Transfer gossip: City ‘willing’ to pay £60m for Premier League star; Spurs in for Newcastle target
The transfer window is two days old and clubs are monitoring, tracking, interested and keeping tabs like their lives depend on it.
City ‘willing’ to bite the bullet
Kalvin Phillips is liked by pretty much every top Premier League team, but it would seem that Manchester City are more than happy to meet Leeds’ valuation of the England midfielder.
The 26-year-old quickly went from ‘Liverpool target’ to ‘Manchester United target’ to ‘Manchester City target’, and the latter appears to have stuck, especially after Fernandinho confirmed he would be leaving City at the end of the season. Leeds have slapped a £60m valuation on Phillips and the Premier League champions are more than happy to oblige, as per the Daily Mail, who say Pep Guardiola’s side will pay what Leeds want to land one of their top targets.
City are not messing around this summer having already sanctioned deals for Erling Haaland and Julian Alvarez. If they get Phillips through the door they will no doubt turn their attention to a new left-back due to the fact they don’t have a first-team player whose natural position is on the left side of defence. Marc Cucurella has been heavily linked and the Brighton man would be a decent signing, although he is very much a box-to-box, marauding down the wing, type player, as opposed to Joao Cancelo and Oleksandr Zinchenko, who both like to slot into a central midfield position during games.
Lucas Traqueta
A player who seems destined to move to England is Lyon playmaker Lucas Paqueta. A transfer to Newcastle seems to make a lot of sense, and given his bromance with Bruno Guimaraes, Toon fans are literally foaming at the mouth over the prospect of the Brazilians reuniting in the north east.
Unfortunately for the Magpies, Tottenham are believed to be ‘tracking’ the 24-year-old, who can operate on either flank, as an attacking midfielder or in centre-forward. This is according to Football London, who give us a nice lowdown on who the north Londoners are looking at.
When you play with your best friend 🇧🇷❤️! Love uu my bro pic.twitter.com/TXNjuJLCUr
— Bruno Guimarães (@brunoog97) June 7, 2022
Antonio Conte appears to have the freedom to bring in his targets this summer, something no other Spurs boss has really been given the right to do. They are believed to be in ‘advanced talks’ with Djed Spence, a perfect right-wing-back, and have also brought in Ivan Perisic.
Other targets are Villarreal’s Pau Torres, Inter Milan’s Alessandro Bastoni, Leipzig’s Josko Gvardiol, Crystal Palace’s Marc Guehi, Juventus’ Weston McKennie, Southampton’s James Ward-Prowse, Leicester’s James Maddison and Man City’s Gabriel Jesus. If they get their top, or even second-choice target, in each position Conte that wants to improve, Spurs could be a force to be reckoned with next season…
Arsenal want Raphinha, but, priorities…
Arsenal’s name gets thrown around like there’s no tomorrow when it comes to the transfer window. Having said that, two names that have stuck are Gabriel Jesus and Youri Tielemans. The Premier League pair are the Gunners’ top targets this summer, with Mikel Arteta identifying centre-midfield and centre-forward as two positions he desperately needs to address in the this summer.
Despite having interest in a lot of players, it always comes back to Jesus and Tielemans; for example, Fabrizio Romano responded to the club’s apparent desire to sign Raphinha, confirming that there is ‘genuine interest’ on Arsenal’s side, however, ‘there is no bid or negotiation’ with Leeds, who are stubborn with their €55m valuation of the Brazilian winger.
Chelsea interest in Sterling and Jesus doesn’t mean they’re settling for third place
Meanwhile, Arteta is monitoring Zinchenko, but he is ‘not a priority’, another one is Sassuolo striker Gianluca Scamacca, who the Spaniard likes, but Jesus is the guy the Gunners boss really wants.
Thankfully for fans of the north London side, there is a lot of talk that Arsenal are ‘confident’ they will land Jesus and Tielemans, but are, naturally, eyeing up alternative transfer options.
