BBC
Barcelona have stepped up their bid to land Brazil winger Raphinha, 25, and are prepared to offer separate deals depending on whether Leeds United stay in the Premier League this season. (Telegraph, subscription required)
English midfielder Jesse Lingard, 29, is attracting interest from Juventus, Paris Saint-Germain, AC Milan and Newcastle as he prepares to leave Manchester United after 22 years. (Mail)
Crystal Palace and Ivory Coast winger Wilfried Zaha, 29, is unlikely to sign a new deal at the club and could be sold in the summer because his contract expires in 2023. (Times, subscription required)
Barcelona have no intention of paying the 30m euros (£25.3m) option to convert 26-year-old Spain winger Adama Traore's loan move from Wolves into a permanent deal and would only be interested in a player swap. (Fabrizio Romano)
Arsenal are interested in signing Inter Milan and Argentina striker Lautaro Martinez, although the 24-year-old's agent has said the player "is not thinking about" leaving his current club. (Goal)
The Gunners are also interested in signing Bayer Leverkusen's 22-year-old French winger Moussa Diaby. (SportBILD, via Metro)
Borussia Monchengladbach and Germany central defender Matthias Ginter, 28, rejected a summer move to Aston Villa and will join Freiburg instead. (Football Insider)
The market value for Manchester United and England forward Marcus Rashford, who is linked with moves to Arsenal and Newcastle, has fallen by £90m since the start of 2021. (Express)
Newcastle have been offered the chance to sign Watford and Senegal attacker Ismaila Sarr, with the Hornets wanting £40m for the 24-year-old. (Football Transfers)
Liverpool are monitoring Aberdeen and Scotland Under-21 right back Calvin Ramsay, 18. (Liverpool Echo)
Brighton are interested in Coventry City's Dutch defensive midfielder Gustavo Hamer, 24. (Football Insider)
West Ham risk missing out on the signing of Sparta Prague and Czech Republic forward Adam Hlozek, 19, despite being offered the chance to bring him on loan this summer. (90min)
Sky Paper Talk
DAILY MAIL
Jesse Lingard is in talks with Juventus, Paris Saint-Germain, AC Milan and Newcastle as he prepares to leave Manchester United as a free agent this summer.
The two failed Chelsea bidders believe Jim Ratcliffe will become a serious player in the race to buy the club should Todd Boehly's £3.5bn deal collapse, despite Britain's richest man being told he is not under consideration.
Tottenham watched Villarreal defender Pau Torres on Tuesday night during his side's Champions League defeat to Liverpool.
Former Manchester United striker Zlatan Ibrahimovic admits he enjoyed his two-season stint in the Premier League because it allowed him to silence his 'haters'.
Arsenal could reportedly have to fork out £63m if they wish to make a bid for Bayer Leverkusen winger Moussa Diaby.
Andy Murray is staying in tip-top shape at the age of 34 with help from an unlikely source - former Chelsea doctor Eva Carneiro.
Villarreal are braced for offers from Newcastle for Arnaut Danjuma after representatives from the Premier League club were in attendance for their Champions League semi-final return leg against Liverpool.
Burnley have confirmed they face a £65m penalty if they are relegated from the Premier League.
Mark Tainton is set to leave his role as Bristol Bears chief executive at the end of the season as he pays the price for the club's salary cap error.
DAILY EXPRESS
Tottenham's hopes of signing Paulo Dybala have been reprised after the player's agent confirmed the forward has not agreed a deal with Inter Milan.
Manchester United's new boss Erik ten Hag has reportedly put Inter Milan right-back Denzel Dumfries at the top of his preferences.
Barcelona are preparing to launch a move for Leeds United winger Raphinha in the not-too-distant future regardless of whether or not the Yorkshire club manage to secure Premier League survival, according to reports.
Liverpool have reportedly 'held talks' with Monaco over the prospect of signing Aurelien Tchouameni, however, face stiff competition from Real Madrid for the highly-rated French midfielder.
Lord Sebastian Coe has told the government to find a solution to Chelsea's takeover crisis - or the club will be burdened with debt "for the next 50 years".
Scotland have stepped up their bid to persuade Newcastle loanee Matt Targett to commit his international future to Steve Clarke's side.
