Rashford, Saka, Haaland next? Kylian Mbappe bid (not transfer) causes minds to be utterly lost

Kylian Mbappe is the subject of a massive Saudi Arabia bid which is the subject of much hand-wringing despite it meaning basically nothing…

First the worst
It’s the middle of summer, transfer nonsense is flying, the living is easy…so there really is no need for the Mirror to indulge themselves in one of the worst pieces of clickbait Mediawatch has ever seen. And we have seen some egregious shite.

Premier League introduce 26-team division for 2023-24 and end of season knockout matches

We absolutely knew it could not possibly be true and yet we had to click; we had no choice.

The Premier League have announced a radical change to top tier youth football in England, with Premier League 2 expanded into one 26-team league for the forthcoming season.

It’s an absolute c***’s trick.

A quickfire run through some absolute bull
After that, any other forms of clickbait seem a little tame. On the Mirror Sport homepage alone we have…

Mikel Arteta appears to make Arsenal U-turn despite “phenomenal” Sir Alex Ferguson claim

That’s Mikel Arteta being open to selling a player who started six Premier League games last season despite Sir Alex Ferguson rating him highly two years ago.

Man Utd move on from Erik ten Hag’s ideal transfer target with alternative arrangement

That’s Manchester United sticking with first-choice right-back Aaron Wan-Bissaka, thus not ‘moving on’ at all.

Erik ten Hag makes brutally honest admission in private chat with forgotten Man Utd star

That’s Ten Hag telling Facundro Pellistri – who played an hour of Premier League football last season – that he will go out on loan. And what what his reaction to that ‘brutally honest admission’? “I am happy with that way because we are all in the same position.” Ouch.

They’re coming for YOU next
Elsewhere, the Kylian Mbappe news has sent the world spinning on its axis, though Mediawatch cannot help but think that a rather key fact is missing from a lot of the bombastic coverage: Mbappe has not actually agreed to join Al-Hilal.

Reports suggest that the Frenchman absolutely does not want to go Saudi Arabia and would rather sit on the PSG bench, but why let that get in the way of some vigorous hand-wringing?

DOMINIC KING: Kylian Mbappe pursuit will strike fear into every club in Europe as Al-Hilal’s £259m bid proves no player is out of reach

Nice to see that King has finally moved on from pretending Jordan Henderson might not go to Saudi Arabia after a ‘tumultuous’ fortnight.

Sorry but a ‘bid’ proves absolutely nothing. Anybody with ludicrous money can make a ludicrous bid and that ludicrous bid will obviously be accepted.

‘No player is out of reach’? Apart from Lionel Messi, Bruno Fernandes, Son Heung-Min, Romelu Lukaku, Luka Modric, Wilfried Zaha and all the dozens of other footballers who have already said no to Saudi Arabia.

It was just before 11am when the news came through, confirming that football’s landscape was about to change forever.

Al-Hilal, the team that finished third last season in the Saudi Pro League, had tabled a £259million bid with Paris Saint-Germain for Kylian Mbappe.

This was no stunt, no hopeless pipe dream. The best player in the world, one of only two men to score a hat-trick in a World Cup final, was in their sights and, by 5pm, Al-Hilal had permission to discuss his transfer.

The only surprise was that the permission took that long. PSG would love that money and would probably have accepted a hell of a lot less. Which is exactly why it feels like a ‘stunt’.

Saudi Arabian clubs have provided a headache for European clubs this summer as they look to improve the status of their domestic competition, but this was the moment that will have left every chief executive at every club on this continent fretting about the ramifications.

On these pages two weeks ago, the argument was made that Al-Ettifaq’s pursuit of Liverpool captain Jordan Henderson showed no player was off the table for Saudi teams but this development takes things to an entirely different level.

The full list of every player taken from the Premier League this summer for a fee by Saudi Arabian clubs: Kalidou Koulibaly, Ruben Neves, Edouard Mendy and Alex Telles. That’s it. That’s all. And you want us to believe that ‘no player is off the table’. Four players, three of whom were entirely unwanted by their clubs.

Clearly, relations between Mbappe and PSG have disintegrated but to give up on Europe, even if it is for a year before he ends up at Real Madrid, would show the power that is coming from the Gulf. If these people want something, chances are they will get it.

Apart from all the players who have said no. Anybody else starting to suspect that this whole piece is to somehow justify the decision of Henderson? What could he do? If ‘these people’ want something…

How many clubs in Europe would have wanted to sign Mbappe? Jurgen Klopp, for example, has spoken sweetly of him since his days at Monaco and even tried to convince him to move to Anfield in 2017. He was asked again about Mbappe late last season and laughed about the reality because the figures were stratospheric.

They aren’t out of reach in Riyadh, though. Nobody is. What is to stop one of the Saudi clubs going all out to land Erling Haaland? Or Bukayo Saka? Or Marcus Rashford? Suddenly, all those who were untouchable, out of reach on the top shelf, are very much within their grasp.

Will all due respect…are they f***.

Mbappe is in a curious situation that has resulted in a stand-off with PSG and given Al-Hilal some hope, but Haaland? Saka? Rashford? No, no and no. Absolute bollocks. Catastrophising to the highest degree.

To repeat, the full list of every player taken from the Premier League this summer for a fee by Saudi Arabian clubs: Kalidou Koulibaly, Ruben Neves, Edouard Mendy and Alex Telles. Even with Henderson and Fabinho likely to follow, that is a list of ageing bit-part players and Ruben Neves.

Over in The Sun, Charlie Wyett has a new favourite phrase and that new favourite phrase is ‘game changer’.

Saudi side Al-Hilal’s £259m world-record bid for Paris Saint-Germain star Kylian Mbappe is a game changer in terms of a transfer fee.

Only if it leads to an actual transfer.

Another game changer is ex-Aston Villa boss Steven Gerrard — unlikely to get another Premier League job soon — landing £15m a year to take charge of Al-Ettifaq.

That raised the bar, meaning Fulham’s Marco Silva was offered £40m over two years to boss Al-Ahli.

Which he turned down, suggesting that most managers who actually have a Premier League future will do the same.

A player like N’Golo Kante getting wages of £86m a year is another game changer.

He is a brilliant midfielder but, as the Frenchman has always admitted, he lives a modest life, summed up by the fact he used to drive to Chelsea’s training ground in a Mini.

So the fact his agent was able to drive up his annual wage to a staggering amount because of the player’s ‘image rights’ was not only taking the pee, but has now also increased the potential earnings of other footballers who might not have the biggest of profiles.

The idea that Kante does ‘not have the biggest of profiles’ is amusing but also, the Frenchman is exactly the kind of signing the Saudi league was always going to make: 32, practising Muslim, career on the wane. That’s not a ‘game changer’; potentially that was Neves, who is largely ignored in all these scare stories even though he is one of the very few at-peak players to make the move.

He at least proved that no player with just a year left on his contract and Jorge Mendes as an agent is out of reach.

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