Paper Talk
Pep Guardiola has been told money is no object at Manchester City and will target Lionel Messi, Paul Pogba, David Alaba and Gerard Pique when he takes charge.
Real Madrid must fight off interest from Manchester United, Chelsea, Bayern Munich and PSG to keep Gareth Bale.
Eden Hazard will not commit his future to Chelsea until the next manager is chosen.
Juventus and Roma have joined AC Milan is a three-way Italian battle to sign Manchester United midfielder Marouane Fellaini.
Manchester City could move for Sheffield United youngster Che Adams this month.
Bournemouth have been linked with a stunning bid for AC Milan forward Stephan El Shaarawy.
In-form Watford striker Odion Ighalo - who has netted 14 goals so far this season - insists he would only leave the Hornets to join Manchester United.
Marseille striker Michy Batshuayi, 22 - a reported target for Spurs and Newcastle - has signed a new two-year deal with the French club.
Arsenal's German winger Serge Gnabry, 20, is set to join Sky Bet Championship side Brighton on loan for the rest of the season.
Sheffield Wednesday will have to fork out £3.5m if they want to sign Norwich City striker Gary Hooper on a permanent deal.
Blackpool are set to sign 24-year-old striker Danny Philliskirk from Sky Bet League 1 neighbours Oldham Athletic for a six-figure fee.
Marouane Fellaini could yet leave Old Trafford for Italy this month, but only if Milan, Juventus or Roma want a permanent deal.
United will not challenge Manchester City for Pep Guardiola in the summer.
Jurgen Klopp is in talks with former club Borussia Dortmund over a loan deal for defender Neven Subotic, while Inter Milann centre-half Andrea Ranocchia is also being watched.
Arsenal right-back Mathieu Debuchy is in talks with Roma over a January move.
Norwich have put a £15m price tag on Nathan Redmond as Crystal Palace monitor the winger.
Swansea want to take Chelsea's Scotland U21 international striker Islam Feruz on loan.
Middlesbrough are lining up a move for Reading midfielder Danny Williams.
Sky Bet League 2 side Luton Town are set to name Brighton coach Nathan Jones as their new manager.
Notts County's former Leeds and Manchester United striker Alan Smith - who is out of contract in the summer - is in talks to join Plymouth.
Chelsea are refusing to give up hope of making Pep Guardiola their new manager.
Spurs want to tie down England midfielder Dele Alli, 19, to a new double-your-money deal.
Liverpool and Leicester are both tracking 21-year-old Standard Liege goalkeeper Guillaume Hubert,
Meanwhile, Reds midfielder Adam Lallana insists the club's hamstring injury crisis is not down to manager Jurgen Klopp's training regime.
Aston Villa boss Remi Garde could return to former club Lyon to sign 27-year-old striker Claudio Beauvue, who is on the transfer list.
Hull City boss Steve Bruce has told French side Marseille that they have no chance of signing Ahmed Elmohamady in this month's transfer window.
Reading wants Gillingham forward Bradley Dack to replace Derby-bound Nick Blackman.
Portsmouth and Scunthorpe are battling for the signature of out-of-favour Swindon striker Michael Smith.
Eden Hazard has made up his mind to leave Chelsea in the summer, with PSG, Bayern Munich and Real Madrid all in for his signature.
Manchester United sounded out Carlo Ancelotti about taking charge next summer before the Italian's move to Bayern Munich was confirmed.
Manchester United have failed in a bid to sign striker Sadio Mane this month but Southampton will listen to offers in the summer.
Lyon striker Alexandre Lacazette has snubbed the chance to join Newcastle after the French club accepted a £22m bid.
Liverpool and Leicester are in competition for Standard Liege goalkeeper Guillaume Hubert.
Steven Gerrard wants to emulate Pep Guardiola when he moves into management.
West Ham are considering a move for 21-year-old non-league Grays Athletic striker Dumebi Dumaka.
Marko Arnautovic's Stoke future is in doubt after talks over a new contract stalled.
Liverpool will sign 16-year-old goalkeeper Kamil Grabara, who had trials at Manchester City and Manchester United, from Polish club Ruch Chorzow for an initial £250,000.
Cristiano Ronaldo is set to leave Real Madrid in the summer, with Manchester United and Paris St-Germain keen to sign the 30-year-old forward.
Crystal Palace and Bournemouth are interested in signing 24-year-old QPR centre-back Steven Caulker, who is on a season-long loan at Southampton.
Montreal Impact's former Chelsea striker Didier Drogba, 37, will retire from playing to join Blues manager Guus Hiddink's backroom staff.
