Having spent all summer toying with the emotions of their more highly-strung fans by refusing to buy any players, Liverpool have finally buckled and splurged £29m on a recruit they don’t actually seem to need. Having completed a deal for the Valencia goalkeeper, Giorgi Mamardashvili, Liverpool immediately loaned the 23-year-old Georgia international back to the Spanish side, and will now focus on signing Federico Chiesa from Juventus. A regular under Max Allegri, the Italian winger has been bombed out of new manager Thiago Motta’s squad and is in the final year of his contract so a relatively modest fee of around £12.5m should be enough for Liverpool to secure his services.
Having spent much of his post-match press conference after Everton’s weekend defeat by Tottenham Hotspur bemoaning the paucity of good strikers on the market, Sean Dyche could lose two of the half-decent ones he already has. Already the subject of interest from Newcastle, who have an injury-prone and unreliable No 9 of their own in Callum Wilson, Dominic Calvert-Lewin is the latest player to be linked with a move to Chelsea. The transfer-mad recruitment department at Stamford Bridge have made no secret of their desire to sign a centre-forward before deadline day and are also sniffing around Brentford’s Ivan Toney, and have been linked with Aston Villa’s Jhon Durán. With Manchester United also believed to be interested in adding Calvert-Lewin to their ranks, Everton are reported to be looking for £35m for the 27-year-old striker who has one year left on his contract, a figure that, whatever way you look at it, seems absurdly high.
Having failed to feature in Everton’s opening three games, Neal Maupay is also up for sale despite being contracted to the club until June next year. While Everton have an option to extend the French forward’s deal by 12 months, one suspects they would prefer to reduce it by 10, but unfortunately that’s not how these things work. “It was just a risk and reward scenario,” said Dyche, after leaving the 28-year-old out of his team that beat Doncaster in the Carabao Cup on Tuesday night. “There is possibly something that is going to happen but we are waiting on that.”
After losing his place as first-choice goalkeeper at Crystal Palace to Dean Henderson, Sam Johnstone is angling for a move elsewhere. Wolves are being mooted as the 31-year-old’s next port of call in a £10m move, although fans of the Black Country club may be hoping Johnstone doesn’t follow Chelsea winger Noni Madueke on Instagram.
Still a Burnley player despite having spent the lion’s share of his time with the club on loan, Wout Weghorst’s days in Lancashire may be numbered. Having seemed surplus to requirements at Turf Moor more or less since he arrived, the 32-year-old is off to play out his dotage at Ajax. The famous old Dutch club’s striker Brian Brobbey is wanted by Nottingham Forest, while Roma are not entirely opposed to the idea of selling Tammy Abraham to West Ham, who have registered interest.
