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Hot Football Transfer Gossip: Man City ‘target £20m Bernat’, Chelsea ‘chase Rudiger’, Rooney ‘can leave Man Utd’

With Pep Guardiola rumoured to be planning to sign four new full-backs at Manchester City because his current crop are either too old or too iffy, it means the tabloids are four times’ more likely to be right whenever they link him with a random replacement.

Therefore, the Sun is very confidently claiming that Bayern Munich’s Juan Bernat is the latest man on Guardiola’s radar. The 24-year-old Spain international, who Pep signed for Bayern from Valencia in 2014, would reportedly cost £20m.

But we might not have believed the Sun if they hadn’t also provided some incredibly insightful analysis from an “Etihad insider”, who exclusively told them: “Gael Clichy is out of contract next summer and Aleksandar Kolarov is 31 next month. They are slowly coming towards the end of their careers at City and Pep is looking at the future.“

Wow, this guy - whoever he or she is - really knows their stuff. And they must be pretty tight with Kolarov if they know his age. Ooh… maybe the insider is Kolarov. Cool.

They also some inside information (obviously) on the Bernat deal, continuing: “He knows Pep’s methods and systems. He fits the right age profile and is another Spain international.”

Again, mind-blowing stuff. In fact, it wouldn’t surprise Hot Football Transfer Gossip if the Sun had actually got these quotes direct from Guardiola but had modestly labelled him an "insider” in respect of his privacy. Because how could anyone else possibly know this stuff?

HFTG has been critical of the Sun recently after their vicious attack on Gary Lineker, but a huge hat tip to them for using their unrivalled football contacts to bring us this scoop. Thank you, guys.

There’s also news of a potential big-money defender swoop in the Mail, who claim that Chelsea are lining up a £35m bid for Roma’s Antonio Rudiger, with Manchester United and Man City “also interested”.

But the story doesn’t contain any quotes from insiders who actually know the details of the deal, so we are not inclined to give it much credence.

We are similarly unmoved by Goal’s report that Juventus are set to “rekindle their interest” in out-of-favour Chelsea midfielder Oscar. Yeah whatever, Goal.

The Sun has gone big on Jose Mourinho’s apparent declaration that Wayne Rooney “must leave Manchester United if he wants regular first-team football”, although the Roonster probably worked this out a while ago given that he is on the bench every week at Old Trafford.

Elsewhere, Watford are ready to cash in on striker Odion Ighalo, who is wanted by Napoli (Watford Observer), West Brom are poised to make a £4m offer for Leeds left-back Charlie Taylor (Telegraph) and West Ham are considering a £1.5m bid for 21-year-old Millwall right-back Mahlon Romeo (Mirror). Nice career move for the lad, but it depends if he ever wants to go back to south-east London again.

@darlingkevin