Arsenal and Man Utd targets in 10 World Cup stars set to earn massive transfers
At one point we weren’t sure it would ever actually be over, but the World Cup is now definitely over. We’ve checked and double-checked LiveScore and there definitely aren’t any more games.
No more World Cup. What the f*ck?
Gianni, here’s an idea for you. Won’t even charge you for it: fifth-to-eighth-place play-offs. Bump up that fixture count now that everyone loves your rebadged Bronze Final. Do ninth-to-16th while you’re at it. How about 33rd to 48th? No? Come on. It would let Scotland play a knockout match… You’re not bothered about Scotland? Fair enough. They’ll always have Haiti.
At least there’s some good news, though. With the World Cup over, everyone can focus on what summer football should really be about. Transfer rumours and nonsense. That’s what the people want. Not football.
We’re not joking, by the way. We can see the numbers. You jokers love transfer nonsense far more than you love football. Own it.
So in that spirit, here are 10 players from the World Cup who should have helped themselves get a nice fat move.
Ayyoub Bouaddi (Lille and Morocco)
It’s a question of where not if for the 18-year-old phenomenon who started the tournament bossing Brazil’s midfield and hardly looked back during another deep tournament run for Morocco that only ended at the hands of France in the quarter-final.
The teenager has already made one significant switch this year, having played all his international age-group football for France and only being rubberstamped by FIFA to play for Morocco as late as May.
His next move is likely to be just as dramatic, with current suitors for the Lille midfielder including such no-marks as Arsenal, both Manchester clubs, Liverpool and Paris Saint-Germain.
He made his debut for Lille just three days after turning 16 and broke Eden Hazard’s record to become the youngest player to reach 50 games for Les Dogues. That total now stands at 96 games in all competitions, but is now very unlikely to reach 100. At least not until he returns to the club as an old man with a pocket full of silver.
Manu Kone (Roma and France)
An expert bit of right place, right time work from a notable World Cup breakout star. It’s easier, in lots of ways, to be a complete unknown from a smaller nation for that kind of thing but all the more impressive from someone who’s already playing for Roma and France.
More of a suspicions-confirming breakout than a ‘who the f*ck is this guy?’ situation, and all the better for that.
Having arrived in North America as back up to Adrien Rabiot and Aurelien Tchouameni in a Camavinga-less squad, Kone could very reasonably be said to have outperformed both when he played. Something France will ponder in their tournament post-mortems will be how different that semi-final might have turned out had he been handed the starting place he absolutely deserved. A lot of that thought is as much down to just how disappointing Rabiot was on the night, but Kone had been so impressive and looked the part again when finally called upon at half-time.
He’s also a combative midfielder afraid of neither a tackle or a pass, and all of those are apparently worth £100m this summer, so that’s handy for him and indeed Roma.
Kone, as is also now accepted custom for all such players this summer, must now go through the lengthy but necessary process of being Man United’s top number one target they definitely wanted in there all along before he eventually signs for someone else and they move on to their next top number one target they definitely wanted in there all along.
READ: The mistake Man Utd could make with Manu Kone as their missing midfield piece
Djed Spence (Tottenham and England)
You know he had a good tournament because we’ve now moved beyond ‘F*cking hell, is Djed Spence actually quite good?’ to contrarians now having to go entirely the other way and insist he in fact didn’t have a good tournament at all actually.
He was England’s most reliable defender, which Spurs fans did try to tell people who were entirely bamboozled by his self-confidence and image into thinking he didn’t actually bother with that stuff.
What Spurs fans wouldn’t have told you to expect were the eight nutmegs and surging forward runs.
Despite Thomas Tuchel successfully coaching some attacking instinct into him via the simple act of bellowing at him non-stop whenever he was on the pitch, it does still seem like he’s surplus to requirements at this Brave New Tottenham where everything is possible and nothing is as it seems.
Even while having the tournament of his life, he was still only the second-best Tottenham right-back in North America this summer, and now also finds himself probably third choice on the left for Spurs.
Logically, his price should have gone up considerably, but with Spurs’ transfer policy now appearing to be built around simply paying or accepting the first number the other side thinks of, he’ll probably still go to Everton for £30m. Which will seem like an absurd bargain at the time and a ludicrous overpayment by May.
Andreas Schjelderup (Benfica and Norway)
Interesting job being one of the other players in that Norway team. It really is very hard to get noticed when you’re in Erling Haaland’s orbit, but you also know he is elevating you to levels you could not get near without him.
One player who absolutely did manage to take a tiny sliver of the spotlight was Benfica winger Schjelderup. There was a distinct whiff of the fluke around his goal against England in the quarter-final, but it was only the latest and most dramatic contribution from a player whose pair of assists against Brazil – especially the delicious cross from which Haaland mogged Gabriel for the all-important opener – were of huge value.
Had another assist in the forgotten group game against France, and with two years left on his Benfica contract is sure now to be catching attention from the larger European leagues.
Orlando Gill (San Lorenzo and Paraguay)
Perhaps the single biggest winner from the whole tournament in terms of securing his future. His rise to the status of Paraguay’s number one having not even been first choice for his club until relatively recently was already extraordinary, but across Paraguay’s knockout games against Germany and France he arguably did enough to put himself in serious team of the tournament consideration with a string of saves, punches and penalty shoot-out heroics.
A man who was as recently as 2024 thinking about giving up his dream of making it as a professional is now a bona-fide World Cup cult hero and could even next be found warming a Premier League bench near you with Manchester United the most ostentatious name mentioned among a slew of potential admirers from Our League.
We would adore to see it.
