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BBC
Manchester United may wait for the results of scans on French forward Anthony Martial, 23, before allowing the loan move of Chile international Alexis Sanchez, 30, to Inter Milan. (Guardian)
Paris St-Germain have told Real Madrid they will only consider selling Brazil international forward Neymar, 27, if the Spanish club's 19-year-old Brazilian striker Vinicius Jr is part of a permanent deal. (AS)
Barcelona directors met on Monday to discuss a bid for their former playmaker Neymar. (Marca)
Inter Milan may turn to former Manchester City forward Wilfried Bony, the 30-year-old Ivory Coast international currently without a club having been released by Swansea in the summer. (Goal.com)
Serbia international Nemanja Matic, 31, has demanded talks with Manchester United boss Ole Gunnar Solskjaer after losing his first-team place at Old Trafford. (Mirror)
Arsenal are prepared to allow Spain international Nacho Monreal to join Real Sociedad this week if the 33-year-old defender asks to leave. (Sun)
Javi Gracia is fighting to save his job as Watford manager after beginning the Premier League season with three defeats. (Telegraph)
Chelsea striker Tammy Abraham is in line for a new contract that could more than double the 21-year-old England forward's £50,000-a-week wages. (Telegraph)
Christian Eriksen's representatives will not consider Tottenham's £200,000-per-week contract offer and the 27-year-old Denmark international, whose current deal expires next summer, is holding out for a move to Spain. (Mirror)
Eriksen is all-but resigned to staying at Tottenham in the short-term, with his dream of joining Real Madrid or Barcelona this summer failing to materialise. (Mail)
Inter Milan and Juventus officials have made first contact over a potential swap deal involving their Argentine forwards Mauro Icardi, 26, and Paulo Dybala, 25. (Gazzetta dello Sport - in Italian)
Celta Vigo's Danish winger Pione Sisto, 24, is on the verge of joining Torino after a move to Aston Villa broke down. (Marca - in Spanish)
Italian giants Sampdoria want to sign Swansea's Ghana international winger Andre Ayew, 29, on loan before the European transfer window closes. (Star)
Manchester United's English defender Luke Shaw, 24, is facing up to a month out with a hamstring injury. (Talksport)
Sunderland could make a second bid for Sheffield Wednesday's Welsh defender Morgan Fox, 25. (Newcastle Chronicle)
Liverpool's 18-year-old English striker Bobby Duncan, subject of recent bids from Fiorentina and FC Nordsjaelland, was left out of Monday's Premier League 2 match against Southampton. (Liverpool Echo)
Jurgen Klopp believes his "all or nothing" style of management increases the possibility of him taking a sabbatical when his Liverpool tenure ends in 2022. (Times)
Kevin De Bruyne has backed former Manchester City team-mate Vincent Kompany to silence the critics and make a success of his new role as player-boss at Anderlecht, having taken only two points from the first four games of the season. (Manchester Evening News)
Guardian Rumour Mill
Will Unwin
Internazionale have scoured the world for a new striker and, presumably after sending scouts to Newport County’s training ground have spotted young talent Wilfried Bony, who has been training with the League Two club since being released this summer. The Ivorian has endured a few underwhelming years at Manchester City, Stoke and Swansea in recent times. He’s free, at least.
It’s an absolutely bumper Rumour Mill for Serie A clubs raiding south Wales for strikers. Sampdoria have half an eye on André Ayew at Swansea as he is competent and probably available at the right price.
The latest potential swap deal involving Neymar to Real Madrid apparently would need to include Brazilian teenager Vinicius Junior, whose arrival in the French capital would appease Paris Saint-Germain. Meanwhile, Barcelona bigwigs are having a natter about whether they should bother to bring their former forward back to the Camp Nou.
Liverpool striker and Steven Gerrard blood relative Bobby Duncan missed the club’s Under-23 fixture against Southampton on Monday, as he looks to be heading out on loan. The Rangers manager’s cousin has interested Fiorentina and FC Nordsjælland in recent weeks.