DAILY MIRROR
Ansu Fati has revealed he does not want to leave Barcelona despite being linked with a move away from the Nou Camp.
DAILY TELEGRAPH
The £1.6bn stand-off between Roman Abramovich and ministers could be unlocked by a Brexit-style backstop allowing the Chelsea sale to go through on time.
Fulham are interested in Wales forward Rabbi Matondo as they plot their summer transfer window ahead of a return to the Premier League.
Mainz winger Jean-Paul Boetius is wanted by Watford, Norwich and Middlesbrough on a Bosman free transfer this summer.
Wolves forward Connor Ronan is wanted by three Scottish clubs following his loan spell at St Mirren.
Barcelona have stepped up their attempt to land Raphinha this week and are prepared to offer separate deals depending on whether Leeds United stay in the Premier League this season.
Sir Jim Ratcliffe is set to resubmit his bid to hijack the Chelsea sale if Todd Boehly does not finalise his takeover this week, despite a member of his Ineos group admitting Britain's richest man had been told to "forget it" by the bank in charge of the sale.
Mark Alleyne is among several domestic candidates vying to become England's new white-ball head coach.
THE SUN
Chelsea fear N'Golo Kante and Jorginho could quit in a mass player exodus as the takeover reaches crisis point.
Manchester United are facing a battle to keep Cristiano Ronaldo at Old Trafford.
Jose Mourinho is eyeing another English raid by targeting Aaron Wan-Bissaka at old club Manchester United.
Chelsea whizkids Armando Broja and Levi Colwill are waiting on the club's future before they can have their own sorted out.
Eddie Nketiah is Crystal Palace's top striking target - with PSV midfielder Ibrahim Sangare also high on Patrick Vieira's summer wishlist.
Manchester United midfielder Paul Pogba wants to join Paris Saint-Germain in the summer, reports suggest.
RB Leipzig star Christopher Nkunku wants to leave the Bundesliga outfit this summer amid interest from the Premier League.
Chelsea defender Andreas Christensen is reportedly house-hunting in Barcelona ahead of a proposed move to the Spanish club.
Paris Saint-Germain will have to slash their wage bill with Ligue 1 proposals set to take aim at the champions' eye-watering spending.
Cristiano Ronaldo is now considering quitting Manchester United as their top-four hopes fade.
The League Cup's future as a viable competition will be on the line when UEFA meet next week.
Premier League chiefs are being urged to offer the EFL a "compromise" deal to save clubs £500m over the next three years.
Guardian
West Ham’s David Moyes hopes time has come for his first trophy
West Ham United’s squad go through their paces at the training ground in east London on Wednesday. Photograph: Justin Setterfield/Getty Images
Jacob Steinberg
David Moyes hopes West Ham’s run in the Europa League will see him end his wait for the first trophy of his managerial career.
The former Everton manager, who began his managerial career with Preston North End in 1998, has battled to rebuild his reputation during his second spell at West Ham, who are 2-1 down on aggregate before the second leg of their semi-final against Eintracht Frankfurt on Thursday and the Scot knows this could be a defining moment in his career.
“As a manager there are other big things, like to win a game at Preston North End to get to a play-off final,” Moyes said. “Then we played Bolton and lost. Throughout your career when you get to a big one you think it’s big. But there’s lots of big games. It’s hard to be a winner all the time because everyone is fighting for that prize. But when you get this close you are thinking: ‘Is this my turn, my chance?’ I hope this is my turn.”
West Ham’s hopes of reaching the final rest on them raising their level when they face Eintracht at the Deutsche Bank Arena, though Moyes said the pressure will also be on the Bundesliga side.
“We have to chase the game because we’re a goal down, but not necessarily from minute one,” Moyes said. “We need to manage the game correctly. Frankfurt are a goal up and need to manage it correctly – sometimes that’s a worry as well.”
Moyes, who urged Michail Antonio to rediscover his scoring touch, pointed out that West Ham have come a long way in the last two years. But he will keep pushing his players and hopes that his captain, Declan Rice, can inspire the team.
“The climb has probably been a bit fast,” Moyes said. “But the biggest thing is the mentality change in the players. I tell Declan every day to drive them on. He plays with the best players for England and has to bring it to the other boys.
