BBC
Tottenham Hotspur have made contact with Paris St-Germain's 32-year-oldArgentina midfielder Angel di Maria, who is available on a free transfer this summer. (L'Equipe via Talksport)
PSG still hope to sign Spurs and England midfielder Dele Alli, 24, on loan for the rest of the season. Spurs are considering Borussia Monchengladbach and Germany playmaker Florian Neuhaus, 23, as a replacement. (Mirror)
Alli wants to join his former boss Mauricio Pochettino at PSG, however Spurs will not let him leave until they have identified a replacement. (Goal)
New Chelsea manager Thomas Tuchel has RB Leipzig and France defender Dayot Upamecano, 22, at the top of his list of targets. (SportBild - in German)
Frank Lampard's sacking as manager has also left West Ham United feeling confident that Chelsea's interest in 22-year-old England midfielder Declan Rice will end. (Telegraph - subscription required)
The Blues remain determined to sign Borussia Dortmund's Norway striker Erling Braut Haaland, 20. (Mail)
Manchester United could move for Hoffenheim's 21-year-old Austria midfielder Christoph Baumgartner in the summer. (Sun)
However, United boss Ole Gunnar Solskjaer is not expecting any arrivals before the January transfer deadline. (Sky Sports)
Tottenham have been linked with a move for 29-year-old Napoli and Serbia centre-back Nikola Maksimovic, who is out of contract at the end of the season. (Spazio Napoli - in Italian)
Leicester City are increasingly hopeful of signing long-term target James Tarkowski from Burnley this summer. The 28-year-old England defender has 17 months left on his contract and is yet to recommit to the Clarets, who have previously rejected bids from the Foxes and West Ham.(Mirror)
Bayer Leverkusen have agreed personal terms with Leicester's English forward Demarai Gray. Crystal Palace and Marseille are also interested in signing the 24-year-old. (Sky Sports)
Belgium striker Christian Benteke, 30, is expected to stay at Crystal Palace despite interest from West Bromwich Albion. (Sky Sports)
The Eagles are prepared to offer Benteke a new deal at Selhurst Park to discourage clubs from making an offer. (Mail)
Chelsea left-back Baba Rahman is set to be the first player to leave since Lampard's exit, with the Ghana international, 26, poised to join Greek side PAOK Salonika on loan. (Sport24, via London.Football)
Manchester United and Manchester City are in a race to agree terms with 18-year-old Palmeiras forward Gabriel Veron. Both clubs are in negotiations with the Brazilian, with Barcelona unlikely to be able act on their interest. (Sport - in Spanish)
Arsenal are up against Barca for the signature of Manchester City's 21-year-old Spanish centre-back Eric Garcia, who is set to move as a free agent in the summer. (Mundo Deportivo, via Express)
Manchester United winger Facundo Pellistri is set to leave Old Trafford on loan.; Club Bruges and Alaves are interested in the 19-year-old Uruguayan, who joined the Red Devils from Penarol in October. (Goal)
Everton are in competition with Italian side Parma for the signature of 19-year-old Bayern Munich striker Joshua Zirkzee. Everton are thought to have offered to take the Netherlands youth international on loan with an option to buy set at more than £8.9m. (Sky Germany, via Sport Witness)
Burnley remain interested in the Toffees' English right-back Jonjoe Kenny, 23. (Liverpool Echo)
Celtic have stepped up their attempts to secure a pre-contract agreement with Preston North End defender Ben Davies, 25. (Lancashire Post)
AC Milan's Argentine defender Mateo Musacchio, 30, will have a medical on Wednesday before a move to Serie A rivals Lazio. (Calciomercato)
Guardian Rumour Mill
Gregg Bakowski
Let’s start up in north London, where speculation about Dele Alli’s will-he-won’t-he loan move to PSG continues to hover over the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium like a particularly stubborn patch of fog. The latest reports suggest it may hinge on Spurs’ ability to bring in a replacement for the Unsettled One and José Mourinho likes the cut of Florian Neuhaus’s jib.
The 23-year-old Borussia Mönchengladbach playmaker has inspired his side to victories over Dortmund and Bayern in recent weeks, and made the step up to the Germany team in the past year. The problem is likely to be his price of around £36m, though, and the fact that the aforementioned pair would like to avoid any future defeats against Gladbach by buying the player who helped inflict them.
A more Daniel Levy-like option would be to go hunting for players on the cheap – and what could be more thrifty than a free signing? Spurs fancy installing their very own Ángel of the North (London) in the summer after learning that PSG’s Ángel Di María will be available for nowt in July.
The Argentinian is best known in England for wandering around Old Trafford like a lonely ghost in 2014, but at PSG he has been excellent for over five seasons and, even at 32, Mourinho thinks he can get the best out of a player he enjoyed managing at Real Madrid. But why stop at one freebie? Napoli centre-back Nikola Maksimovic is also available for nothing in July and Spurs are watching carefully and ready to pounce.
