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BBC
Real Madrid are considering a January move for Chelsea and Brazil defender David Luiz, 30, who has found himself out of favour at Stamford Bridge this season. (Daily Mail)
Chelsea manager Antonio Conte says he has not yet been consulted by the club's hierarchy about signings needed in January if the champions are to catch Premier League leaders Manchester City. (Guardian)
Manchester City's 21-year-old Germany forward Leroy Sane will be offered a new deal by Manchester City at the end of the season. (Sun)
Watford have warned that their Brazilian forward Richarlison, 20, who joined on a five-year deal from Fluminense in August for about £11m and is attracting the interest of Tottenham and Chelsea, is not for sale during the January transfer window. (London Evening Standard)
Chelsea are expected to make another move for Juventus defender Alex Sandro, 26, in January after failing to sign the Brazil international in the summer. (Daily Express)
Liverpool and Leicester are considering a move for West Brom and Egypt defender Ahmed Hegazi, 26, who is on loan from Al Ahly. (ESPN)
Manchester City midfielder David Silva, 31, is close to signing a new contract that will keep the Spain international at Etihad Stadium until 2020. (Daily Mirror)
City will not sell France defender Eliaquim Mangala in January, but the 26-year-old has been offered no assurances over his long-term future at the club. (Goal)
Liverpool and Juventus both want to sign Sporting Lisbon's 22-year-old Portugal winger Gelson Martins. (A Bola, via Talksport)
Arsenal manager Arsene Wenger says chief executive Ivan Gazidis has "nothing to do" with buying players following the recent backroom changes at the club. (Daily Mail)
Manchester City and Napoli target Sime Vrsaljko wants to leave Atletico Madrid. The 25-year-old Croatia defender is looking for a new challenge. (Talksport)
Atletico forward Antoine Griezmann could have joined Arsenal in 2013 but the Gunners decided against signing the 26-year-old France international and when they went back in for him he was not interested. (Daily Express)
Swansea have been tipped to make a January move for Liverpool striker Dominic Solanke, 20. (Wales Online)
Arsenal and France defender Laurent Koscielny, 32, wants to finish his career at Lorient, according to the French club's president. (Canal+, via Goal)
The Gunners are among several Premier League clubs interested in Novara Calcio's 20-year-old Dutch striker Alessio da Cruz. (Daily Mirror)
Liverpool forward Divock Origi, on loan at Wolfsburg, says is unsure whether his future lies at Anfield, as the 22-year-old Belgium continues to impress in the Bundesliga. (Liverpool Echo)
Newcastle's 21-year-old forward Alex Gilliead, on loan at Bradford, is wanted by Hull, Millwall and rivals Sunderland. (Newcastle Chronicle)
Meanwhile...
Huddersfield players let the train take the strain as they head to the capital for Wednesday's Premier League match at Arsenal.
Watford chief executive Scott Duxbury insists manager Marco Silva has not been affected by Everton's failed attempt to lure him away from Vicarage Road. (London Evening Standard)
A 2018 World Cup guide by European football's anti-discrimination group Fare will warn gay fans about holding hands at the tournament in Russia. (Times - subscription required)
Burnley manager Sean Dyche wants to see retrospective bans "all over the place and all over the pitch" in the battle to eradicate diving from the game. (Lancashire Telegraph)
On-loan Stoke defender Kurt Zouma has quipped that close friend Paul Pogba has banned him from coming to his house because Zouma beat the Manchester United midfielder in a game of cards there. (Manchester Evening News)
QPR boss Ian Holloway has apologised following his criticism of Hoops fans who left Monday's match at Brentford early. Two injury-time goals earned Rangers a point having been 2-0 down to their west London rivals. (GetWestLondon)
Fans of Israeli side Beitar Jerusalem unveiled a huge banner of WWE legend The Undertaker before their 2-2 draw with Hapoel Be'er Sheva. (Sun)
Best of Tuesday's gossip
Chelsea have been offered the chance to sign Borussia Dortmund striker Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang in January. (Daily Mirror)
Liverpool are also linked with Aubameyang but the 28-year-old Gabon international's brother insists he is focused on life at Dortmund. (Daily Express)
Manchester United are looking at four left-footed players as they make plans for the summer. Real Madrid winger Gareth Bale, 28, Atletico Madrid's 26-year-old France forward Antoine Griezmann, Tottenham and England full-back Danny Rose, 27, and Arsenal's 29-year-old Germany midfielder Mesut Ozil, 29, are all targets. (Manchester Evening News)
Barcelona will move for Tottenham and Denmark midfielder Christian Eriksen, 25, in January. (Don Balon - in Spanish)
Guardian Rumour Mill
Barry Glendenning
David Luiz remains in Antonio Conte’s bad books, having reacted badly to being substituted during Chelsea’s 3-3 draw with Roma in the Champions League in October. The Brazilian appeared to eff and jeff in his manager’s direction after seeing his number hoisted by the fourth official and has played in only four of Chelsea’s eight matches since.
