Arsenal’s transfer coup under threat, Man Utd suffer double blow and Newcastle eye major signing

Dominos are finally falling. Schemes have been set in motion. Balls are rolling. After weeks of terminally tedious speculation and precious little actual movement, many of this summer’s biggest transfer stories are actually showing signs of life.

Let’s start in Valletta, because that’s where the England squad will be ahead of Friday’s probably-not-crunch clash with Malta, and presumably where half of Europe’s agents are too. A good portion of the England squad seems to be in the process of sorting out a move, and at Gareth Southgate’s otherwise tranquil training camp the constant trill of ringtones drowns out the blissful sounds of birdsong and the less blissful sounds of Man City treble winner Jack Grealish trying to vomit the last of the celebratory vodka out of his system.

Declan Rice is one of the men on the move, and Arsenal have made their opening bid for the West Ham midfielder – a cool £80m. That’s been immediately rejected, according to The Guardian, who suggest that David Moyes won’t settle for anything less than a round £100m.

The real problem for Arsenal – who probably expected to see their first bid bounced right back – is Manchester City, who are mulling over a late entry into the race to get Rice and would put together a financial package that would likely wipe the floor with anything the Gunners could offer.

The 3AM Verdict: Rice at City is an interesting proposition, not least because he’s a very different player from the kind of midfielders that Pep Guardiola has preferred in the past. That said, he’s probably planning to completely change his system again in six months’ time, and he’s hardly averse to taking some time to completely rebuild a player – just like he did with Grealish, who’s a very different player from the one we saw at Aston Villa. Not a different person, in fairness, he barely had any blood in his alcohol stream back in Birmingham either.

Mount manoeuvres

Also spending more time on the phone than he is in the middle of a rondo is Mason Mount, who has seen the first formal bid filed from Manchester United. That weighed in at £40m and has been rejected by Chelsea, because they want a solid £20m or more on top.

Again, there’s absolutely no chance that United actually expected Chelsea to accept the first bid, they’re just trying to haggle like Mount is a hand-spun carpet in a Turkish bazaar. It looks very likely that a compromise will be found somewhere down the line.

While we’re on the subject of United, word has it – also from The Guardian – that they’ve decided to give up on Harry Kane due to the expense they’d have to go to in order to get him. Leaving Spurs really isn’t easy, is it?

The 3AM Verdict: Aren’t the Glazers meant to be selling the club? Why are they ending a transfer pursuit when it would be someone else who’d foot the bill? Are they just assuming that they won’t yet have received Sheikh Jassim’s improved forty-second bid by the time the transfer window closes? Take any transfer plans at Old Trafford with a pinch of salt until we know who’s actually paying for it at the end of the day…

Toon in for Barella, ella, ella

Finally, let’s stop spying on the England camp and check in with Newcastle United who, according to half of world football, have opened negotiations on a £50m deal for Inter Milan midfielder Nicolò Barella.

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Pouring a big old bucket of ice cold water on that particular story are Sport Witness, who cite Italian sources who suggest that not only would Newcastle have to fork out about £20m more, but would actually have to pick up the phone too, something they haven’t yet done and which I think we can all agree would be a helpful first step for all parties.

The 3AM Verdict: It does seem to be one source against the world on this one, but then £50m always sounded a little on the low side, even for an organisation in permanent need of cash like Inter. Swapping the San Siro for St. James’ still seems pretty plausible though, and while there were some reports that Newcastle only had a transfer budget of £75m this summer we suspect that might be a little bit of an underestimate. And yes, the word “only” was doing some heavy lifting there.