So with the transfer window re-opening in less than a month and if you’re anything like me, your daily rituals involve a morning check of newsnow and Sky Sports Transfer Centre in hopes that Ronaldo or Messi have finally made the right decision in joining our beloved and will pay us a weekly fee of £250k. A bit farfetched? Well compared to some of the stories it wouldn’t surprise me to see this printed tomorrow in The Sun and citing this as a “valuable source. Here’s a quick round up of what’s whispers we have at the moment:
Rumoured In
Yohan Cabaye
Source: Daily Mail
The former Newcastle playmaker was bought by the newly rich PSG for around £20m but after only a handful of starts and very little return for their investment, they could be set to cut their losses for around £10m.
This would be a record breaking transfer fee for us and he would come at a huge expense with wages estimated to be around £55k a week, we’d have to offload a lot of squad players to support this buy.
Likelihood 2/5
Although I support that he would be a great buy, I think our only influencing factor would be the relationship he had with Pardew at Newcastle. Going from a league winning squad that contends regularly in Europe to us, I think would be too much of a step down unfortunately.
Jordan Rhodes
This young lad had been circled in many a story during January’s window and after completing his third consecutive season with goals in the twenties, now might be the time to grab this goal machine.
Likelihood 4/5
The stumbling block in last window seemed to be mostly around Blackburn’s Valuation, given how the market looks at the moment and depending on other sales at the club this could be a great option for us. With clubs like Swansea lingering and potentially offering more money this could be the only real stumbling block.
Mark Davies
Source: the72.co.uk
Davies spent most of last summer being linked with other clubs, but with a badly timed injury a lot of the rumours cooled off and hasn’t really helped his stock when being considered as a player to be bought.
He managed to play 15 games last season scoring only three goals to add his lifetime tally of 20 in his 10 year career, his value may have depreciated some due to recent form and fitness.
Likelihood 1/5
Although he’s had some great performances he would find it hard to compete for a seat on our benches let alone to start. We need to be aiming somewhere in between Cabaye and Davies, not below.
Idrissa Gueye
Source: Daily Mail
This Senegalese Stalwart has peaked the interest of alot of premier league teams after admitting to the press he’d like a move to the premier league. With the third highest amount of tackles in Europe he’s an attractive proposition for us as we could be seeing exits of one or two of regulars who play in this position. He was quoted as saying:
“As I have always said, I have a contract with Lille until 2018. Admittedly, there are contacts and there will be offers. I will have to look at it all and decide what suits me best. “[I will] find the offer that will allow me to grow, to allow me to take new steps to be in line with my ambitions. Everyone knows that England is a league that attracts me, even if I am not closing the door on going to other leagues too.”
This chap fits the bill in my opinion of someone that fits between the two previously discussed and with us having a growing african base of players he may feel slightly more at ease amongst our squad.
Likelihood 2/5
With Clubs like southampton and West Ham circling this would be a great steal, but with both clubs having a tendancy to pay better than our average player, he could be tempted by the promise of more money.
This quote coming from him makes things alot more interesting:
Emanuel Adebayor
Source: Metro
This ageing Target man had a burst of new found life under interim manager Tim Sherwood last season, but with the emergence of HurriKane he seems to have fallen out of favour, and with his contract expiring the possibility has opened up for us to sign him on a Free Transfer.
Likelihood 2/5
There are many compounding factors that make this Rumour slightly possible; we are in need of a Goal scorer and with Spurs’ interest in Bolasanaldo, there has already been talks surrounding a cash and player bid.
The biggest issue being his wages which stands at around £100k a week. Which could nearly pay for our starting XI. So I can’t see this amounting to anything.
Rumoured Outs
Yannick Bolasie
Source: Metro
The best story surrounding yan, came after rumours of liverpool sniffing around him. Pardew epically slapping a £40m price tag on him and all rumours seemed to have disappeared. Shocker! This latest story has peaked a few peoples interest, because of the possibility of their being a player swap included inside the deal, with names like Adebayor or Andros Townsend included with a £20m fee. It certainly a move in the right direction.
Likelihood 2/5
As much as I’d like to entertain the notion of us signing a capped England future starlet and being given a £15m paycheque with the option to buy back an out of form bolasie (Wilfgate… again.) It just wreaks of a papers desperation to increase circulation. We aren’t a wealthy club that would fund £100k wages and Pardew speaks the truth when he says Yan needs at least another season to perfect his game.
Mile Jedinak
Source: Daily Mail
Our seasoned captain who has ferociusly managed our midlfield through promotion and multiple manager changes, has had a dry spell recently for us, after being pushed off the team sheet by newer options, is the start of the end of our main man Mile?
Likelihood 2/5
What hasn’t been talked about is the amount of football this box to box mountain has had to play recently. He was called up to captain for his national team again after having several spells with injury too, I think he’s entitled to some time on the sidelines.
Dwight Gayle
Source: The Mirror
Despite his lack of minutes played for us in the latter part of the season, he still managed to finish the season as our top scorer. His performance and with Murray being favoured towards the end of the season, has marked him as player that could be looking to leave in favour of more games to be played elsewhere.
Likelihood 3/5
Pardew clearly has a plan to bring in at least one forward it seems and with bids circling in for Gayle at around £6 – £8m it’d be harder to say no if a more proven striker premier league striker should become available, as these funds could prove useful to top up a bid for them, but i’m not convinced he’d be convinced to leave with offers coming in from lower leagues.
There has been other talks around Everton signing Scott Dann ( The Guardian ) but its been made clear he is not for sale at any price!
So it seems like always, its too early to tell what’s actually going to happen, the papers are rife with great reads for the journey to work, but it seems we’ll have to wait a few more weeks before we start seeing pictures of some fresh faces shaking hands at Selhurst park.
