Arsenal learn huge asking price for 15-goal lethal striker as Chelsea & West Ham battle for French starlet

Welcome to 3 Added Minutes’ daily round-up of some of the biggest and most outrageous transfer rumours doing the rounds over the past 24 hours – and let’s start with some news from the Emirates, where Arsenal have learned just how much they’d need to fork out for one of the forwards they want to bring in during the January transfer window. And according to Sport Witness, it’s a lot of money.

The striker in question is Sporting’s high-energy, free-scoring Swede Viktor Gyökeres, who only signed for the Portuguese side in the summer from Coventry City but has been tearing it up down is Lisbon, racking up 15 goals in 17 games with seven assists to boot – and the price tag in questions is a meaty €100m (£85.7m), which happens to be his minimum fee release clause.

Essentially, Sporting are top of the Portuguese table and have absolutely no interest in selling their leading goalscorer just – but because of the compulsory contract clause, the option is there should Mikel Arteta be extremely keen.

The 3AM Verdict: The article cites both local and English sources on this one, so there probably is genuine interest, but there have been conflicting reports over how much Arsenal have to spend this winter – and their top brass might want to see more evidence that Gyökeres can do it at the highest level before parting with such a huge amount of money. The 25-year-old was superb for Coventry, in fairness, but the Championship is a different ball game to a Premier League title battle. We’d be surprised if Arsenal went near this in January, but would be loss shocked if they came back looking for a better deal in the summer.

London clubs put on alert over Lyon star

Over the summer there were quite a few rumours swirling around that Chelsea and West Ham United were both keen on 20-year-old French forward Rayan Cherki, a tricky little player who generated a lot of buzz with some scintillating performances for Lyon. The French side opted to hold firm and keep their player in the end, but Foot Mercato reckon things have changed.

That’s partly because Lyon are having an absolutely awful season, are rock bottom of the table and are already on their third manager of the campaign, and while it’s hardly an issue that’s unique to him, Cherki himself has been pretty terrible too. Suddenly Lyon are keen to cash out while he’s still considered a Premier League-level talent, and the report reckons that the bidding would start at about €20m (£17.2m).

The 3AM Verdict: Cherki is one of those electric little footballers with technical talent to burn but a heck of a lot to learn too, and his head certainly seems to have dropped over the course of Lyon’s woeful campaign. Assessing how far he can go is tough, but he hasn’t looked like a player worthy of West Ham or Chelsea for the last few months – but the price point isn’t too outrageous by modern standards, so we’d be unsurprised if somebody took a punt. He’s far from a sure thing, however.

Maignan moves closer to transfer decision

A couple of days ago we brought you reports that AC Milan goalkeeper Mike Maignan had become a transfer target for Chelsea, who are unconvinced by Robert Sánchez and have a ton of money burning a hole in their pocket (as they always seem to). Now 90min have brought us some updates on where Maignan’s head is at – and there is good news and bad for the Blues.

The good news is that Milan’s attempts to extend the Frenchman’s contract aren’t going so well, apparently, and that may force the Italian outfit to move Maignan on while he still has a high sale value. The bad news is that Maignan prefers to move back to France, with Paris Saint-Germain among the suitors as well – and Bayern Munich are also in the race.

The 3AM Verdict: You can argue over how good Sánchez is but Maignan has been one of the best stoppers in the world over the past season or two – none of which changes the fact that under current circumstances, Chelsea have almost no chance of beating PSG to his signature if the French giants to decide to move on from Gianluigi Donnarumma, which is apparently a possibility. They’re one of the few sides who can match the Blues for pay packets and offer Champions League football too, which isn’t looking very likely for Chelsea right now. We have to put this one down as hopeful at best.