Semenyo makes Liverpool decision as Bournemouth eye replacement while Man Utd target legendary defenderplaceholder image
Semenyo makes Liverpool decision as Bournemouth eye replacement while Man Utd target legendary defender | Getty Images
The latest Premier League transfer rumours - with news from Liverpool, Bournemouth, Manchester United, Crystal Palace and more.
Another 24 hours of transfer stories have made their way around the gossip columns – and to help you stay up to date, we’ve collected some of the juiciest new Premier League transfer rumours together in our latest daily round-up.
Today, we start with a story which suggests that Bournemouth’s Antoine Semenyo has decided where he wants to go next – and has made Liverpool his “preferred destination,” according to TeamTalk, despite “strong interest” from Manchester City, Manchester United and Tottenham Hotspur.
There is said to be a “real chance” that his £65m January release clause is triggered by one or more of his suitors, and the Reds are said to be his preferred landing spot if he gets the choice next month. Bournemouth want to keep Semenyo, it’s said, but may not have much say in the matter.
Should he leave, then the Cherries already have a replacement in mind – they’re said to have been scouting Ipswich Town’s Jaden Philogene, although there may be other names on their shortlist. There’s no word on how much Philogene might cost, and very little detail beyond the name being dropped.
The 3AM Verdict: Apparently Semenyo would be open to joining the other interested teams but Liverpool is said to be first choice – but we’re trusting TeamTalk’s unnamed source on this one, and no hard evidence is presented. Likewise, the mention of Philogene seems more speculative than anything else, although he may well be one of Bournemouth’s options.
Manchester United ‘make offer’ for Spanish legend
Let’s look at a surprising story from Spain next – according to radio station Cadena Ser (whose report is put into print by Fichajes, among other outlets), Manchester United have “made an offer” to bring 39-year-old centre-back Sergio Ramos to the club in the new year.
The veteran defender is coming to the end of a contract with Monterrey in Mexico and remains “eager to compete” and find a new team, and United are even said to have emerged as the “strongest option,” although little evidence for that is offered.
The picture gets muddier the deeper we delve into this report. Having stated that an offer was made, the article then suggests that only “initial talks” have taken place and that a firm contract offer “may not materialise.” Either way, Ramos should apparently make his decision “in the coming weeks.”
The 3AM Verdict: We haven’t got access to the original radio report from Cadena Ser to get any real idea of how plausible it is, but having looked at the way it’s being reported by a few different sites in Spain, it doesn’t seem as if there’s much coherent detail. At most, we suspect that United have checked in to do a little fact finding, and we doubt a firm offer has been made – which doesn’t mean that it won’t happen, just that a bit of scepticism is probably justified for now.
Crystal Palace target Marc Guéhi replacement
Let’s wrap up with a story from Sport Witness which looks at reports from Italy suggesting that Crystal Palace may have identified their replacement for the outgoing Marc Guéhi – Atalanta’s 24-year-old Odilon Kossounou.
Apparently Oliver Glasner’s side could make “a formal approach in the next few weeks” although the player’s current club have it “clear” that Kossounou is not for sale in January. It’s said that it would take an “indecent” offer to get Atalanta to let him leave before the end of the current campaign.
Palace would perhaps be happy to wait until the summer anyway, it’s speculated, when they’re likely to lose Guéhi on a free transfer. There’s no guess as to how much Atalanta would demand for Kossounou, but he cost them €20m (£17.5m) when he signed from Bayer Leverkusen earlier this year, so presumably a fair bit more than that.
The 3AM Verdict: The original source for the story seems to be one of the Italian club-specific gossip sites which tend to have a pretty patchy track record, not that we can claim to be too familiar with TuttoAtalanta’s work. Kossounou does at least seem like Palace’s type – strong, comfortable on the ball, and blessed with good positional judgement – so we wouldn’t rule this rumour out of being true.
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