Reports on Wednesday suggest that Real Madrid are monitoring the breakdown in relations between player and manager with interest and could try to sign the Brazilian in January. David Luiz has been ruled out of Chelsea’s match against Swansea City on Wednesday evening with a knee injury, while his manager says the club hierarchy have not yet spoken to him about his transfer needs for the next window. “I think about this topic but it is better if my club ask me what I need to catch them up and then I will answer, but in a private way,” said Conte, who was left frustrated by Chelsea’s dealings in the transfer market during the close season.
The word from Italy is that Chelsea will move for the Juventus left-back Alex Sandro in January, while the Italian champions will sign his Atlético Madrid counterpart Filipe Luís as a replacement. Atlético’s Croatia right-back Sime Vrsaljko is also reported to have told the Spanish club he wants to leave on the back of well-documented interest from Manchester City and Napoli. The Spanish newspaper Marca claims Naples is the player’s preferred destination.
Having drawn another blank, against Brighton, on Tuesday night, their 10th in 17 matches in all competitions this season, Crystal Palace are desperate to get a striker on board in January. With 11 goals in 60 appearances for Bournemouth to his name, Benik Afobe may not be the most prolific of goal-getters, but beggars can’t be choosers and Palace are rumoured to be lining up a £15m bid for the DR Congo and former England U-21 international. Afobe has started only four Premier League games this season and is below Josh King and Callum Wilson in the Bournemouth pecking order. For £15m, Eddie Howe might very well drive him to Selhurst Park himself.
The future of another Bournemouth striker, Lewis Grabban, also remains up in the air. The 29-year-old has scored 10 goals in 16 appearances on loan at the Championship strugglers Sunderland and has a January recall clause in his contract. Should Afobe move to Palace, Grabban may be recalled to the Vitality Stadium to sit on the bench as back-up, although Wolves and Fulham are interested in signing him up and Sunderland would be extremely sorry to lose him.
Liverpool and Leicester City are both giving the West Brom defender Ahmed Hegazi the glad eye, while Watford have warned suitors such as Tottenham Hotspur and Chelsea off Richarlison, who has turned no end of heads since arriving at Vicarage Road for £11.5m during the summer. “We want Richarlison to be here for many more seasons,” said Scott Duxbury, Watford’s chief executive, in an interview with the London Evening Standard. “We are building a very competitive squad, we have no need to sell.”
Having been largely limited to a series of substitute appearances since his controversial move from Chelsea to Liverpool in search of first team football, Dominic Solanke is now being linked with a January move to Swansea City. Celtic, West Brom and Wolves are also understood to be interested in signing the Reading-born striker, who was handed his England debut earlier this month despite having made only one senior start in English football. Along with Juventus, Solanke’s club Liverpool are interested in signing the Sporting winger Gelson Martins.
And finally, Manchester City are ready to offer David Silva and Leroy Sané bumper new contracts, while Eliaquim Mangala will almost certainly be sold next summer having made just three starts this season.
Guardian
David Moyes accepting of what he cannot change with West Ham’s squad
The former Everton manager is keen to re-employ the methods which worked well for him through much of his 11-year spell in charge at Goodison Park
Jacob Steinberg
David Moyes was hoping not to talk about Everton but the subject was difficult to avoid before his latest return to Goodison Park. “I’ll tell you this one,” West Ham’s manager said as his mind drifted back to the final day of the winter transfer window in 2013. “It was my last year. I think Everton were a striker short of being top four. You were still needing somewhere like £10m or £15m to get a top striker. We had £1m left. Tony Henry, who’s here, was involved in it, probably more so than anybody. He says: ‘There’s a boy at Barnsley who’s not bad.’”