Nemanja Matic is not currently playing with the big boys at Manchester United, so wants a chat with Ole Gunnar Solskjær to find out why he’s not deemed good enough to be in a team beaten at home by Crystal Palace.
Spanish full-back Nacho Monreal will be allowed to head back to his homeland to join Real Sociedad, if he so wants, as Arsenal are a lovely club.
Tammy Abraham’s reward for scoring against Norwich will be a new £100,000 per week deal at Chelsea. Next he’ll be getting a helicopter to training. And there’s a £200,000 weekly contract on the table for Christian Eriksen at Spurs, but he is not interested. The Dane wants a move to Spain next summer when his contract expires instead.
Guardian
Wilfried Bony helps Newport sharpen their cup claws for West Ham
League Two giant-killers have the experience of a former Premier League striker to draw on in the Carabao Cup
Ben Fisher
Giving heavyweights a fright has almost become the norm for Newport but the League Two side have limbered up for West Ham in the Carabao Cup on Tuesday by rubbing shoulders with a former Premier League striker on a daily basis.
Wilfried Bony, whom the West Ham manager, Manuel Pellegrini, took to Manchester City from Swansea for £28m four years ago, began training with the club three weeks ago.
“It was a bit of a shock to be fair – I thought he was lost or something,” says Nick Townsend, the Newport goalkeeper, whose heroics against Gillingham teed up another glamorous tie.
“I’m sure Wilf is very fond of Mr Pellegrini but I’ll try to catch him off-guard and see if he can let something loose,” says the Newport manager, Michael Flynn, smiling.
Flynn laughs off a scenario whereby Bony ends up signing for Newport – “I think he’s a lot better than this level” – but is adamant the Ivory Coast striker, released by Swansea this summer, has had a big impression on a green squad and on Lewis Collins and Tristan Abrahams, Newport’s young pups up front, in particular.
The arrival of Bony is an example of how far Newport’s stock has risen under Flynn, a manager with a burgeoning reputation. The former midfielder masterminded a great escape in 2017 before his side gatecrashed the League Two play-offs last season. “We have made big improvements as a club in the last two or three years and we want to keep getting better and better, on and off the pitch,” Flynn says. “It’s fantastic that we’re on the map.”
Cup runs have been the lifeblood of Newport over the past couple of seasons. They made a profit in 2017-18 on the back of an extraordinary FA Cup ride that included overcoming Leeds on home soil and taking Tottenham to a replay at Wembley. It put around £750,000 into the coffers before more of the same last season when they beat Leicester and Middlesbrough. They came unstuck against Manchester City but the run further funded a club fan-owned for the past four years.
Bony, who lives in Swansea and whose two sons are in the Championship club’s academy, is a free agent and has been training with Newport to keep himself ticking over while hunting for a club. The 30-year-old is not under contract but essentially forms part of Flynn’s squad, even training the morning after games with other players not involved in the match.
Flynn says such traits emphasise how hungry Bony, whose agent has been speaking to clubs in Italy and Turkey, is to play.
“I think he has brought the level of training up and everything like that,” Townsend says. “He is the first one in and the last one out and he’s showing a lot of the lads the standards you need to play at the top level. It makes the young lads raise their game.”
Newport have a lot going for them; they are unbeaten and no team in the Premier League or EFL have kept more clean sheets in the league this year than their 16.
Much has been made of the playing surface at Rodney Parade , which is shared with Newport Dragons and Newport RFC but Pep Guardiola was loth to criticise the pitch when City visited in February, reiterating how all of his players had experienced a “bumpy pitch” at some point. At this stage of the season, Flynn is adamant West Ham will have no such problems.
“The real bad one last season was against Middlesbrough – and we played some fantastic football that evening,” Flynn says. “We play football and we have proved it many times. Against Man City we didn’t have that much possession but tell me who does? It’s hard to get the ball off them and, at times, every outfield player was in our half.”
The last time Newport played West Ham was in 1979 and it proved a memorable occasion, toppling a team who included Trevor Brooking, Frank Lampard Sr and Billy Bonds.
