fan on the rampage has left Mourinho with only Loic Remy and Radamel Falcao leading the line, the Blues are being linked with another French international: Alexandre Lacazette. The Lyon striker has actually just been through a lean spell that makes Harry Kane look like Ronaldo, with 0 goals scored in more than 700 minutes of football until he bagged a penalty at the weekend, but his pedigree is good. At least you’d hope so given that he is also valued at mega-money: specifically £25m, says the Express. Arsenal, Liverpool and Newcastle are also apparently interested.

Finally, we move on to Chelsea’s defence, where Mourinho is poised for a January swoop for yet another Ligue 1 star: Marseille centre-back Nicolas N'Koulou. The Cameroonian’s contract expires in the summer, meaning the Blues fancy getting him in cut-price deal that Talksport says would be worth a maximum of £7.2m.

In non-Chelsea news, QPR are for the umpteenth time being linked with a move to bring Lazio’s Ravel Morrison back to England, claims the Standard. The former West Ham hothead has played barely any football in Serie A so far and, according to Lazio boss Stefano Pioli, is “yet to fully adapt to the schemes”, whatever that means.

We’ll leave you with some retro transfer news, courtesy of Sir Alex Ferguson’s latest revelations in the Mirror, which is that Manchester United wanted to sign Vincent Kompany in 2004 but they ended up signing Gabriel Heinze and Gerard Pique instead. Kompany and Pique… that would have been a bit better than Smalling and Jones.  

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