John Stones was the boy in question and instead of getting that top striker Moyes’s final signing for Everton ended up being a young centre-back from Barnsley who joined for £500,000 and left for £47.5m to Manchester City two and a half years later. That was often how it had to be for Moyes during his 11 years at the club and the point behind the story was that there were plenty of times when all that scrimping and saving forced him to be more creative in the transfer market. “It focuses you differently,” he said. “You have to find a way of getting a talent which might go on.
Everton have changed since Moyes left for that infamous stint at Manchester United, though not necessarily for the better. Their spending power increased when Farhad Moshiri bought a majority stake in the club in February 2016 but they lack coherence. Despite giving Ronald Koeman almost £140m, more than half of it offset by sales, to play with in the summer, Everton are in dire straits before hosting West Hamon Wednesday evening. They have been gripped by inertia since sacking Koeman last month, losing five of the seven games under David Unsworth, their beleaguered caretaker, and whoever comes in next will be their third managerial appointment since Moyes’s departure.
However he was not looking to gloat. After all it has been a torrid few years for the 54-year-old too, featuring doomed spells at United, Real Sociedad and Sunderland, and there are no guarantees he will be able to repair his reputation at West Ham. For all that Everton are suffering, West Ham are two points behind in 18th place. Moyes has lost to Watford and drawn with Leicester City since replacing Slaven Bilic on an initial six-month contract; Arsenal, Chelsea and Manchester City lie in wait next.
There were some encouraging signs in the 1-1 draw with Leicester, though – more energy, better organisation, some character – and an optimistic assessment is West Ham will benefit if they unlock the talent that allowed Moyes to excel at Everton. “At Everton the first year went quite well,” Moyes said. “The second year was a bit of a dip. I think we lost the last game of the season 5-0 to Manchester City. We had been safe from April. We weren’t getting relegated and we hardly won any games. That was probably the only time I thought: ‘Maybe this is the way it’s going … but we had to get rid of that feeling at Everton of being safe was good enough. If I can get good stability and strength, then it could easily be 11 years. West Ham have unbelievable potential to be up there.”
But that potential is yet to be realised since the move to the London Stadium. West Ham have the 14th-best paid squad in the world but their lowly league position can largely be attributed to an absence of long-term planning. Big names have arrived and disappointed. Confusion has reigned and West Ham are crying out for the kind of intelligence Moyes displayed at Everton.
“Bill Kenwright used to say: ‘You’ve £5m a year to spend,’” he said. “In many ways it was a strength because I knew where I was. Bill would give me any penny he could. He also knew I was treating it like my own money, because I’m a Scotsman, I suppose. We made signings which, a few of them from the lower leagues, we watched really hard. There’s a real bit of due diligence in trying to do the right thing.
“At the moment nearly every question I get asked is: what are you doing in January? In that time it was more: ‘You’ve not got much to spend, what are you going to do with the £500,000 you’ve got left, what’re you going to do?’ We had to keep working with the players and I feel the big thing for me to do is work with the players at West Ham. Not bother too much about who’s not at the club, really think about the players who are here and mould them into a team which can get enough results to move up the league.”
Sam Allardyce, who could yet be heading to Goodison Park, once said West Ham should look to emulate Moyes’s Everton. But improving a club’s infrastructure requires patience. “It takes a bit of time to get things going,” Moyes said. “The important thing is we try to sign good players for the future but who could do a job immediately with the right attitudes and the right types. Not just for the short term but for the long term as well.”
As they prepare for a match of huge significance, Everton and West Ham would both do well to keep that in mind now.
C&H
Injury blow for West Ham
James Collins limped off from West Ham’s U23 Checkatrade trophy game against Wycombe Wanderers at Adam Park last nigh after just 22 minutes.
A Hammers’ 2-0 defeat saw them slip to second in the Group C but they still go through to the final 32 and will now face Luton in the next round.
The 34-year-old has been injured since September after suffering an ankle injury against West Brom at the Hawthorns during a 0-0 draw.
The Ginger Pele has been eager to return in what he considers could be his last season at West Ham and is frustrated at the latest setback in his recovery.
It’s a big blow for the player and the squad who now have just Winston Reid, Declan Rice and Angelo Ogbonna available at central defence as we approach the busiest time of the year.
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