When the Mill read that Danny Rose is about to become the subject of a bidding war between Manchester United and Manchester City, we put “Danny Rose” into Google and discovered he’s a left-back who played for Tottenham Hotspur 10 months ago. Then we imagined meeting him, handing him a pen and paper and asking him to write down all the reasons he should shun his suitors and stay at Spurs. In this made-up scene Rose paused to think, chewing the top of the pen as he did so. Then he bit the top off and swallowed it before scoffing the rest, too. He wouldn’t be needing that pen. He took the sheet of paper and made it into a plane, as if to say that it can fly down the wing at Wembley for Spurs instead, because he’s off to Manchester. And why not?
Not that Mauricio Pochettino is bothered. Because he has a cunning plan, albeit one that depends on Rose opting for United instead of becoming Benjamin Mendy’s stand-in at City. Because if Rose does choose Old Trafford, then Spurs will use that as leverage to reunite Luke Shaw with Pochettino, the man under whom he broke through at Southampton.
Meanwhile, Olivier Giroud also has a nice choice to make. Forget Everton, he is soon to be invited to pick between Juventus or Internazionale. He is also about to be watched by Chelsea but only because the Stamford Bridge side are going to watch Arsenal’s forthcoming Europa League tie against Red Star Belgrade, whose striker, Richmond Boakye, is said to be hot stuff. Sorry Olivier.
Manchester City don’t need to watch Arsenal to know they like Alexis Sánchez. They’re confident they could get the Chilean in January for around £20m. But they may have an even better option: because news from Catalonia is that Lionel Messi might actually fancy a move to City now that they’re steamrollering everyone in the league. That’s a challenge that Messi can relate to. But he hasn’t yet made his mind up and would welcome hearing precisely how much Barcelona want him to stay, especially in the wake of the departure of Neymar. Talk of an £80m bonus for signing a new deal might also add up to a compelling project.
Leicester are planning to signal their intent to climb out of the Premier League basement by signing … the 34-year-old free agent Bacary Sagna. Shucks, they might as well raid Sunderland while they’re at it: word is Ellis Short will listen to offers for his most valuable players if he doesn’t manage to offload the entire club pronto. For the avoidance of doubt, yes, Sunderland do have some valuable players. Didier Ndong, Lamine Koné, the list goes at least that far.
West Brom hope that Grzegorz Krychowiak will perform a tricky balancing act, playing well enough to help them have a good season this season but not so well that better clubs will want to buy him when Paris Saint-Germain put him up for a permanent transfer next summer. See also: Jesé Rodriguez and Stoke.