Gossip: Pep, Hiddink, Matip, Bojan, Sane, Xhaka
HIDDINK OR PEP FOR CHELSEA
After being surprisingly told that Juande Ramos was being considered as a potential replacement for Jose Mourinho in the interim period, we couldn’t quite help focusing on the word ‘potential’. That makes us doubt whether it will actually happen, because we’re dreadful cynics.
Thursday brings a couple of different claims of Chelsea’s post-Jose plans. The Sun say that Chelsea will go to Pep Guardiola and tell them to ‘name his price’ in order to appoint him. Hopefully Pep will put ‘55378008’ on a calculator screen and turn it upside down to show Roman Abramovich the joke, before running off into the distance.
Meanwhile, the Daily Telegraph say that Guus Hiddink is the likely short-term option, with Diego Simeone the man to take them forward for the long term. Which all sounds very sensible.
If we are good boys and girls from now until next summer, can we have a Premier League in which Van Gaal, Klopp, Guardiola, Wenger and Simeone are all managers, please?
EVERYONE AFTER BOJAN
Ah yes, lovely Bojan. If reports in Spanish newspaper Sport are to be believed (relayed by The Sun), Stoke’s Spaniard is the talk of the town. The claim is that Liverpool, Manchester United and Chelsea are all interested in signing the 25-year-old, who Stoke value at £15m.
Bojan only cost Stoke £800,000, so that sort of offer would be great business for them. There really isn’t much else to say other than that the player would surely love to get back into the Champions League.
LIVERPOOL TO RAID SCHALKE
Jurgen Klopp raiding Borussia Dortmund would not be that surprising, but going after players of their rivals Schalke would be interesting to say the least.
The Daily Express report that Liverpool are interested in signing central defender Joel Matip, who would be available on a free transfer next summer. That leaves Liverpool able to sort out a deal from January onwards.
In addition, the Daily Mail say that Klopp would also like to sign Leroy Sane. Wouldn’t we all? Sane is the Bundesliga’s Next Big Thing. Liverpool would be joined by every other big club in Europe in an attempt to prise him away from Germany.
ARSENAL EYE XHAKA
Granit Xhaka isn’t quite the defensive midfielder we had in mind for Arsenal, but he is at least a central midfielder. That’s something. Plus he has a rock hard name.
The Daily Mail believe that Arsenal have been scouting Xhaka ahead of a possible move in January, keeping tabs on him during Borussia Monchengladbach’s Champions League matches against Manchester City.
We’ll say what we normally say here: Big clubs are scouting hundreds of players at a time. It’s not really massive news that they would watch an exciting 23-year-old international in a key position.
AND THE REST
Manchester United are ready to offer Bayern Munich striker Robert Lewandowski £10.9m a year…Liverpool are again considering a move for Basel striker Breel Embolo…Chelsea are likely to bid for Southampton striker Graziano Pelle, 30, in the January transfer window…Tottenham will have to put any move for Marseille’s Belgium striker Michy Batshuayi, 22, on hold until next summer at the earliest…Chelsea captain John Terry, 35, fears he might not be given a new contract.