Welcome to the Rumour Mill on a day when Real Madrid could complete a £161m deal for Kylian Mbappé – a player who has, to date, scored 16 league goals. They once got Ferenc Puskás for free.
Anyway, this is where we are, although Real’s hopes of doing irreparable damage to the space-time continuum might be scuppered by Manchester City, who are preparing a £143m bid for Mbappé themselves. It wasn’t too long ago when their big summer spend was £3.8m on Lee Bradbury. The Mill feels very old today.
Elsewhere, Arsenal are closing in on a £45m deal for Monaco’s Thomas Lemar. Comparisons are odious, but they once bought Brian Marwood for £765,000.
Liverpool insist they’re not going to sell Philippe Coutinho to Barcelona for £80m, but Southampton are still claiming £70m-rated Virgil van Dijk will be their player next season, so make of that what you will. Peter Beardsley cost £1.9m, Alan Hansen £110,000.
Manchester United are planning a £43m bid for Bayern Munich midfielder Renato Sanches. That’s over 914 times what Nottingham Forest paid Cobh Ramblers for Roy Keane.
Stoke City are interested in Arsenal midfielder Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain and Manchester United defender Chris Smalling. Oxlade-Chamberlain is valued upwards of £25m; his dad Mark Chamberlain cost Stoke £180,000 when they bought him from Port Vale in 1982, and they got keeper Mark Harrison thrown in.
Meanwhile Jack Wilshere wants to join West Ham. It’ll cost him £2.40 to get to Stratford tube from Arsenal, £2.90 if he travels during peak hours. That journey used to be 40p back in the day, and the sun was always shining.
At some point the penny’s going to drop that we’re paying for all of this.