Another centre-back who could be on his way to London is Dayot Upamecano. Barely a day goes by that the Leipzig and France defender isn’t mentioned in The Mill and the word is that Thomas Tuchel’s appointment at Chelsea has made it more likely that the 22-year-old could move to Stamford Bridge rather than Bayern Munich. It says here that Tuchel also fancies plundering his old club Dortmund for Erling Haaland, who will be the No 1 target this summer. The goal-guzzling Norwegian will cost somewhere between £66m and £91m, depending on who you believe.
Liverpool are going to finally sign a … oh, wait … nope. Liverpool aren’t signing anyone. But Manchester United might be! With Nemanja Matic and Paul Pogba potentially leaving at the end of the season, the club is targeting the “new Michael Ballack”. Yes, Hoffenheim’s Christoph Baumgartner (no relation to space-jumping daredevil Felix, unfortunately) is being eyed up by United at a cut-price £16m but any deal is likely to take place in the summer.
Leicester have been knocked back twice by Burnley when trying to sign James Tarkowski and the Foxes hope it will be third time lucky when they make a summer swoop for the centre-back. Tarkowski will have only one season left on his current deal in July but David Moyes is also stalking Turf Moor and wants a new West Ham toy to play with.
Burnley may bolster their defence by bringing in Jonjoe Kenny, who is surplus to requirements at Everton, who are also hoping to snaffle teenage Netherlands forward Joshua Zirkzee from Bayern Munich.
Arsenal and Barcelona will do battle for the signature of Manchester City’s 20-year-old Spain centre-back Eric García, who is available for free in July. And Leicester’s Demarai Gray looks set to turn down Crystal Palace and Marseille and kick-start his stalled career at Bayer Leverkusen, after agreeing personal terms there.
Guardian
Tomas Soucek double sends West Ham fourth with win over Crystal Palace
Jonathan Liew at Selhurst Park
Tomas Soucek celebrates scoring for West Ham United in their Premier League win against Crystal Palace. Photograph: Tom Jenkins/NMC Pool/The Guardian
Somehow, the Premier League’s perennial tearaways have become the model students. The responsibility for this lies less with a fatally flawed ownership than with impressively drilled players, and a manager in David Moyes who has taken a thin, uneven squad into the upper reaches of the top flight. Whisper it, but believe it all the same: West Ham are very good.
Just how good, of course, remains a matter of some conjecture. Contrary to popular belief, the league table lies freely and often, and West Ham’s ascent into the top four is attributable largely to having played more fixtures than the teams around them. Moyes himself was keen to temper expectations.
“I’ve sensed for a while that we’re getting better,” he said. “But I want to grow steadily. It’s very rare that you can get to this position and stay there.”
Still, the way they came from behind to dismantle Crystal Palace here really offered all the evidence you needed. This is a club operating at the very limits of their potential and, with a judicious signing or two in the remaining days of the transfer window, might just be able to challenge for European football next season.
Again West Ham were indebted to their midfielder Tomas Soucek, whose two goals in the first half took his tally for the season to an improbable seven. Soucek is no physical freak or technical genius. What he does as well as anyone is anticipate, pre‑empt, interpret flight and human movement in a way that allows him to reach the ball at the optimum moment, often ghosting in late and unmarked. Since his arrival in the Premier League last January, only Bruno Fernandes has more goals from midfield.
“John Wark comes to mind, scoring great goals running from deep,” Moyes said of Soucek. “With his attitude and commitment, he’s a joy to work with.”
In truth, West Ham could have scored plenty more here. The eternally thwarted Michail Antonio probably should have had four on his own. Aaron Cresswell had another sparkling game at left-back, Declan Rice was again quietly excellent in midfield, Said Benrahma was a constant threat in possession and quietly tenacious out of it. But essentially West Ham’s strength is as a collective, an unstarry and unfussy group of players who help each other, push each other, know each other’s jobs as well as their own.
This was how they managed to turn a game they had barely been able to start. Palace were ahead within three minutes through Wilfried Zaha, whose neat shimmy and low shot was probably their best move of the game. Again the home side’s recurring weakness to set pieces and transitions would come back to haunt them. On nine minutes Soucek headed in Antonio’s cross after a neat chip from Pablo Fornals on the left wing. On 25 minutes the Palace defence, preoccupied by the threat of Antonio, allowed Soucek to drift towards the back post and slam Cresswell’s free-kick in from close range.
Palace never really recovered their composure after that. Their buildup through midfield was too slow, and their unwillingness to push up their full-backs meant most of their attacks tapered off harmlessly about 40 yards from goal. Meanwhile, West Ham continued to charge forward on the break: Antonio had a chance to add a quick third straight from kick-off, as well as another from close range shortly before half-time, but hit the post on both occasions.
A glaring miss by Zaha, putting a one-on-one chance straight at the goalkeeper, seemed to set the tone for the second half. A painful clash of heads between Cheikhou Kouyaté and Gary Cahill summed up their evening.
Craig Dawson settled matters from a Jarrod Bowen corner, and though Palace dominated possession in the final stages at no point did they look like claiming anything from the game. Indeed, the only real point of interest was Antonio finding more and more creative ways to miss from close range.
