Watch more of our videos on ShotsTV.com
and on Freeview 262 or Freely 565
Visit Shots! now
We round up the latest Premier League transfer rumours, with news from Liverpool, Chelsea, Bournemouth and West Ham.
As spring finally gets itself sprung, clubs up and down the country and starting to ramp up their recruitment work in readiness for the summer transfer window – and to help you keep track of the biggest deals, we’re here with our daily round-up of all the most exciting new Premier League transfer rumours.
We’re starting at Anfield today, with a story from TBR Football which suggests that Liverpool are “ready to start negotiations” on a deal expected to set them back a hefty £50m – and it’s a transfer that “all parties expect agreement to be reached” on.
The other parties involved are Bournemouth and their hugely talented Hungarian left-back Milos Kerkez, who has been routinely linked with the Reds over the past couple of months when he isn’t busy battling for top spot in 3 Added Minutes’ weekly Wonderkid Power Rankings.
According to TBR Football’s report, Liverpool also considered Jorrel Hato, Antonee Robinson and Rayan Aït-Nouri as long-term replacements for Andrew Robertson, but they’ve settled on the young and increasingly impressive Kerkez. Bournemouth, for their part, are “ready” to let him leave for a tidy £35m profit, although Liverpool want to drag the price down to £40m if they can.
The 3AM Verdict: This isn’t a new rumour, by any means, but it sounds as if it’s advancing at pace now that Liverpool have considered their options. Bournemouth seem happy to make a profit, Liverpool seem to have settled on Kerkez as their left-back of the future, and unless this report is well wide of the target we suspect this is a deal that will get done.
Chelsea ready massive £58.5m bid for Barcelona man
Let’s head over to Stamford Bridge now, always a good place to find a spicy transfer rumour – and they deliver once again, at least if Caught Offside have their facts straight when they claim that the Blues are “preparing” to bid as much as €70m (£58.5m) for 26-year-old France international Jules Koundé.
Caught Offside note that Koundé has also been linked with Arsenal after flourishing a right-back role. Enzo Maresca appears to see Reece James’ future as a midfielder, with Koundé coming in to fill the gap on the right. One note of caution is that a primary source for the alleged transfer fee is the frankly unreliable Spanish media outlet Fichajes, so take the details with a pinch of salt for now.
Elsewhere, Sport Witness claim that a string of teams are interested in Chelsea youngster Andrey Santos, who has been impressive on loan at RC Strasbourg this season. A host of continental teams, including both Milan sides, AS Roma, Napoli, Atlético Madrid and PSG are said to be interested in a deal which could reach €40m (£33.5m) – but Chelsea are minded to “include the 20-year-old in their plans next season” regardless of the potential profit.
The 3AM Verdict: We’re a little sceptical of the Koundé rumour, less because it’s implausible than because we’re seeing Chelsea connected with a host of defenders and this could be rumourmongers sticking another pin into the map in the hope of getting it right. We’ll give that a cautious ‘perhaps’ for now. We also suspect, given Chelsea’s finances, that they would sell Santos of a decent offer did indeed arrive. A profit is something they could do with.
West Ham linked with Serie A star
For our final rumour of the day, we’re off to the other side of the Big Smoke – Sport Witness have this report, too, which claims that West Ham United could be interested in Udinese defender Oumar Solet.
The 25-year-old only moved to Udine a few months ago after leaving RB Salzburg, but has been on fine form in Serie A and has seen his valuation go “from €0m to €30m” – that’s £25m to us Brits – in double-quick time. There have also been “suggestions of contact being made by Manchester United”, apparently, so the Hammers (who supposedly looked at centre-back Solet when he was a free agent) may not have everything their own way.
The 3AM Verdict: We didsee stories suggesting that West Ham wanted Solet last summer, so this is certainly quite plausible, but it’s equally possible that the Italian media (the original source) are just regurgitating an old story here. We’ll see if the smoke keeps coming before we agree that there’s a fire. Manchester United’s name came up at the same time, too.