Advertisement

Hot Football Transfer Gossip: Barcelona ‘want Newcastle striker’, Arsenal ‘keen on Mustafi’

Getting relegated may have been catastrophic for Newcastle’s fans, but it doesn’t seem to have done the future prospects of their players any harm.

Despite it essentially being their fault that the club went down, the world’s biggest clubs are still queuing up to sign them.

Liverpool bought Georginio Wijnaldum, Paris Saint-Germain and Arsenal are reportedly keen on Moussa Sissoko and Crystal Palace got Andros Townsend. And while you’re pointing out that Crystal Palace are not one of the world’s biggest clubs, wait until you see who wants Ayoze Perez. It’s Barcelona!

That, at least, is according to the International Business Times, who - while they aren’t renowned for covering football gossip - at least make it interesting when they do.

The IBT, as it’s known to its friends, say that Barca want to use Perez as a back-up to Lionel Messi, Neymar and Luis Suarez, which sounds quite daunting. They have apparently opened discussion with the player’s “entourage” and are considering a £15m bid.

The only question is whether Perez would accept being a back-up player, but given that he was already a back-up player at Newcastle, let’s assume that he could probably handle doing the same thing at the Nou Camp. Next week, we’ll report on Real Madrid’s swoop for Paul Dummett.

The rest of today’s Hot Football Transfer Gossip is mainly about centre-backs. Man City’s predicted capture of John Stones for £50m (Mail) would prompt Everton to replace the overpriced youngster with the equally overpriced (£14m, apparently) Sunderland defender Lamine Kone (Sun).

It could also lead to City selling Eliaquim Mangala to Valencia (Sun), with the Spanish club flogging Shkodran Mustafi for £21m to Arsenal (Star), who need to replace the injured Per Mertesacker.

Meanwhile, Chelsea have bid £38m for Kalidou Koulibaly from Napoli, who will be the world’s richest club by the time this transfer window closes if people keep giving them more money for their players than is strictly necessary (Sky Sports).

We almost forgot to mention that Paul Pogba is apparently on the verge of completing his move from Juventus to Manchester United to either £112m (Sun) or £100m (Guardian), although Real Madrid manager Zinedine Zidane still reserves the right to bowl in and steal him (Sky Sports).

Elsewhere, Southampton are keen on Barcelona striker Cristian Tello (Sun), new Sunderland manager David Moyes has turned down the chance to sign Michag Richards from Aston Villa for £5.5m (Northern Echo) and Rafael van der Vaart could be on his way to Reading (Get Reading).

Finally, Liverpool could suffer the indignity of being beaten to the £20m signature of 22-year-old Portuguese midfielder Anderson Talisca by… Wolves? (A Bola).

@darlingkevin