Michy Batshuayi bundled in a late consolation with virtually the last kick of the game, but by then the points had already gone. And again, a failure to convert a promising start into a decent performance will reflect badly on Roy Hodgson. The need to switch things around, to try something new, was obvious after about 25 minutes. Instead the same predictable substitutions arrived at the same predictable times, with the same predictable results.
Palace are not safe, and on this evidence nor is Hodgson.
Telegraph
Champions League contenders? West Ham dominate Crystal Palace to move into top four
The final score did not do justice to the superiority of David Moyes' team at Selhurst Park
By John Aizlewood
Pinch yourself West Ham fans. David Moyes’s team are fourth in the Premier League after a sixth successive victory, and the side whose place they have taken – Liverpool – just happen to be the visitors at the London Stadium on Sunday.
The scoreline suggested a close game, but West Ham’s margin of victory could have been greater. The seven fringe players elevated to the starting XI for the FA Cup cruise past Doncaster Rovers last weekend were all demoted as Moyes put out a strong side, and it paid off handsomely. “We’re only scratching the surface,” said Moyes. “This team have so much more to give and we’ll try to deliver.”
Crystal Palace have won just once since their 5-1 triumph at West Bromwich Albion in the first week of December. Visa troubles quashed Mainz loanee Jean-Philippe Mateta’s hopes of a first appearance in England. Yet, defenestrated from the FA Cup in round three and therefore rested over the weekend, their manager, Roy Hodgson, restored Wilfried Zaha and shuffled Jordan Ayew and James McCarthy from their starting berths.
“We lost to the better team. Our performance was nowhere near as good as we expected to be,” lamented Hodgson, the Palace manager, who was without his assistant Ray Lewington, who tested positive for Covid-19.
In a first half so gung-ho it could have been produced by Jerry Bruckheimer, these teams flung themselves at each other with abandon and by the time 10 minutes had passed, both had scored. First, Luka Milivojevic’s cunning through-ball allowed Christian Benteke to outsmart Angelo Ogbonna and play a whiplash one-two with Zaha, curiously neglected by Declan Rice. In space on the edge of the penalty area, Zaha skidded his first goal of 2021 past Lucasz Fabianski as Aaron Cresswell turned his back. Palace would never look likely again.
With Said Benrahma – whose loan from Brentford will be made permanent, Moyes confirmed – often unplayable, Michail Antonio a constant threat and Ogbonna a colossus in defence, West Ham woke up and won the game. Pablo Fornals scampered down the left and found Antonio, who clipped it over for Tomas Soucek to head home.
They were not satisfied with parity and when their former player Cheikhou Kouyate gave away a cheap free-kick, they were ahead. Cresswell slung it to the back post where Soucek took one touch to cushion the ball and another to poke it past Vicente Guaita.
It could have been worse for Palace, when Antonio fired against a post. He would rattle the same post before half-time. Soon, though, normal service was resumed. Palace struggled to cope and only a wonder save from Guaita thwarted the irresistible Antonio after sterling work from Benrahma and then Jarrod Bowen. Luck tends to run out and Palace’s did when Bowen lobbed in a corner from the right. Craig Dawson soared into space as Gary Cahill remained earthbound to seal the deal.
There was one late twist when Michy Batshuayi’s last-kick goal – his first of this loan spell with Palace – after a splendid Andre Ayew backheel, gave the scoreline a gloss Palace scarcely warranted.
HITC
‘Class above’: Crystal Palace fans are raving about two West Ham players after last night
Even Crystal Palace fans have raved about the performances of West Ham United midfielders Declan Rice and Tomas Soucek last night.
West Ham ran out 3-2 winners at Selhurst Park but, in truth, David Moyes’s side could have won by a wider margin.
West Ham dominated the game from start to finish, with Rice and Soucek really setting the tone for their side.
And Palace fans were very complimentary about the West Ham duo after the game.
Super player Declan Rice.
— Liam (@CpfcDoe) January 26, 2021
Compare Rice and Soucek to Luka and Macca in this game. #cpfc
— Mark Pratt (@MarkyP7) January 26, 2021
Soucek and Rice a class above mate
— Gary (@GaryCPFC) January 26, 2021
Make no mistake about it, West Ham are an excellent side, but Palace are being overrun in the midfield. The Eagles are really struggling to cope with Soucek & Rice. #CPFC
— Edmund Brack (@EdmundBrack) January 26, 2021
Notice how West Ham have replaced their 33 year old midfielder with Soucek (25) and 22 year old Rice, whereas we’re still letting Macca charge around with no effect on the games he’s playing
— G🦅 (@CPFC_GH) January 26, 2021
Soucek is arguably the most threatening aerial player in the league, and they let him ghost in from a set piece unmarked. Serious questions have to be raised what they have been doing in training over the last 9 or so days
— Dec (@Decbo_CPFC) January 26, 2021
Soucek actually stole the headlines last night, as he scored twice as West Ham sealed the three points.
Rice’s display was equally impressive though, with the defensive midfielder continuing to increase his reputation as one of the finest defensive shields in the league.
Rice and Soucek have both been key to West Ham’s strong first half of the campaign, with Moyes’s men making great progress in recent weeks.
West Ham have now climbed into the top four, and seem to have the quality to really mount a challenge for Europe this term.
