Brumours

That noise you can hear in the distance is Real Madrid and Chelsea absolutely pissing themselves with laughter having forced Manchester United and Jose Mourinho, therefore the complete double whammy, to pay £75m for Romelu Lukaku by driving the price of Alvaro Morata so high Ed Woodward panicked. United are believed to have offered £70m for Morata, yet he is heading to London to be reunited with Antonio Conte for a mere, yeah right, £54m. Morata was always Conte’s first choice, and much of his toy-throwing drama was based around the fear he was going to get lumbered with Lukaku. Football, eh?

Keeping it crazy, PSG are trying to sign Barcelona’s third wheel Neymar. Now, whether they are really going to throw £200m in the direction of the Catalan club or not remains to be seen, but Barcelona are panicking and releasing statements like “we are confident Neymar will stay”. I can understand the value of Neymar though, if you refer back to the opening paragraph of today’s piece.

The weird value of footballers right now also explains why £66m is not enough for Liverpool and Jurgen Klopp to get their hands on RB Leipzig’s Naby Keita. The German drinks company turned football club are not wanting to sell, but are loving the fact that Red Bull is generating a shed load of free advertising every time this story is mentioned.

West Ham United want to sign Arsenal’s Jack Wilshere. Credit to the Hammers, having coped with Andy Carroll for so long they are pretty confident they have a medical department ready to cope with almost anything. Will Jack decide that Bournemouth was far enough south for him and head East rather than down to Italy? As ever, I’d imagine that comes down to who believes he will stay fit more.

Heading back to Manchester United, mainly as this column as little structure as ever, they are in for Bayern Munich’s Renato Sanches as they are fast coming to the conclusion that Tottenham Hotspur do not want to sell the Eric Dier, and neither should they. Instead, they want to bring in one of the finest young talents in European football for a better price. That almost makes sense!

Jose has also said he would love to turn his Old Trafford stay into a 15-year tenure. I’m not surprised Jose, on that contract and with a tax bill quite possibly coming your way very soon.

Today we also learned that United’s Academy still produces the most professional footballers in England. It’s just a shame none of them play for Manchester United.

Finally, Manchester City are to get Real Madrid’s Danilo and make Kyle Walker the most expensive English substitute right back ever. That will be around £75m City have spent on right backs this summer which, honestly, sums up quite a lot. How difficult is it to produce a decent right back from that very expensive academy of their own, hey?