Today's tell-all loves the smell of stale booze and regret in the morning
Happy New Year? Perhaps not at Chez Mourinho as the household's brooder-in-chief wakes this morning to news that Chelsea are unlikely to spend big during the just-opened transfer window after the club posted an annual lose of £49.4m – or, 98.8% of Fernando Torres – and thus have to reign in the purse strings to ensure they comply with financial fair play rules.
Cue a pouting of lips and a furrowing of eyebrows from their manager, who despite insisting he has no plans to spend this month is sure to have wanted a new striker given he has as much respect for his current batch of frontmen as Tory backbenchers have for the unemployed, sick and needy.
One club that could soon be signing a striker are West Ham, who are seemingly ready to make an £8m move for Rickie Lambert. With Andy Carroll more likely to win a beard growing contest than get match fit right now, Sam Allardyce is desperate for someone to shoot his team out of relegation trouble and Lambert could well be that man. However, given the 31-year-old has started each of Southampton's last four matches, one does have to wonder why he would swap a club pushing for European football with one sliding towards the Championship.
Back to Chelsea and Ryan Bertrand is once again being linked with a move to Liverpool. The 24-year-old appears to have been identified by Brendan Rodgers as the man to solve his ongoing left-back problems, but he could face competition from Merseyside rivals Everton, whose manager Roberto Martínez reportedly sees Bertrand as a replacement for Leighton Baines if/when he leaves Goodison Park.
Liverpool have also supposedly agreed a pre-deal to sign Will Hughes from Derby. The first part of the deal involves Andre Wisdom extending his loan deal with the Championship club until the end of the season and, in return, Liverpool then having first option on Hughes should Derby be prepared to sell the young, very blonde midfielder.
Christmas may have passed but we're still talking Turkey with the news that Besiktas want to sign Joleon Lescott. The 31-year-old is out of contract at Manchester City in the summer and could well be up for a move to Istanbul given he is struggling to get into Manuel Pellegrini's side on a regular basis.
Staying in Manchester (and Turkey) and Wesley Sneijder's hopes of moving to United this month have been dashed after the Premier League champions informed Galatasaray that they have no intentions of signing the Dutch playmaker, despite him supposedly being willing to take a £1m-a-year pay-cut to complete a deal to Old Trafford.
Elsewhere, Hull feel confident they can sign Georgios Samaras for £1m given the Greek forward's contract with Celtic expires in the summer, while Tottenham have told Internazionale, Roma and Juventus that Erik Lamela is not available on a loan deal.
Speaking of loans, Crystal Palace are keen on bringing Wilfried Zaha back to the club on a short-term as the winger continues to act as bench-warmer-in-chief at Old Trafford. Palace also want to sign Scott Dann from Blackburn and Wayne Hennessey from Wolves.
And finally, Ian Rush has supposedly revealed that Luis Suárez had a £120m release clause included his recently signed contract at Liverpool and it would come into effect should the club fail to qualify for the Champions League. Cue a pricking of ears at the Emirates Stadium and a hunt for that extra £1.
via Football news, match reports and fixtures | theguardian.com http://feeds.theguardian.com/c/34708/f/663845/s/3563cdc2/sc/13/l/0L0Stheguardian0N0Cfootball0C20A140Cjan0C0A10Ctransfer0Erumour0Emill0Eliverpool0Echelsea/story01.htm
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