Our round-up of the latest Premier League transfer rumours, featuring updates from Liverpool, Manchester City and Aston Villa.
It’s time for Friday morning’s round-up of the biggest and boldest Premier League transfer rumours that we’ve seen doing the rounds in the past 24 hours – and, of course, our insight into what’s really happening with them. Today, let’s kick things off at Anfield, with a story that has Liverpool making a move for their new pharaoh.
Not that we’re looking at a replacement for Mohamed Salah, necessarily – instead, this is a story from German outlet Bild which claims that the Reds have now “officially expressed their interest” in Eintracht Frankfurt’s Egyptian forward Omar Marmoush, having started talks up with the player’s representatives.
The 25-year-old, who can play on the wing or as a number nine, was of some interest over the summer, but apparently Liverpool declined to make a move as they felt they had sufficient numbers up front – but with Salah potentially leaving when his contract expires at the end of the season, they seem to have changed course. The Bild report states that Marmoush doesn’t have a release clause in his current contract, and they speculate that he could cost around €40m (£33.7m).
The 3AM Verdict: Marmoush has been in sensational form, bagging nine goals in eight Bundesliga games so far, and we suspect that if Liverpool are going to make a move it’s his performances that inspire it rather than anything to do with Salah’s situation – Marmoush is a more traditional type of attacker and right-footed, for starters, so it’s hardly a straight swap if Salah leaves. Those two are separate matters, but regardless of Salah’s future, we believe that Liverpool making further enquiries is quite likely.
A story from Spain now to continue with the continental flavour, courtesy of Relevo. They reckon that Real Madrid are starting to run out of patience with underperforming midfielder Aurélien Tchouaméni and could be looking out for a replacement – and the identity of their preferred candidate could cause concern for Manchester City fans.
Apparently, Real have newly-crowned Ballon d’Or winner Rodri “on the radar”, with the coaching staff apparently in “love” with him while club captain Dani Caravjal has allegedly been telling club officials to make a move. It doesn’t sound like any kind of enquiries have been made, at least. If Real do decide to move on from Tchouaméni, then that could alert Manchester United and Arsenal, who have been linked with him before.
The 3AM Verdict: While we don’t doubt Relevo’s claims about Tchouaméni’s future necessarily, we would note that the link to Rodri sounds very speculative – all we really glean from the story is that he’s well-admired in Madrid, which is hardly surprising given that he’s just been announced as the best player in the world. We doubt this is a move to worry about as it stands, although after Monday’s Ballon d’Or debacle we would be interested to see Rodri and Vinícius Junior in the same dressing room…
Villa take lead in race for Argentine star
Finally, some news concerning up-and-coming Argentine star Kevin Zenón’s links to the Premier League – we’ve reported before that Newcastle United and Tottenham Hotspur had been contenders to sign him, but now GiveMeSport claim that Aston Villa have jumped to the “front of the queue” for the 23-year-old.
It appears that a January move could be “on the cards” with Newcastle and Spurs stalling over a possible bid. The Boca Juniors midfielder is seemingly ready to make his big move, and Villa would suit him just fine by the sounds of the report. The article also claims that he has an £11.5m release clause but Villa would need to splash £15.3m to sign him. It’s not made clear why.
The 3AM Verdict: The source is a local journalist in Buenos Aires, which seems like a solid basis for a story, although we’ll be honest and say that we can’t speak to his reliability. We’re certainly seeing Zenón stories more and more, although whether Villa really are close to a move isn’t clear. Not to us, anyway. Sorry, we don’t know everything……Read more by Matthew Gregory
