Chelsea obey the laws of thermodynamics while Spurs set up a big bang

All the latest Premier League transfer news, plus a physics lesson, as Chelsea look set to lose Reece James and Declan Rice picks his next destination.
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The link between football and physics is discussed all too infrequently. Partly, that’s because it’s wildly pretentious to imagine tenuous links between the Newtonian laws that bind us all and a game where rich people kick a ball about, of course – but then Wildly Pretentious are my middle names, which probably tells you something about my upbringing and explains a great deal about my writing.

But the same immutable tenets which govern Roberto Carlos’ ability to curve a ball round corners at great force, or that ensured Peter Crouch would return to earth after a header despite all visible evidence that his body was liable to part with the earth, also have influence on the transfer market – or so I’m about to try and claim. Come for the transfer rumours, stay for a science lesson from a bloke who failed to make it past page three of A Brief History Of Time. Which, to be fair, is two pages further than a lot of people got, so I feel like I’ve got a solid intellectual grounding here.

Anyway, as anyone who did GCSE physics knows (I got an A by the way, just in case I needed to further embellish my credentials), the laws of the conservation of mass and energy basically state that whatever you put into a reaction must be the same amount that comes out the other side. And on that principle, because Chelsea have signed about £600m worth of players in the past year, so must a similar volume of players depart. That may have more to do with squad limits than physics but just try telling Nottingham Forest that.

We’ve already reported that overspend multiplied by Mykhaylo Mudryk means the departure of Mason Mount, but more will be needed to satisfy the spirit of Isaac Newton (or at least let them register Benoit Badiashile for the Champions League next year). So it is that Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang, who you may quite reasonably have forgotten was at Stamford Bridge entirely, is doing everything in his power to go back to Barcelona. Having lived in both London and Barcelona myself, he’s making the right choice, at least if Sport Witness have their facts straight.

The same rumour-hungry newshounds also report more troubling news for Chelsea fans – Real Madrid are in the hunt for Reece James. Apparently they want James to provide “competition for Dani Carvajal” which I suspect would raise the hyper-talented and perma-crocked England full-back’s eyebrows a little, but the laws of thermodynamics may not be tampered with, so he’s going to have to leave in order to satisfy the fundamental laws of the multiverse. Although perhaps we’re living in the parallel world where Real sign Aaron Wan-Bissaka instead. They didn’t really cover that sort of thing in school, to be honest.

Another rule of physics which football is compelled to abide by is the rule which suggests that electricity, when seeking to ground itself, will always do so at the nearest possible point. On which basis Declan Rice, who’s pretty electric on his day, will choose his next club by selecting the nearest available option. Which is why Arsenal are pretty confident they’ll beat Chelsea, Manchester United and Manchester City to the punch when it comes to signing the box-to-box man over the summer. Fewer stops on the tube, if you choose to believe the Evening Standard.

For our final rumour this week, let’s move seamlessly over to chemistry, which I also got an A in. Honestly, now I come to think about how much I enjoyed science at school I realise that either I’ve wasted my life, or that I should give the Big Bang Theory a second chance. Well, perhaps let’s not go that far. Anyway, as those of us who paid attention in Mr. Flutter’s classes will recall, a chemical reaction can be sped up by the addition of a catalyst, and if Tottenham Hotspur want to get Julian Nagelsmann, they’ll need to find something to hurry the process along.

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That’s because he’ll hold out for the Real Madrid job unless Daniel Levy can bring in a player he fancies, and the chosen assistance for the appropriate elements to combine in a big puff of acrid smoke is Bayern Munich defender Matthijs de Ligt. Football.London think that his despondency over Naglesmann’s surprise sacking means he’ll be top of the German coach’s list of requisites for taking over at Spurs – a transfer that would make a very big bang indeed.