With Aymeric Laporte having been ruled out for around six months with a nasty knee injury, Manchester City might be tempted into a move for another centre-back this January. Despite having missed out on Harry Maguire in the summer, Pep Guardiola’s gaze is still fixed on a burly Leicester defender. And no, we won’t be seeing Wes Morgan’s second coming as an elite title-inspiring force at the back for a different City.
The player who has got Pep rubbing his palms giddily is Caglar Soyuncu, whose outstanding displays for Brendan Rodgers’ side have made Maguire’s £80m departure to Manchester United seem little more than a mild inconvenience. The 23-year-old has proved himself able to work the ball out from the back without gifting the ball to opposition forwards or playing ludicrous square passes to invisible teammates, so he could well be an upgrade on Nicolás Otamendi and John Stones. He cost Leicester £19m in the summer of 2018 so he won’t come cheap, mind.
City may also move for Hearts’ Aaron Hickey too, because Pep can’t help himself when it comes to full-backs. The 17-year-old has been one of the few bright spots in an underwhelming start to the season for the Scottish Premier League side, scoring the winner in the Edinburgh derby in his last league game. Southampton are also having a nose around Tynecastle, though, and may be able to give the youngster more regular playing time if he headed to the south coast.
Manchester United are determined to get themselves one of the most popular objects in modern football: a Dembélé. Having been linked with Barcelona’s Ousmane Dembélé on Wednesday, Old Trafford scouts are now monitoring the performances of Lyon’s Moussa Dembélé – and they have written glowing reports to slide across the desk to Ole Gunnar Solskjær having watched him score in the 2-2 draw at Brest. The Lyon forward is Ligue 1’s joint top scorer with six goals in six games and Solskjær may be tempted into making a sizeable bid for him in the winter transfer window after failing to replace Romelu Lukaku and Alexis Sanchéz in the summer.
A number of tabloids say Paul Pogba is “more determined than ever” to leave Manchester United in January, with Real Madrid still his most likely destination. Having played against Rochdale like he was on the phone to his super agent Mino Raiola, that would appear to be true. The thing is, the France midfielder will have to look vaguely interested if he expects Madrid – or any other potential suitor – to rescue him with a huge offer. Perhaps if United make a move for Mauricio Pochettino as manager, the sulky Frenchman will find a bit of a fizz in his game again and stick around. It says here that United are ready to activate a £32m release clause to get their hands on the Spurs manager, who seems about as happy at Tottenham as Pogba is at United.
Newcastle have been scouting Rochdale’s Luke Matheson for the past year and now that he’s scored against Manchester United they may be tempted to throw in a bid for the 16-year-old. More likely, though, is that someone else who had never heard of him until that goal, will gazump the north-east club. In any case, of bigger significance at St James’ Park is Peter Kenyon’s readiness to make a £300m bid for the club. The former Manchester United and Chelsea chief executive has sent a brochure out to potential investors in which Steve Bruce is described as having achieved “unparalleled success in Europe”, presumably a reference to Hull’s Europa League qualifying round defeat by Lokeren in 2014.
And Crystal Palace may try to lure Shakhtar Donetsk’s defensive midfielder Taras Stepanenko to salubrious Selhurst Park with an £8m bid in January.
