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Hot Football Transfer Gossip: Everton ‘make £40m Hart bid, Mourinho ‘wants Matic at Man Utd’

Everton don’t have a manager at the moment, but they do have a lot of money and a new owner who is seemingly itching to spend some of it. So it was only a matter of time before the Toffees slapped down an audacious megabid for a completely unrealistic transfer target - and now they have.

The Sun reports that the nouveau-riche Merseysiders have made a £40m offer for Manchester City goalkeeper Joe Hart, with club chief Farhad Moshiri prepared to pay England’s number one £200,000 a week to swap Champions League football for Phil Jagielka. Fanciful as this move might appear, the Sun claims Hart could find himself surplus to requirements at the Etihad amid rumours new boss Pep Guardiola “wants a keeper who is better with the ball at his feet”. Presumably not at the expense of being good with his hands though?

A persistent buzz-killer of Moshiri’s grand plans for Everton is Romelu Lukaku, who looks increasingly likely to leave the club after saying “he knows where he wants to go” next, reports the Guardian. And that place, baffling as it may sound, appears to be Chelsea.

But that’s only a minor setback for Everton fans compared to the news reported in the Mirror that former Toffees manager David Moyes is in the running to make a bombastic comeback in the Goodison Park hotseat. It probably doesn’t mean much though because the Scot is apparently one of nine candidates set to be interviewed for the post, along with Frank de Boer, Manuel Pellegrini, Mark Hughes and Daniel Amokachi. (The last one we just made up to fair, but if a paper says nine managers and only mentions four then people are bound to speculate.)

The most interesting needle amid Giant Haystacks of Manchester United-related gossip is that incoming Red Devils boss Jose Mourinho could raid his former club Chelsea for Nemanja Matic as part of a £200m summer splurge, according to the Mail. A surprising one given Jose’s volatile relationship with the Blues’ playing squad, although maybe he just wants to lock Matic in a cage with Juan Mata and make them fight naked for his own amusement.

The details of Jamie Vardy’s Leicester contract continue to intrigue, with the Mail reporting that the striker’s £80,000-a-week deal contains a £20m release clause for clubs “in the Champions League”.

That’s less than the Foxes would apparently have to pay for Vardy’s new partner/replacement Islam Slimani, who the Leicester Mercury says is available for £23.5m due to a buyout clause in his Sporting Lisbon contract.

Elsewhere, Arsenal may be encouraged to learn that midfield target Henrikh Mkhitaryan’s contract talks with Borussia Dortmund have stalled (Star), Mainz goalkeeper Loris Karius is set to finalise a £4.7m move to Liverpool (Liverpool Echo) and West Brom are set to swoop for Aston Villa defender Ciaran Clark (Express and Star) as Premier League clubs continue to snap up the relegated side’s top stars such as… well, just Ciaran Clark.

@darlingkevin