BBC
Cristiano Ronaldo is set to leave Real Madrid in the summer, with Manchester United and Paris St-Germain keen to sign the 30-year-old Portugal forward. (Telegraph)
PSG and Real Madrid will battle to sign Chelsea's Eden Hazard, with the 24-year-old Belgium forward deciding to leave Stamford Bridge in the summer. (Daily Mail)
Wales forward Gareth Bale, 26, could join Chelsea, Bayern Munich, Manchester United or PSG if he chooses to leave Real Madrid. (Sun)
AC Milan lead the chase for Manchester United's 28-year-old midfielder Marouane Fellaini, but Inter, Juventus and Roma are also interested in the Belgium international. (Gazetta dello Sport)
Manchester United approached 56-year-old Carlo Ancelotti about his availability this summer in November, but the former Real Madrid and Chelsea boss turned down the chance to replace Louis van Gaal in favour of taking over at Bayern Munich. (Daily Mail)
Manchester United believe Bayern boss Pep Guardiola, 44, will be Manchester City's next manager. (Manchester Evening News)
Guardiola wants City to try to sign Barcelona playmaker Lionel Messi, 28, and defender Gerard Pique, 28, as well as versatile Bayern Munich player David Alaba, 23, and Juventus midfielder Paul Pogba, 22. (Sun)
However, Chelsea owner Roman Abramovich, 49, is refusing to give up his bid to land Guardiola as their next manager. (Star)
Chelsea have told former Barcelona coach Guardiola they will offer him a better contract than City and a big budget to sign players. (London Evening Standard)
Liverpool boss Jurgen Klopp is trying to sign Neven Subotic, 27, on loan from Borussia Dortmund, while Inter Milan's Andrea Ranocchia, 27, is also a target as the Reds try to bring in a central defender. (Mirror)
Sunderland manager Sam Allardyce, who recently called Klopp a "soft German", says the Reds boss has only himself to blame for the club's injury problems. (Talksport)
Bayern Munich defender Jan Kirchhoff is close to joining Sunderland, with the 25-year-old already in the north-east of England for a medical. (Guardian)
Montreal Impact's former Chelsea striker Didier Drogba, 37, will retire from playing to join Blues manager Guus Hiddink's backroom staff. (L'Equipe via Independent)
Stoke's 26-year-old Austria forward Marko Arnautovic has turned down the offer of a new contract at the Britannia Stadium. (Guardian)
Crystal Palace and Bournemouth are interested in signing 24-year-old QPR centre-back Steven Caulker, who is on a season-long loan at Southampton. (Telegraph)
Aston Villa boss Remi Garde could return to former club Lyon to sign 27-year-old striker Claudio Beauvue, who is on the transfer list. (Star)
Norwich have put a £15m price on winger Nathan Redmond in an effort to put off Premier League rivals Crystal Palace, who are interested in the 21-year-old. (Mirror)
West Ham are considering a move for 21-year-old Grays striker Dumebi Dumaka. (Express)
Tottenham are set to reward England midfielder Dele Alli for his impressive form this season with a new contract that is likely to at least double the 19-year-old's £10,000-a-week wages. (London Evening Standard)
Former Aston Villa goalkeeper Shay Given, 39, says the Premier League's bottom club should make signings in preparation for being in the Championship next season. (Talksport)
Best of social media
Former Liverpool defender Jamie Carragher, who supported Everton as a child, does not seem too keen on the Merseyside rivals meeting in the League Cup final after the Toffees beat Manchester City in the semi-final first leg, tweeting that the prospect made him feel "sick".
Asked to explain his post, he added: "Good sick if LFC win, bad sick if EFC do!!"
And finally
The creator of Football Manager has apologised to Tottenham striker Harry Kane for his low statistics in the computer game and says Premier League players contact him to try to boost their ratings. (Mirror)
Manchester United striker Wayne Rooney does not make the top 100 in a list of football's most valuable players put together by football think-tank the CIES Football Observatory. (Independent)
Guardian Rumour Mill
Barry Glendenning
With their players dropping like hamstrung flies and reinforcements urgently required in the heart of their defence, it’s no surprise that today’s Rumour Mill leads with talk linking Liverpool with a couple of centre-halves. “In this moment with no centre-back fit, I would say it is a situation where we have to think about going into the transfer market,” said Klopp after losing another couple of players to injury during his side’s Capital One Cup match against Stoke on Tuesday night, so it’s no great surprise to hear talk that his trusted former Borussia Dortmund lieutenant Neven Subotic could be on his way to Anfield on loan.
