Arsenal’s double bad news day disaster as Tottenham find cunning cheese room alternative

First they beat Borussia Dortmund to the Bundesliga title with the very last gasp of the season, and now Bayern Munich are going to beat Arsenal into second place in the race to sign Declan Rice – at least the Gunners have some experience of coming second at this point.

This is according to The Mirror, anyway, who claim that the Bavarian überclub have tabled a £95m package for the West Ham and England midfielder – on which basis he can probably start packing his bags and getting the German lessons in, because while Arsenal haven’t figured out exactly how much they’re willing to fork out just yet, it isn’t likely to beat that.

It would be a record signing for Bayern Munich – by some distance, as well – but they’re keen to splash the cash to ensure they maintain their tediously unshakeable hold on the German championship, and Rice is understood to be willing to make the switch. The German word for Rice is reis, by the way, which should make the transition a little easier.

The 3AM Verdict: If Bayern really are going to start spending like a superclub – something they’ve generally resisted doing in the past – then god help everyone else in Germany. Rice would be competing with Joshua Kimmich and Leon Goretzka for a spot in the Bavarian starting line-up, but that’s probably a challenge he’s up to. As for Arsenal? Well, second place may get a little boring but at least it’s better than Spurs, eh?

Norway, José

More bad news for Arsenal comes courtesy of The Mail, who reckon that Paris Saint-Germain are preparing an audacious and somewhat unexpected bid for Martin Ødegaard. PSG generally get what they want with the help of oversized briefcases stuffed full of cash – well, at least it could help fund a move for Rice.

Any transfer movement at PSG is somewhat complicated by the annual wait to find out whether they sack their manager despite winning the league title – they will, they respect tradition – but the Qatari board like to throw the money around regardless of the wishes of the head coach, so even if likely incomer José Mourinho isn’t keen he probably wouldn’t get any say in the matter. Arsenal are apparently not remotely interested in selling the Norwegian, but it’s hard to say no once the dollar signs start spinning in everybody’s eyes.

The 3AM Verdict: There are quite a few high-quality creative attacking midfielders on the market this summer, so this might actually be a good time to sell any such players you already have for enormous amount of cash. Nobody at the Emirates wants Ødegaard to leave, but if you could buy a James Maddison or a Mohammed Kudus and get £50m change, should you really say no? Honestly, probably not.

Kane you believe it, there’s even more Harry rumours

Finally, another update from the already endless Harry Kane transfer saga. How many thousands of Kane rumours will we get through before he finally makes up his mind? Heaven knows, but Daniel Levy is apparently trying to reduce the final tally by not letting the England captain make any decisions at all. For that, we salute him.

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With Tottenham Hotspur’s patented mind control machine still at the testing phase (work continues in a laboratory hidden behind the vacant space where the cheese room was meant to be), Levy is sticking with the tried and true method of simply refusing to negotiate with any Premier League clubs – at least according to The Mirror. That presumably means the odds on PSG or Real Madrid go up a notch, if nothing else. Check back in about five minutes for yet more news that isn’t really news, probably.

The 3AM Verdict: I’m already getting bored of the debate about where Harry Kane goes next. We’ve already written a breakdown of his options – well, before Real allegedly entered the picture – so we’re just going to lazily point you at that for an opinion which goes beyond “mate, just sign a contract so we can go back to James Maddison already, yeah?”