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Hot Football Transfer Gossip: Saints 'want £60m for Van Dijk', Arsenal 'target Pickford', Tottenham 'to swap Sissoko for Barkley'
It’s one day until Christmas and, for desperate shoppers, prices are at their peak. You could get Virgil van Dijk for £30m a few months ago, but today he’s coming in at a cool £60m.
The Telegraph says Southampton have placed the new and improved valuation on their popular Dutchman – which would be a world record fee for a defender – in an attempt to fend off the advances of Manchester City, who are only willing to pay £50m for him (although it shouldn’t be too difficult to persuade them to throw another £10m onto the pile).
Saints are also after £13m for Van Dijk’s 33-year-old defensive partner Jose Fonte, who might be sold to Everton.
Another player doubling in value is Wayne Rooney, who the Mirror says could earn £700,000 a week – twice his current wage – by moving to the Chinese Super League next summer. Rooney’s stock in China has evidently been unaffected by his travails for England and Man Utd and Chinese people still consider him a God. Although to be fair they think the same about Gervinho.
Sam Allardyce doesn’t come cheap any time of the year, and the Mail reports that he will receive a £4m bonus if he keeps Crystal Palace in the Premier League – which sounds like a pretty good deal considering he’s inherited the most talented squad in the club’s history.
He can add to it too, courtesy of a £20m transfer war chest that will be handed to him in January, says the Star. Big Sam has apparently “identified several targets and presented a list of them to chairman Steve Parish” but the Star doesn’t tell us who they are, which is unlike them.
The story is accompanied by a photo of Allardyce wearing jeans with no belt and a polo shirt emblazoned with the biggest Ralph Lauren horse you’ve ever seen. He’s still got it.
Arsenal have identified Jordan Pickford as the next David Seaman/Jens Lehmann/Manuel Almunia (delete as appropriate) and will make a “shock move” for the Sunderland goalkeeper in January amid concerns about Petr Cech’s form, say the Standard.
Meanwhile, Everton manager Ronald Koeman has got so frustrated with Ross Barkley that he is going to try to swap him for Tottenham flop Moussa Sissoko, claims the Sunday People. And the most exciting thing about this story is that it’s not even a Sunday!
Elsewhere, Valencia want to sign in-form Man Utd centre-back Marcos Rojo for £14m in January (Mirror), Man City are “monitoring” Lionel Messi’s contract talks with Barcelona, which have apparently “hit a brick wall” (Sun) and in Roy Hodgson’s first interview since Euro 2016, he says his England side “seemed to freeze a little bit” in the last-16 defeat to Iceland (Times). Don’t be so hard on yourself, Roy.
Finally, the Times also has a long feature about the time Sunderland almost signed Zlatan Ibrahimovic, but ended up buying Tore Andre Flo and Marcus Stewart instead. A more tragic tale you will not hear this festive season.
