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Hot Football Transfer Gossip: Tottenham ‘make Isco swoop’, Hart ‘set for Italy move’, Everton ‘want Balotelli’

Poor old Isco. An attacking maestro playing in the same side as Cristiano Ronaldo, Gareth Bale and James Rodriguez, he’s very much the Sporty Spice of the Real Madrid midfield.

Despite his talent, he’s never going to be the one on the posters the club’s teenage fans stick on their wall.

But what about if he went to a team that wasn’t as good, such as Tottenham?

That’s the question the Sunday Mirror is making us ponder, by claiming that the north Londoners are “lining up a sensational swoop” for the 24-year-old Spaniard. The Bernabeu giants reportedly need to trim their squad and - despite James constantly being linked with moves to England - the club’s president Florentino Perez would rather sell poor old Isco.

The former Malaga man has also been constantly linked with moves to England (actually, almost every player in the Madrid team has) but the Mirror thinks Spurs are “favourites” to sign him despite possible interest from Chelsea and (if you are a regular reader of the Sunday Mirror) Arsenal.

It’s worth pointing out that Isco has actually played more than 40 games a season since moving to Madrid three years ago. So maybe they will keep him anyway, even if he isn’t as sexy as Cristiano.

Meanwhile, Joe Hart’s agent has landed in Italy as he continues his mission to find the goalkeeper a club, any club, before Wednesday’s transfer deadline.

The Sunday People says Hart is wanted by Torino, which is roughly the English equivalent of signing for Crystal Palace. But England’s number one is running out of options, and the People encouragingly suggests a move to Turin could offer Hart “a different experience in lifestyle terms”.

More excitingly, the Sunday Express suggests that AC Milan may also be among the Italian clubs prepared to offer Hart an escape route. They do already have one of the world’s promising keepers Gianluigi Donnarumma playing for them though.

Aston Villa’s “Chinese rulers”, as the Sun on Sunday questionably refers to them, are evidently not messing about as they aim to restore greatness to Birmingham’s second-best club.

The Villans are said to have bid £20m for Hull City’s Abel Hernandez. All they need to do now is convince him to play in the Championship after he just spent a whole season trying to escape it.

Elsewhere, the Tigers could replace Hernandez with Bristol City’s £14m-rated striker Jonathan Kodjia (Sunday Telegraph), James McCarthy has demanded to leave Everton so he can find regular first-team football (Mail on Sunday), Arsenal tried and failed to sign France forward Antoine Griezmann during the Euros (Sun on Sunday) and Liverpool could turn to Leicester’s Christian Fuchs in a bid to end their left-back issues (also Sun on Sunday).

Finally, Gazzetta dello Sport has decided that lots of English clubs suddenly want to buy Mario Balotelli, including West Brom, Crystal Palace and - wait for it - Everton. Fanciful.

@darlingkevin