Football transfer rumours: Real Madrid to swap Bale for Sterling? | Football

Real Madrid are willing to give Manchester City £70m and professional golfer Gareth Bale in exchange for Raheem Sterling. To make sure the England winger is any good, Spanish scouts will travel to watch him against Montenegro and Kosovo to see if he can deliver on the big stage. A return to the Premier League would at least give Bale the chance to learn who the prime minister is.

The French champions, Paris Saint-Germain, are the latest team to show an interest in the Ajax goalkeeper André Onana. Spurs have also been linked to the Cameroon international and could challenge PSG next summer for his signature. The fee for the former Barcelona youngster would be in the region of £35m, which is not to be sniffed at.

If Chelsea’s appeal against a two-year transfer ban is successful, they will spend January throwing cash around like the Wolf of Wall Street. The Lyon striker Moussa Dembélé and wingers Wilfried Zaha and Jadon Sancho all feature on a post-Christmas shopping list and Frank Lampard supposedly has £150m to spend, which might get him two of those three.

Back in 2018, Ed Woodward had a cunning plan to sign Raphaël Varane and Marco Verrati for Manchester United, but that pesky José Mourinho was not keen, instead splashing out on Fred. Presently, their focus is on replacing the Brazilian with someone better, their main target being West Ham’s Declan Rice. But Hammers fans needn’t worry, as they have a cunning plan in the form of the Rosenberg full-back Birger Meling, who spent a year in Middlesbrough’s academy way back when.

A whole host of Premier League clubs are eyeing up Royal Antwerp’s Aurélio Buta, with Wolves, Newcastle and Watford all keeping tabs on the defender. Meanwhile, Leicester are also scouting in Belgium and have supposedly opened talks with Club Brugge over Emmanuel Dennis.

One player looking to go nowhere is the on-loan PSG striker Mauro Icardi, who says: “I will do everything to stay here.” The Argentinian is on a season-long from Internazionale and he does not want to go back to Italy, one assumes as it is considerably harder to score goals in Serie A, the forward having scored seven goals in eight games since arriving in the French capital.