Gossip: Kane for £100m ‘laughable’; Liverpool target Keita £70m

Sarah Winterburn

KANE FOR £100M? ‘LAUGHABLE’, SAY SPURS
‘Reports in Sunday’s newspapers that Mourinho was urging executive vice-chairman Ed Woodward to make a £100m move for Kane stirred little but laughter at White Hart Lane,’ say The Independent, who claim that Tottenham are not remotely interested in selling the Premier League top scorer at any price at all. Selling him for £100m is described as a ‘laughable notion’.

The Independent suggest that only a figure close to £200m would open negotiations, which Manchester United absolutely know. Their hope is that Tottenham will fall away next season and Kane himself starts to court a move to a club big enough to challenge every season.

 

RB LEIPZIG NAME MASSIVE PRICE FOR KEITA
The good news for Liverpool is that RB Leipzig will sell Naby Keita after all. The bad news is that the price is over £70m. Oh. Now Naby Keita is an excellent box-to-box midfielder but he is 22 and is yet to play in the Champions League. But RB Leipzig are owned by Red Bull and they don’t have to sell anybody at any price.

Could Liverpool shock us all by meeting that asking price? They have already spent £34.3m on Mohamed Salah but this would double their transfer record. Could Naby Keita possibly be worth two Andy Carrolls? Well, when you put it like that…

 

CHELSEA TO SPEND VERY BIG
They call this a ‘£100million double deal’ on the back page of the Daily Mirror but as Alex Sandro and Tiemoue Bakayoko currently play for different clubs we would suggest that is two deals that happen to add up to about £100m. Astonishingly, Chelsea are set to pay £61m for left-back Alex Sandro, making him the world’s most expensive defender, while Monaco Bakayoko is ‘due in England in the next 48 hours to finalise a £37 million move’. Which makes £98m. So it’s not a double deal and it’s not for £100m but hey…

After that pair, Chelsea will then turn their attentions towards Virgil van Dijk and offer around £60m, though indications from the south coast are that Southampton’s price is closer to £70m for the Dutchman. If they then spend £75m on Romelu Lukaku, this has been an expensive summer.

 

AND THE REST
Arsenal and France forward Olivier Giroud has been in contact with the president of Lyon over a potential move…Arsenal and Manchester City are weighing up a sensational straight swap of superstar strikers Alexis Sanchez and Sergio Aguero (ooh, aah, Daily Star)…Everton have had a £30m bid rejected for Swansea’s 27-year-old Iceland midfielder Gylfi Sigurdsson…Liverpool are tracking Germany’s Max Meyer…Crystal Palace will make a move for Manchester City striker Kelechi Iheanacho…Juventus will bid £15m for Southampton’s 25-year-old Portugal right-back Cedric Soares.