Oh Lordy, Lordy. We live in a world where a club has spent £75m on a pair of fullbacks and plans to chuck another £55m out there and get another one. We live in a world where a club can pay £75m on a centre forward and still not be considered the league favourites. And we live in a world where West Ham United sign a player from an equally mid-table club for way more than he is worth and will regret the decision in 12 months time, so some things never change.
As we know, Pep Guardiola joined the rest of planet earth in realising that Manchester City could not possibly win anything further with Pablo Zabaleta, Gael Clichy and Bacary Sagna as their number twos and threes so got shot of the lot of them. In his Catalan wisdom, Pep has bought Kyle Walker for £50m and then had a chat with Zinedine Zidane and asked him to swap Danilo for £27m. However, there is still a gaping hole on the left hand side of the pitch, a hole likely to be filled in by £55m worth of Benjamin Mendy who will be the next name on the list titled “The Exodus from Monaco”.
If you think City are just throwing their money around, have a look at Paris Saint-Germain. They are pretty confident that £199m will bring Barcelona’s Neymar to the French capital, predominantly because that activates the Brazilian’s minimum fee release clause and because none other than Leo Messi has hinted that it could be happening. Just so Neymar doesn’t feel like the only new boy in class, PSG are going to be the latest club to try and prise Alexis Sanchez from Arsene Wenger’s vice like grip, waving £50m under Wenger’s nose to distract him. It must be happening, as Alexis was enjoying a romantic Friday night away in Paris with his three dogs.
As ever, there is plenty of transfer chat around Manchester United and Jose Mourinho. Jose is adamant that David De Gea is NOT going to Real Madrid, which is becoming very, very dull now. Almost as dull is the Nemanja Matic love triangle between Chelsea, United and Juventus. Will someone please just tell us what is really going on? Ed Woodward has seen some sense this summer, and has decided that he won’t pay more than £40m for Eric Dier which means Eric isn’t going anywhere. However, considering United will probably have to pay £40m for Matic, I am not sure who is getting the best deal out of all this.
Chelsea, as we know, finally confirmed Alvaro Morata as their new number nine which is, frankly, an upgrade on the days that Steve Sidwell used to wear the shirt. Michy Batshuayi reminded everyone he is still at the club by scoring twice in a meaningless game against Arsenal. Mind you, try telling David Ospina it was meaningless as he put Pedro in hospital.
According to Jurgen Klopp, Liverpool are not a selling club having turned down a £72m bid from Barcelona for Philippe Coutinho. I am sure Liverpool are not a selling club, unless that bid becomes more like £90m. Liverpool target, Southampton’s Virgil Van Dijk, has played the “not mentally in the right frame of mind to play” card saying he still wants out of the South Coast club and as a result is training on his own.
Finally, I think Marko Arnautovic might be slightly confused. He has moved from Stoke City to West Ham (a fact that is hilarious in itself as he has swapped Bojan and Xhakiri for Snodgrass and Noble) for £25m and has called West Ham a massive club. No mate, they have a massive athletics stadium and haven’t been anything other than a wannabe big club for decades.