Cristian Romero (Tottenham and Argentina)
There have always been two Cristian Romeros: Argentina Romero and Tottenham Romero. Argentina Romero is a fully committed, often unstoppable and unbeatable force of nature. Tottenham Romero is a liability who gets himself needlessly sent off within three or four games of returning from his last suspension for getting needlessly sent off.
Occasionally, such as on the 24/25 Europa League run, when the familiar scent of potential glory fills his nostrils, Spurs get a brief glimpse of the Argentina version. But it doesn’t last.
A year after signing a new contract and being made captain, Spurs have signed two centre-backs to replace him and are now as keen to sell him as he is to leave. Now is their one chance, in the immediate aftermath of the World Cup, to get anything like the money you’d assume they’d want for him.
Because another thing about Argentina Romero is that he is surrounded by so many genuinely unhinged psychopaths in that team he looks almost normal. Think of all the mad sh*t Argentina have been up to in this tournament. Now think of Romero’s part in it. Yeah. Doesn’t fit the narrative, does it?
Even allowing for ArGeNtInA aRe ReFfEd DiFfErNtLy tinfoilery, Romero walking away from the World Cup with one yellow card in eight games is impossible to square with what we’ve all seen from him in the Premier League.
Spurs must cash in on this brief moment when he’s been surrounded by players even crazier than he is.
The problem they have is that it’s still going to be very hard to get any big Premier League interest in such a known loose cannon, who can’t undo an entire hard-earned reputation for insanity with one six-week period of being the calm at the eye of a ludicrous storm.
So if Spurs are going to get a price for him they’re almost certainly relying on Europoors from Italy or Spain coppering up. Unless Manchester United really do get involved, which would be absolutely worth it just to see Gary Neville try to cope with having to watch the best worst central-defensive partnership every week.
Or at least the weeks both Romero and Lisandro Martinez are available. Which will probably only be about 10 times all season. But still enough to send Neville’s head to Mars.
Falorin Balogun (Monaco and USA)
A conspicuous victim of the known and established fact that everything the Tangerine Toddler touches turns to absolute sh*t, but it really would be a crying shame if Balogun’s – and indeed the USA’s in general – whole tournament is allowed to be defined by the farce of his suspended suspension.
Perhaps the inevitable sight of Trump believing himself to be part of the Spanish celebrations, just as he had considered himself a Chelseaman at the Club World Cup, will become the defining example of the US president’s narcissistic absurdity. That would be better, especially if it allows Balogun to capitalise on what was, until his foolish tackle and the utter insanity that followed, a breakthrough tournament for the former Arsenal youngling.
Played with the weight of his world upon his shoulders in the Belgium game, to the extent that one could even, if one were so inclined, make waspish remarks about the classy touch of self-suspending himself from that game.
But before an incident controversial enough to get its own Wikipedia page, he’d scored twice in a thrilling opening win against a Paraguay side who were about to show that was no mean feat, and was named man of the match against Australia in another eye-catching US win.
Scored again in the last 32 against Bosnia before everything went silly. But behind all the nonsense there is one clear and obvious fact: there’s a player there.
Crysencio Summerville (West Ham and Netherlands)
We feel a bit sorry for the Netherlands. Kind of ended up a forgotten footnote to that World Cup after getting the most brutal of draws.
They were in what proved to be the toughest first-round group alongside Japan and Sweden, but also one that had the most harrowing knockout paths no matter where you finished. Netherlands, Japan and Sweden all progressed from that teak-tough group, and their rewards for doing so were last-32 games against Morocco, Brazil and France that they would all go on to lose.
Just seems harsh that, really, when you look at pretty much any other group or knockout path. Netherlands can point with some fairness to having one of the most difficult groups to win, and the worst ‘reward’ for doing so by then running immediately into 2022 semi-finalists Morocco, who would then beat them on penalties after scoring an injury-time equaliser.
But while it does now all seem a very long time ago – ‘Whoooo remembers the last 32? Eh? What was all that about? Look at his face, he’s too young to remember the last 32’ etc. – one significant eye-catcher for the Netherlands was Summerville.
Fresh off a second relegation in four years and only just now establishing himself for his national team, Summerville scored in a high-quality 2-2 draw with Japan before scoring and assisting in the high point of the Dutch campaign as Sweden were thrashed. Another assist against Morocco would be in vain as far as the tournament itself was concerned, but might get West Ham a few more quid at least.
Spurs were linked last season, Manchester United have been linked this summer because they’ve been linked with absolutely everyone, but it now appears all roads lead to Roma for the winger.
John Stones (Free Agent and England)
Bit of a cheat this one because he was always definitely moving somewhere, his Man City contract expiring midway through the World Cup.
But it does feel like where that move might be is a slightly different question now than it would have been six weeks ago, having shown in North America that he can still mix it with the best and isn’t necessarily washed.
Has been pretty strongly linked with Arsenal now they need someone to step into William Saliba’s sizeable shoes, and as a short-term quick fix that does seem like it could work for absolutely everybody. Arsenal certainly aren’t going to get anyone else on a free transfer with Stones’ experience of Premier League title races, that’s for sure.
There’s also been reported interest from various big Italian clubs, which feels very correct with Italy in many ways the natural home in many ways for cultured but ageing elite centre-backs.
Zion Suzuki (Parma and Japan)
Despite another disappointingly early exit for Japan, Suzuki certainly caught plenty of attention and made arguably the save of the tournament to deny Vinicius Jr in the last-32 defeat against Brazil.
Plenty of Premier League interest now being suggested, with Leeds and Newcastle particularly keen for a keeper who, were it not for Gill’s heroics for Paraguay, would have surely been a shoo-in in every Team of the Tournament that didn’t want to go for the excruciatingly boring option of just picking the largely untested and unrequired Unai Simon.
