Having been left out of Manchester City’s Club World Cup squad entirely, Jack Grealish is badly in need of an Italian renaissance. Having rescued one Briton from Manchester last summer in the form of Scott McTominay, Napoli could repeat the trick this year. Grealish’s wages are a sticking point – the 29-year-old earns close to £300,000 a week at City following his £100m move to the Etihad in 2021 and would need to take a drastic pay cut if a permanent deal with Napoli is to be arranged. A loan deal is more likely, with City continuing to pay a portion of Grealish’s wages, unless Napoli opt for another adopted Mancunian entirely, United’s Alejandro Garnacho, who has also been linked with Spurs. Both the Argentinian and Grealish are thought to be available for around £40m.
“That’s the dream, to play for Arsenal one day,” Ollie Watkins said in 2020, and the Aston Villa could yet get his wish, with the Gunners unsure over the €80m (£68m) price tag for Viktor Gyökeres and uncertain they can convince Benjamin Sesko to make the move to north London. With Villa missing out on Champions League qualification, Watkins could be a more feasible option.
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Apparently Bournemouth’s reward for overachieving last season is that now, every elite club wants to sign their best players. Much of the attention for the Cherries has been on overcoming the departure of Dean Huijsen to Real Madrid and the potential transfers of Milos Kerkez to Liverpool in a deal thought to be worth £50m and Kepa Arrizabalaga to Arsenal. The Mill has dived deep into the internet and found that Kerkez’s brother has shared an Instagram post of the left-back saying: “Soon to be Liverpool player.”
To make matters worse for Bournemouth, the interest from PSG in Ilya Zabarnyi won’t go away and while life on the south coast is probably a fine thing, life with the European champions on a far greater wage is arguably preferable, if you don’t mind the whole Ligue 1 procession and Qatari money thing.
Having signed Leroy Sané last week, Galatasaray are in the market for another German in Marc-André ter Stegen. The imminent arrival of Espanyol’s Joan García could dump Ter Stegen on the scrapheap at Barça but he is reportedly unsure of a move to Turkey.
A player that has just won the Süper Lig title with Gala is Victor Osimhen, who is returning to parent club Napoli after a successful loan spell last season. Osimhen wants a permanent move to another European giant but could yet end up in Saudi Arabia, Al-Hilal having returned with an improved bid for the Nigerian – the astounding salary on offer is thought to be close to £43m a year.
Like an ex all up in your DMs, Nicolas Kühn’s former club, RB Leipzig, want to re-sign the German winger from Celtic. Kühn spent three years with Leipzig at academy level, where he impressed enough as a teenager that Ajax spent €2m on him, and has continued that way in Glasgow, scheming and scuttling on the right wing to help Celtic to domestic glory and a decent run to the Champions League league phase playoffs. They are expected to demand around £15m for the 25-year-old, around five times what they paid for Kühn in January 2024.
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