Flynn hopes it will prove a good omen but is acutely aware of the size of the task of taming Pellegrini’s attacking riches. “We will give it our best shot,” he says. “I’m not one to sit back, drop off and let teams pick you off – especially Premier League teams. You cannot let them have wave after wave of attacks, because they will murder you.”
HITC
Exclusive: Alexandre Mlinde talks West Ham trials and his Leeds dream
Danny Owen
Young French goal-machine Alexandre Mlinde is eyeing a move to England - could Leeds United hand him a chance?
They say the hardest thing in football is putting the ball in the back of the net. But, for Alexandre Mlinde, challenging that age-old cliché is simply second nature.
“I always say to myself; ‘you must go home having scored at least one goal’. I always want to score more. In my last league game, we won 4-2 and I scored all four!” says this 18-year-old Marseille fanatic, speaking exclusively to HITC.
France has given the world game so many natural-born goalscorers since the turn of the century, from fleet-footed sorcerers like Thierry Henry and Alexandre Lacazette to classic ‘number nines’ in the mould of Olivier Giroud.
And Mlinde, a young striker with an insatiable desire for goals, certainly his heart set on following in their footsteps by making his name across the Channel.
He enjoyed a trial with West Ham United in July 2018 after hitting the net at a remarkable rate for French minnows AS Minguettes. And Mlinde admits to HITC that he wouldn’t think twice about a return to the London Stadium – or England in general.
“If West Ham offer me another trial of course I’ll come back. It’s a really great club and it’s a club that will be playing at the top of the table in the years to come,” Mlinde enthused. “I’d like to play with (Manuel) Lanzini and Sebastian Haller.
“I love West Ham, Tottenham, Chelsea and Manchester City. I like all English clubs; the standard of football, the atmosphere, the fans. It makes me dream.”
In Haller, the club-record £40 million signing who joined in July after a superb season in Germany with Eintracht Frankfurt, Mlinde has a fellow Frenchman now leading the line in claret and blue.
But while Haller is something of an old-school throwback, the prototype targetman with a formidable leap and steel-capped elbows, Mlinde instead models his game upon two inimitable, modern-day legends who continue to trouble the scoresheets for Manchester City and Tottenham Hotspur on a weekly basis.
“I compare my style to Sergio Aguero and Harry Kane; Aguero’s speed and dribbling and Kane’s physique and instinct. They’re incredible,” says Mlinde, who also spent a short spell at Luton Town three years ago.
“I try to be as skilful as possible in front of goal.”
'I'm thinking about Leeds'
After plundering 14 goals in 16 games for FC Venissieux, a local outfit based in the suburbs of Lyon, Mlinde is currently on the lookout for a fresh start in new surroundings. He recently came close to joining 2017 Ligue 1 champions Monaco while Luxembourg outfit F91 Dudelange also expressed an interest.
But there’s one proud old club in West Yorkshire who has caught Mlinde’s eye.
“I’m thinking about Leeds,” the teenager admits. “I really like this club and I hope they go up to the Premier League.”
Marcelo Bielsa’s reputation might be forever tainted in France thanks to that horrific 19-month spell at Lille but Mlinde is in no doubt of the Argentine’s famed ability to eke every drop of potential out of his budding young talents.
And in Victor Orta, Leeds’ bespectacled talent-spotter, Elland Road is home to a director of football who loves nothing more than sifting around in the dirt for unpolished, uncut diamonds, signing Mateusz Bogusz, Illan Meslier and Liam McCarron from clubs in Poland, France and, erm, Cumbria.
“Marcelo Bielsa is a coach who makes you progress a lot and I know that if I have the chance to have him as a coach I will become a real striker,” Mlinde gushes.
With only the erratic Patrick Bamford and the 20-year-old Eddie Nketiah to rely upon, promotion-chasing Leeds look worrying short of options in attack as they embark upon another gruelling Championship campaign.
They, like so many clubs in England’s first two divisions, could certainly do worse than to take a chance on Mlinde, a natural-born goalscorer who just needs a platform to show what he can do.
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