A Serbian who was forced to spend most of his childhood in Germany and then the USA, Subotic was a stalwart of Klopp’s Dortmund team throughout the manager’s tenure at the Westfalenstadion, having followed him there from Mainz. Should talks between Dortmund and Liverpool go well, the classy 27-year-old could find himself lining up for his former manager at a third different club. Liverpool are also making enquiries about Inter defender Andrea Ranocchia and could also attempt to sign Joel Matip from Schalke now instead of next summer, as seems to have been their original intention. Ranocchia had also been the subject of a flirtatious come-on from Norwich, who will move for Wolfsburg central defender Timm Klose after having their advances rebuffed.
Various media outlets are reporting that Manchester United have failed in their attempt to sign Sadio Mané from Southampton despite their best attempts to sort out a deal with the south coast club. While the winger has made no secret of his desire to move on to pastures new, his employers insist he is not for sale. Expect this particular dance between the two clubs to continue for another few weeks. While yesterday’s Rumour Mill suggested that Newcastle were hopeful of signing Alexandre Lacazette from Lyon, today’s can reveal the Ligue 1 side accepted a £22m bid from their Premier League counterparts. Sadly for Newcastle, Mr Lacazette or his people have presumably taken a peek at the table and decided an immediate future spent mired in a relegation battle would be no future at all.
In-form, top-knotastic Stoke City striker Marko Arnautovic has rejected the offer of a new and apparently not-improved-enough contract at Stoke City, who may be displeased to hear rumours that Paris Saint-Germain are scouting the 26-year-old who has 18 months left on his contract at the Britannia. PSG remain strongly linked with Chelsea’s Eden Hazard, who it seems will have his pick of Europe’s elite clubs in the likely event of his departure from Stamford Bridge next summer ... if not sooner.
Pep Guardiola remains in charge at Bayern Munich, but that hasn’t stopped The Sun publishing his Manchester City shopping list for next season: David Alaba, Gerard Pique, Leo Messi and Paul Pogba are just a handful of the obscure emerging talents to feature. Pep will also take the moon in a bucket, but only if it happens to be blue. The moon, that is. Not the bucket.
The Rumour Mill isn’t about to pretend it reads Turkish daily newspaper Sabah over breakfast, but we can reveal they happen to think Chelsea striker Loic Rémy, already a target for Newcastle, is wanted by Galatasaray on a loan deal until the end of the season. Elsewhere in Turkey, Lig TV have reported that Liverpool will sell Lazar Markovic to Fenerbahce for £7.3m once the Serbian winger’s current loan deal expires at the end of the season.
Stephan El Shaarwy at Bournemouth: did we ever think we’d see the day? Almost certainly not, is the correct answer to that particular query but it just might be approaching. The 23-year-old AC Milan striker is currently enduring an unsuccessful loan spell at Monaco and Milan are listening to offers for the man they call The Pharoah. It is believed Bournemouth have offered to take El Shaarwy on loan with a view to signing him for £10m come season’s end if they avoid relegation, although the player himself would rather return to Italy where Roma are hopeful of securing his scrawl.
On loan at Southampton from QPR, Steven Caulker is also having a tough time of it, having started just one Premier League match for Saints this season. With everyone concerned agreed that he’s in need of a fresh start elsewhere, Crystal Palace and Bournemouth are preparing to duke it out in the hope of winning his affection. That’s Crystal palce who have already had £15m worth of overtures made towards Sporting for their Algerian striker Islam Slimani firmly rejected. And finally, out-of-favour Spurs winger Andros Townsend is the subject of interest from West Brom and Watford, while Norwich aren’t prepared to let Nathan Redmond leave for Crystal Palace, who seem determined to hog this paragraph, for a penny less than £15m.
C&H
Hammers await an apology
The old saying “act in haste repent at leisure” seems particularly appropriate in the case of the Independent newspaper which decided to lambast West Ham and everything to do with it back in May.
And West Ham United is still awaiting an-apology given the events which have occurred since this unfortunate piece of journalism hit the streets.
Unbelievably for such an intelligent newspaper the headline writers had one of those Sun moments which aren’t good for careers in Fleet Street these days.
Under an incredibly ill-considered headline declaring “Welcome to West Ham United: the home of deluded fans and the most clueless owners” it launched a staggeringly invasive attack on the club and guess why? They had decided to part company with the former manager.
Interestingly, the piece came from a writer who offered the credentials of being a lifelong Hammer – Kiran Moody which he presumably felt allowed him to throw everything he had in what turned out to be a relatively limited vocabulary.
It’s a piece that the club has never forgotten and last night a top insider told ClaretandHugh: “There has never been an apology from the writer or the newspaper. However, it’s not too late and we await their “we’re sorries!”
