A round-up of the biggest new Premier League transfer rumours - with news from Man Utd, Arsenal, Aston Villa and more.
Trying to keep up with every single Premier League transfer rumour that does the rounds is nigh on impossible these days – but we’re here with our daily round-up of the biggest new stories to make it all a little easier.
Today, we’ll start with a story for Manchester United fans. According to GiveMeSport, the club are “keeping close tabs” on 25-year-old Algeria international Hicham Boudaoui, who currently players for United’s sister club Nice.
Apparently United sent scouts to watch him just last week when he was on national duty in a friendly against Sweden, and Boudaoui is increasingly expected to move on from Nice with interest from several teams in England, Germany and Spain.
Apparently the box-to-box midfielder is valued by Nice at £20m, although given that both they and United are owned by Ineos it’s hard to imagine that negotiations would be particularly convoluted. United are said to be “desperate” to sign a player with his physical and technical profile.
The 3AM Verdict: Whether United are sincerely interested in Boudaoui or not, he’s the type of player they need to make Ruben Amorim’s two-man midfield work – an all-rounder who can defender, carry the ball and who can cover a ton of ground. One word of warning in terms of reliability: When we tried to track this story back and see where it started, we found that one of the early reports came from The Sun. That’s not always a glowing reference.
Arsenal & Aston Villa eye shock move from Premier League champion
Over to an eyebrow-raiser from Caught Offside, now – they claim that both Arsenal and Aston Villa have “made checks on the availability” of Saudi Pro League player and former Premier League champion Aymeric Laporte.
The ex-Manchester City centre-back is apparently “attracting interest” from a few European teams, with Inter Milan, Napoli, Marseille and another old club, Athletic Club, all mentioned as a move away from Al-Nassr starts to look like a real possibility.
No formal offers have been made yet and there are no immediate signs that Laporte is planning to take a leaf out of Jordan Henderson’s book and force his way out of Saudi Arabia, but apparently the asking price would be in the region of €20-25m (£17-20m).
The 3AM Verdict: Frankly, we have no idea whether Laporte has still got it, but that’s not a hugely excessive price tag if he does. Arsenal’s interest is more surprising than Villa’s given that the Gunners seem dead set onsigning Jorrel Hato, but we suspect that this is one of those situations where a lot of clubs are keeping tabs without having Laporte at the top of their list. A slow burner, maybe.
AC Milan eye Arsenal & Tottenham stars
Finally, a story from Sport Witness about two players who could leave the Premier League – although only one of them is likely to do so. AC Milan are looking for a new left-back and have found two targets, both of them from North London.
The first is Tottenham Hotspur’s Destiny Udogie, although the article remarks that signing the young Italian international for a fee of less than €30m (£25.7m) – Milan’s budget for the position, apparently - seems “laughable” and “very unlikely indeed.”
Rather more plausible, then, is a bit for their second target – Arsenal’s Oleksandr Zinchenko, whose role has diminished over the course of the last year or so. There’s no suggestion that negotiations have opened up, but if Milan do make a move it certainly looks like a rather more likely transfer for them to get done.
The 3AM Verdict: Udogie would cost about double what Milan are allegedly willing to pay, so we can rule that out unless they find a lot more change down the back of the sofa. Arsenal, we suspect, would be happy enough to sell Zinchenko for a more reasonable fee, so that could be one to watch.
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