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Transfer Gossip: Real Madrid plot 'world record' swoop for Hazard and De Gea, Arsenal pair Sanchez and Ozil 'demand' £350k a week
Every football team in England will enter the summer transfer window with aspirations to improve. No one is aiming to get worse, not even slightly. But it’s a sad reality of capitalist life that many teams will. Not just the little ones, but the big ones too, even with their £200m transfer budgets. Yes, even Chelsea and Manchester United.
And that’s mainly because of Real Madrid. The Spanish giants are today tipped by the Sun make a £160m double swoop for Eden Hazard and David de Gea – players that neither the Blues nor the Red Devils could realistically replace with anyone as good, let alone better.
Belgian playmaker Hazard is said to be Zinedine Zidane’s top target, with three separate meetings having reportedly taken place this year between “Real representatives and Hazard’s entourage”. Sounds rather raucous.
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The La Liga champions are prepared to “smash the world transfer record” with a £100m move for the 26-year-old, who has been “promised a role in the hole” between Real’s front three of Cristiano Ronaldo, Gareth Bale and Karim Benzema. Which does sound a bit more exciting than playing with Diego Costa and Pedro, to be fair.
Meanwhile, Real have made a £60m offer for De Gea, which has been rejected, but Los Blancos are unlikely to give up the chase easily after tracking the United goalkeeper for the past two years.
A big club at an even greater risk of getting worse this summer, despite all their manager’s recent talk of targeting titles, is Arsenal. The Gunners’ two most celebrated players, Alexis Sanchez and Mesut Ozil, still look set to leave as they employ the tactic of making their wage demands so ludicrous that the club can’t possibly meet them.
The Mirror says the contract rebels have “joined forces” in order to “squeeze mega-deals” out of Arsenal – namely by asking for £350,000 a week. Each. To put the ludicrousness into context, they currently earn £140,000 a week each. And it’s clear that Ozil’s displays, especially, have not improved by 150 per cent this season.
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The team probably best equipped to avoid getting worse in this transfer window is Manchester City, simply because they so much money. The Times says they are set to spend “more than £50m” of it (plus £180,000 a week in wages) on Southampton centre-back Virgil van Dijk in an attempt to see off rival interest from Chelsea and Liverpool.
Elsewhere, Everton are “braced” for offers from Chelsea and Man Utd for Romelu Lukaku but hope their £100m valuation with scare the his suitors off (Times), United will take on Tottenham for Fulham’s 17-year-old left-sided sensation Ryan Sessegnon (Mirror) and Leicester have “slapped a £50m price tag” on wantaway winger Riyad Mahrez (Express). Sounds painful.
