Hello and welcome to Sportskeeda’s daily transfer news and rumours roundup for 7th May 2017.
With the last month of the season underway, clubs already have one eye on next season and today’s stories feature Real Madrid and Barcelona’s fight for a young talent, Manchester United’s pursuit of a striker, Chelsea targeting a midfielder and Arsenal looking to sign more star names.
Manchester United eyeing Sergio Aguero
The biggest story of today according to papers in England this morning suggest that Manchester United are moving quickly to replace Zlatan Ibrahimovic as their central striker. The Sunday Times report that Jose Mourinho is looking at replacing the Swede with their cross-town rivals’ star forward Sergio Aguero.
The paper further suggests that Pep Guardiola is looking at selling Aguero by putting him on the transfer list and buying new players. Mourinho is looking to convince Aguero to swap colours in Manchester and become a central figure at Manchester United.
However, Aguero is yet to decide on his future as per an earlier report and will consider it only in the summer. Expect this one to hit boiling point in the near future.
Arsenal want Mbappe and Barkley as Ozil and Sanchez look like leaving
With Alexis Sanchez and Mesut Ozil's future at the Emirates still in doubt after negotiations failing with the German playmaker and the Chilean's reported talks with Bayern Munich, Arsenal are hopeful of signing two big names. Reports from The Mail on Sunday state that Arsene Wenger and Arsenal are trying to tempt Monaco starlet Kylian Mbappe to join the Gunners and are promising him a central role at the club.
The youngster has rejected Manchester United recently because he doesn’t like Jose Mourinho’s style of football according to L’Equipe and a has a host of offers from Europe’s top clubs.
Sky Sports reports that the Gunners are also eyeing Ross Barkley of Everton and are closely monitoring his contract negotiations with the Toffees. Tottenham are favourites to land Barkley should he reject a new deal at Everton but Arsenal are planning on hijacking the move by making an offer.
Whether the two mentioned targets are going to be replacements for Ozil and Sanchez or are going to be new additions for the London club to keep their star players content remains to be seen. This is a bold move by Wenger and the Gunners’ board in a bid to improve their attack considerably.
Chelsea looking at Italian midfielder
The Mirror reports that Chelsea are about to submit a bid for 22-year-old Italian midfielder Domenico Berardi. The youngster was sold to Sassuolo from Juventus for £8 million but the Turin club have a buy-back clause in his contract for a fee of £15 million.
However, Chelsea are looking at signing the young Italian as Antonio Conte knows about him well from his time with Juventus and the Italian national side. The paper suggests that he sees Berardi as a perfect fit for the Blues’ squad and is confident of landing the 22-year-old.
Real Madrid to pip Barcelona in race for young starlet
Flamengo youngster Vinicius Junior has been on the wishlist for both Spanish giants Real Madrid and Barcelona for a few months now and according to Globoesporte.com, Los Blancos are set to beat the Blaugrana to sign the young starlet. The reports state that Real Madrid’s president Florentino Perez has made an offer of €45 million for the 16-year-old which is €20 million higher than Barcelona’s initial bid.
The Madrid club are surely trying to outbid their rivals for the talented youngster to prevent Barcelona from having another similar Neymar situation by signing the new Neymar-in-the making as he has been touted in Brazil thus far.
Atletico in the chase for Lacazette
Olympique Lyon president Jean-Michel Aulas has revealed in a recent interview that Atletico Madrid have been pursuing their star striker Alexandre Lacazette for two years.
While speaking to RMC, he said: “We’ve been talking to Atletico about Lacazette for two years. Perhaps Alexandre would like to stay. We haven’t spoken about it directly.
“Atletico aren’t the only ones to have made offers or shown an interest in Lacazette. We turned down €40m two years ago. We’re going to do everything to keep him. It’ll take very high offers to take Alexandre away from us.”
Lacazette has reportedly stated that he could be looking for a move away from Lyon but it remains to be seen whether he leaves the French club or stays on for another season.
