Watch more of our videos on ShotsTV.com
and on Freeview 262 or Freely 565
Visit Shots! now
We round up the latest Premier League transfer rumours, with news from Aston Villa, Arsenal, Manchester United and more.
Sign up to our newsletter for the most distinctive football content delivered direct to your inbox
Sign up
Thank you for signing up!
Did you know with an ad-lite subscription to 3 Added Minutes, you get 70% fewer ads while viewing the news that matters to you.
Submitting...
In less than 72 hours, the winter transfer window will have closed, and this is set to be the most exciting deadline day in years, with clubs up and down the Premier League scrambling desperately for players in a way we seldom see in January – and we’re here to keep you abreast of all the latest transfer action by going through some of the biggest Premier League rumours we’ve seen over the past 24 hours.
We’ll start with a story which hasn’t necessarily come completely out of the blue, but which nevertheless caught us slightly by surprise – just when it looked like Marcus Rashford didn’t have many options left, Aston Villa have decided to make a late move for the Manchester United forward, with BBC Sport reporting that they are among “a number of clubs” considering a bid.
It had been thought that Rashford’s only chance of an exit was a loan move to Barcelona, but it looks like the difficulties involved in signing higher-priority targets such as Marco Asensio and Mathys Tel has convinced the Villans to take a chance on a player who has been among the best in the world but has struggled over the last 18 months and fallen out with two consecutive United managers.
A loan move is “by far the most likely scenario at this stage”, the BBC claim, and it now sounds as though Villa have muscled their way to the front of the queue – although the report is at pains to point out that there is no certainty that Villa have made a formal offer.
The 3AM Verdict: We love Rashford, quite frankly, and just want him back to his old, brilliant self, wherever that might be. Emery’s system should suit him fairly well if he plays as a central striker, but presumably he would be behind Ollie Watkins in that system – Villa’s wingers tend to operate deeper than Rashford has when out wide. We don’t know if this one will work, but the ceiling on this gamble is very high indeed if there’s a buy option. In the Premier League era, Villa have only had a couple of players who can hold a candle to Rashford at his very best.
Arsenal & Man Utd offered £50m striker as deal collapses
The chance that Rashford leaves Old Trafford isn’t the only eyebrow-raising story concerning a late move for a striker who’s future is suddenly rather less certain – both Arsenal and Manchester United have been offered the chance to sign Bayer Leverkusen striker Victor Boniface, according to TeamTalk.
The Nigerian forward was expected to make a move to the Saudi Pro League but Al Nassr’s £50m bid appears to have been abandoned after the club signed Aston Villa’s Jhon Durán instead. Boniface, who scored 21 goals in 34 games during Leverkusen’s invincible season last year, has been offered to other Premier League clubs too but there’s no word on who they might be.
With both United and Arsenal desperate for a goalscorer and seemingly running out of cunning plans to sign one – just look at the Gunners’ laughably optimistic bid for Watkins – this seems like a very sudden ray of light for both clubs. The 24-year-old is a proven goalscorer at the top level, and £50m is an established ceiling for his valuation.
The 3AM Verdict: If this report is true – and we aren’t allowing that for certain at the time of writing – this could be a huge lifeline for any sides looking for a striker. Getting hold of a Matheus Cunha, for instance, was starting to look like it would involve a colossal overpay if it was possible at all, but there’s now a striker who’s relatively young and lethal in front of goal available for a clear-cut fee. If he really is being shopped around, this is a very easy win.
Spurs ‘in talks’ for former Chelsea defender
We’ll wrap things up today by indulging in an old transfer window tradition – the weekly link between a Premier League team and England defender Fikayo Tomori, who has been debating a return to our sceptered isles every day, in every transfer window, since he first moved to AC Milan if the rumour mill is to be believed. He never leaves Milan. But this time, maybe, it might be different.
Sky Sports claim that Tottenham Hotspur are “in talks” with a move for the centre-back, and are asking after both a loan deal and a permanent move. With Radu Dragusin the latest Spurs defender to go down injured, their desperation for extra bodies has ticked up a notch, and Tomori would certainly be a fine addition if he’s actually available.
There’s a pretty big caveat here, in that Spurs are also alleged to be looking at “other options”, and Milan’s new manager Sergio Conceicao previously appeared to be keen to keep Tomori around, something which isn’t mentioned in the report – but who knows, maybe we’re finally closing in on the time when all the England fans who have demanded he be called up to the Three Lions squad again actually get to watch him play for the first time since he broke into the Chelsea team. Certainly Italian journalist Gianluca Di Marzio reckons that talks are far along enough to be described as “advanced”...
The 3AM Verdict: As with all Tomori stories, we’ll believe it when we see it, but this does have a strong ring of truth to it given the volume and quality of the sources... Maybe it’s finally happening. This is like if Manchester United had ever actually signed Wesley Sneijder. Or anyone had ever signed William Carvalho. Tomori to the Premier League has been the white whale of transfer rumours for years now, and Spurs are our Ahab. Something like that, anyway, I’ve not read Moby Dick in years...