Here’s some of the stuff he decided to write:
On the search for a manager in which he manages to smash Slav’s credibility to bits:
Rumours they want Carlo Ancelotti; they made an approach to Jurgen Klopp; they are planning on getting Rafa Benitez: if any of these men do come to E13, it would only be because their club of choice did not take them. Oh but don’t worry, there’s always Slaven Billic. He’s never managed in the Premier League before – whereas Sam has for over a decade – but hey, we’re business people, we know how to hire managers. Remember Avram Grant?
On the West Ham Way
Both Sir Alex Ferguson and Graeme Souness have spoken about this, with the latter saying on Allardyce’s departure: “From my time of football, I’m fed up of hearing (about) the West Ham way. What is the West Ham way? They are a yoyo club.”
On the fans
West Ham fans have the toxic combination of being obsessed with some historic claim to European top-flight football alongside the impatience of the modern-day game. We were promoted back in 2012 and by 2014 we were already calling for European football and FA Cup triumphs.
How could Sam provide FA Cup glory – missing for over three decades – just two years after ensuring promotion, and as he tried to find stability in a league they struggle to remain within?
On Allardyce’s problems
Here is the crux of why Big Sam could never do shine at Upton Park: because when West Ham were winning, the praise went to those above him, and when they were losing, the fans took a sadomasochistic happiness in it: losing is bad, but it’s really good when you hate Big Sam.
OS
Tonks - 'It shows how far we've come'
James Tomkins insists that West Ham United’s Barclays Premier League double over Liverpool is a mark of just how far the Hammers have come this season.
Five goals without reply against the Reds speaks volumes for Slaven Bilic’s men, who are sitting pretty in sixth heading into this weekend’s Emirates FA Cup meeting with Wolverhampton Wanderers.
Saturday’s clean sheet was the Hammers’ fourth in their last six outings and the 26-year-old commended his side’s collective effort to rack up the shutouts.
“To do the double over Liverpool is pretty impressive,” he said. “They always used to be a hard team to beat, but we probably made it look a bit easier than it felt at the time. I think that just shows how far we've come this year.
“I think we defended well and put our bodies on the line and it wasn’t just the back four or five. Everyone knows just how important that clean sheet is to us and we all try to cling on to it as much as we can.
“At times we rode our luck a little, but in this game you have to. They could have been three or four down, so it's swings and roundabouts, but everyone's happy with that result.”
Tomkins, of course, is currently adjusting to life on the right side of the Hammers’ back four and while he already looks perfectly at home there, he reckons he still has plenty to learn about the role.
“I am still learning the position and it is going to take a little time to get used to it. When you're learning a new position at my age, you have to rely on your understanding of the game.
“It is still all new to me, because this is the first time I have played there quite regularly. I can still improve and hopefully I will get better with every game.”
As for the Hammers’ prospects this season, Tomkins was in no mood to get carried away with their fine form of late and, with the table so close, still maintains that a top-ten finish of any kind would represent a good season.
“I still want to say top ten really,” he continued. “You can see how tight it is and the teams are still picking up points down below. “Top ten is still an improvement from last year heading into the Olympic Stadium, but the longer it goes I might start thinking top eight, or top six.”
Birmingham Mail
Grealish race hots up
Aston Villa midfielder Jack Grealish is featuring heavily on messageboards and gossip columns on a daily basis.
The latest rumours suggest that West Ham, Spurs and Liverpool are now joining the race to sign him.
Talk of the 20-year-old leaving the club are picking up pace but it seems unlikely to us that Villa would be looking to cash in on the player despite the high-profile off the field issues earlier in the season.
To go one step further, Grealish could come into his own if Villa did get relegated.
It could be just the breeding ground his talent needs.
Odds Checker is offering 10/1 on Grealish moving to West Ham.
Express
West Ham consider January move for non-league wonderkid dubbed the 'next Jamie Vardy'
WEST HAM manager Slaven Bilic is considering a move for Grays Athletic striker Dumebi Dumaka, who has been dubbed non-league football’s next Jamie Vardy.
By Scott Wilson
Dumaka has been impressive for Grays this season with 15 goals so far in the Ryman Isthmian League - the seventh tier of the English game.
Affectionately known as "DD", he has already spent time training with Ipswich Town, Fleetwood and Cambridge United this season after a host of clubs were alerted to his scoring exploits for Grays.
Hammers scouts have regularly watched him in action – now Bilic has to decide whether he believes the 21-year-old has what it takes to step up to the Premier League.
Dumaka is as good with his brains as his boots - he works as a a private banking analyst for Barclays.
