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Hot Football Transfer Gossip: West Ham ‘target Fellaini’, Alexis ‘offered 400k a week’,
Marouane Fellaini’s season started so well. The man chosen by Jose Mourinho as the guardian of Paul Pogba in Manchester United’s four-man midfield, it looked as if his Old Trafford career had been revitalised. But since then things have gone from bad to worse. First he got dropped, then he became a calamitous penalty-conceding substitute and now - the cherry on the icing on a bitter cake - he’s on his way to West Ham.
It’s an unfortunate chain of events you wouldn’t wish on your worst enemy. The Telegraph says Hammers manager Slaven Bilic has identified Fellaini as the man to lead the club’s battle to avoid relegation and has been “encouraged” that Mourinho might be willing to sell the Belgian.
What specific purpose Bilic has in mind for the 29-year-old is unclear, given his famed versatility, although the Telegraph suggests the Croatian boss may want to use him “in attack”, which sounds like it could be another hilarious turn in West Ham’s quest to find a “top striker”.
The Hammers are also keen on bringing in Chelsea goalkeeper Asmir Begovic to help “save their season”, says the Sun. The Bosnian is said to be growing “increasingly frustrated” at playing second fiddle to Thibaut Courtois at Stamford Bridge, especially as he doesn’t even have any European games to alleviate the boredom.
Alexis Sanchez is proving to be a cunning operator off the pitch as well as on it as he seeks to get Arsenal to pay him as much money as possible.
The Mail says the Chilean has used £400,000-a-week wage offers from the Chinese Super League as “leverage” to try to get the Gunners to up their own contract offer of £200,000 a week.
They could call his bluff and tell him to go to China then, but that’s a dangerous strategy when Man City could just swoop in and pay him £400,000 a week too - just out of spite.
The entertaining Football Leaks project has uncovered a strange clause in Roberto Firmino’s Liverpool contract, which states the Brazilian can move to any club that offers £82.6m “except Arsenal” (Independent). As if Arsene Wenger would ever pay that much for anyone.
Elsewhere, Middlesbrough have put a £35m price tag on centre-back Ben Gibson to ward off interest from Chelsea (Mirror), Olivier Giroud will not be leaving Arsenal in January according to his agent (Express) and Manchester City and Chelsea are battling to sign Celtic’s 13-year-old academy prospect Karamoko Dembele, who made headlines when he played in an U-20 game recently (Independent). Guys, he’s 13!
