Football transfer rumours: Gabriel Barbosa and Dani Olmo to Chelsea? | Football

What is the January transfer window for if not panic buying? A month of good money after bad awaits us: for every Virgil van Dijk there is a Denis Suárez and then some.

So, who leads the wanted list? Chelsea have cash to burn, and want to add experience. David Alaba of Bayern Munich, who can play at both left-back and in midfield, is available at a cut price, with 18 months remaining on his current contract, and still just 27. A striker is desired by Frank Lampard, so that Olivier Giroud can find first-team football elsewhere, and Inter’s Gabriel Barbosa is a possible option.

Another player linked with Chelsea is Dani Olmo, a star of Spain’s Under-21 champions of 2019, and who plays for Dinamo Zagreb, having fled Barcelona as a kid. The playmaker is being eyed by his home country’s big clubs as well as Chelsea and Manchester United but a prodigal return to Barça is the most expected outcome.

That United want a creative player is no secret, and that James Maddison is being considered is not much less of a secret but the dynamic has altered somewhat in weekend talk of a £45m payout plus Leicester taking on erstwhile goal and assists machine Jesse Lingard. The self-styled J-Lingz is surplus to requirement at Old Trafford, and a recent link-up with Mino Raiola, he who helped deny United the signature of Erling Braut Haaland while saying star client Paul Pogba deserves to play for a good team, means United may not be too sorry to lose Lingard.

Should Lingard leave, a mainstay of this august column is one of the names linked. Welcome back, Bruno Fernandes of Sporting Lisbon, we have been expecting you. And could cost as much as £85m. United, shorn of Scott McTominay and with Pogba’s return to action a fluid situation, desperately need some midfield ballast. Rúben Neves of Wolves is a client of Jorge Mendes, the yin to Raiola’s yang, and would bring Premier League to his potential partnership with Fred.

Another Bayern Munich player, Jérôme Boateng, may be Arsenal’s answer to Calum Chambers’ long-term injury and not wanting to have to play Shkodran Mustafi, who looks set to be sold on.

The Ajax playmaker Hakim Ziyech, is available if anyone so chooses, and for £43m; Arsenal and Tottenham are competing for him, with the Moroccan seen as a replacement for either Mesut Özil or Christian Eriksen, depending on which side of north London he ends up in.

And down at Crystal Palace, Roy Hodgson will not speak publicly about his targets for January or Wilfried Zaha’s potential next destination, but a loan move for Everton striker Cenk Tosun is being mooted.