“We also mustn’t put too much on the boy’s shoulders but he’s such a quality player. I challenge him a lot. We need to get a whole team performance. We need Dec to drive us on but play with a steady head.”
Ben Johnson is available after the right-back missed West Ham’s defeat against Arsenal with a thigh strain. Angelo Ogbonna is out.
A group of West Ham United fans were attacked and one was taken to hospital with slight injuries, German police said on Wednesday. A statement said that two vans stopped outside a pub where West Ham fans had gathered in the early hours of Wednesday and attacked the group of British supporters.
FourFourTwo
Why have West Ham been so good since the start of the pandemic?
By Alex Keble
Plenty has been made of the West Ham's improvements over the last two years – but football has changed tactically for the benefit of David Moyes' boys
West Ham United are a completely different side to the one that entered the very first lockdown. Not so much in personnel, though. Not in manager, nor in their fans' desires to make the London Stadium as much of a cauldron as Upton Park. But the outlook? That's turned 180 degrees.
The pandemic gripped Premier League football for so long it is easy to forget just how much COVID-19 changed the shape and rhythm of the game. Tactically, the division is nothing like it was in March 2020. A combination of empty stadiums, limited time on the training ground, a truncated pre-season, and the emotional mindset of the players (as prone to lockdown brain fog as the rest of us) created a ghostly version of the real thing: training matches played bleakly in a void.
It has required an entirely different approach from the managers, and yet only manager – Pep Guardiola – can truly be said to have got to grips with the challenges of pandemic football. His dramatic reassessment of Manchester City’s tactics should not be understated, since the Catalan spent downtime re-writing his pressing and possession game to become something far more measured and more midfield-centric, with no strikers at all.
Everybody else plugged away as usual, their pressing intensity dropping through sheer exhaustion rather than design, hence unpredictable games and clumsy attacking patterns from the likes of Arsenal and Liverpool.
It made sense, then, that the biggest beneficiaries of the new normal – of ambling matches, of near-random results, of a vague sense of uncontrollable nothingness – were the teams who play risk-averse football, who don’t like to press high and are more comfortable sitting back.
At first, it looked as though this would give Jose Mourinho a platform to succeed at Tottenham Hotspur. To batten down the hatches amid the storm of the pandemic and to seek control when out of possession is to conserve energy, force mistakes, and sidestep the need for long tactical sessions. Instead, and for exactly the same reasons, David Moyes’ West Ham United were the biggest winners from the tactical impact of COVID-19 on Premier League football.
Broadly speaking, his West Ham team sat in a hunched formation, engaging opponents only in their own half, and looked to counter-attack quickly through Michail Antonio, Jarred Bowen, and Pablo Fornals, combining to win the team set-pieces on the break. The foundation of their solid defensive blockade, of course, is Tomas Soucek and Declan Rice, a powerful midfield combination equally adept in the tackle and in driving forward. Their ability to break the lines in possession, as well as arrive late in the penalty area, provides the beating heart for Moyes’s counter-attacking system.
But it would be unfair to over-simplify the club’s approach – especially given the development since. Moyes is a far more flexible and modern manager than he is given credit for.
At the beginning of the 2020/21 season, he used a 3-4-3 formation with Aaron Cresswell deployed as an overlapping centre-back – it doesn’t get more tactically trendy than that – before moving to a 4-2-3-1 after a brief blip. Since then, Moyes has regularly tweaked the shape to adapt to the opposition, be it a striker-less 4-6-0 in the 3-0 victory over Sheffield United or a formation-mirroring 3-4-1-2 in the 3-2 win over Leicester City, both last season. It is this adaptability that differentiates Moyes from the egotistical Mourinho and why West Ham have threatening to make the top four: their prowess from set-pieces has also taken advantage of the smaller margins.
Their hopes may have been dashed by a 2-1 defeat to Arsenal last weekend but it would be unwise to bet against them continuing strong until the end of this season and start of the next. They are arguably the only team, bar Man City, who have been consistent tactically since that very first lockdown.
While Moyes will receive plaudits for his Europa League run and turning around West Ham's outlook from the stands, he perhaps won't be given the credit he so rightly deserves as a tactician. After all, he masterminded a tactical model that just happened to be perfect for dealing with the unique challenges of the pandemic – and he's thrived all the way out of lockdown.
