Gossip: Dahoud, James, Hazard, Rooney

Daniel Storey

MAN CITY WANT GLADBACH TRIO
If losing 4-0 to Manchester City in the Champions League wasn’t enough bad news, Bild now reports that Pep Guardiola wants three of the club’s players.

The three players in question are Mahmoud Dahoud, Thorgan Hazard and Andreas Christensen, but Christensen is on loan from Chelsea so that doesn’t really count.

Dahoud has been attracting interest from clubs across Europe, including Liverpool and Juventus, while Hazard is the brother of Chelsea’s Eden, but you knew that already. I’m mainly just filling space until I tell you that we can see Guardiola ending up with Dahoud, but not either of the other two.

 

MAN UNITED STILL WANT JAMES RODRIGUEZ…
That’s according to Don Balon, who is a Spanish newspaper rather than a person. News to us.

The paper report that Jose Mourinho has told James that he has a major role to play in his team, but then go on to claim that Antoine Griezmann is still their top summer target. How’s that going to make the Colombian feel, guys?

They also believe that Real Madrid’s transfer ban will not be a problem, given that they are happy to shed James from the squad. He’s basically been a bit sh*t since his first season.

 

…AND WILL SELL ROONEY, APPARENTLY
You might well be hearing a great deal more about this story later (because it’s really, really smelly), but The Sun have also claimed that Manchester United are ready to sell Wayne Rooney, with Gareth Bale lined up as his replacement.

More accurately, Daniel Cutts is claiming that news. The story doesn’t even make the front page of the website by Friday morning and isn’t even in the paper at all. Weird, eh?

Of course Manchester United *may* choose to try and get rid of Rooney next summer, and of course they would take Bale given the chance, but just musing those two points does not get you an ‘exclusive’, it gets you an opinion.

 

AND THE REST
Chelsea manager Antonio Conte insists Cesc Fabregas is not for sale… La Liga has offered its backing to Valencia after the club issued a statement on Wednesday threatening legal action against several groups of ‘ultras’ connected with the club… Alexis Sanchez will be offered a two-year contract extension to keep him at Arsenal until 2020… Antonio Conte is ready to go back for Lazio defender Stefan De Vrij in January…

Lyon are reportedly back in for free agent Emmanuel Adebayor after initial talks broke down earlier in the week… Manchester City striker Sergio Aguero has extended his contract at the club by a year, keeping him The Etihad until 2020… Moussa Sissoko has claimed that he joined Tottenham Hotspur instead of Everton because the Merseyside club dithered over the £30m transfer and could not offer Champions League football.