Chelsea plot audacious £60m Aston Villa raid as West Ham ready first summer transfer deal

It’s time for your Saturday morning dose of the biggest and juiciest new Premier League transfer rumours that we’ve spotted floating around the world’s media over the past 24 hours – and we’re going to start off with a potentially seismic story involving Chelsea and Aston Villa.

According to Football Transfers, Chelsea “have approached” the Villans about the availability of striker Ollie Watkins, with the England international said to be the Blues’ “Plan B” if they fail to sign Napoli’s Victor Osimhen this summer.

Apparently the Nigerian’s wage demands are worrying Chelsea, and as a result they are “exploring” the option of spending around £60m – supposedly Villa’s asking price – on Watkins instead. Chelsea, it’s said, “are willing to match this figure”.

Watkins was, of course, the subject of a similar bid from Arsenal in the winter transfer window, which was rejected out of hand, but between the 29-year-old’s age, the chance to have more time to find a replacement and some reported recent frustration over playing time, perhaps they may be more receptive this summer…

The 3AM Verdict: We still haven’t seen ‘Watkins to Chelsea’ from a single reliable source, and they prefer to spend their money on younger players as a rule, so we’re not entirely sure we’re buying this one. There’s certainly some chance that Watkins’ recent frustrations have boiled over more than we appreciated, but we just can’t see Villa being keen to sell such an important asset.

Manchester United among clubs suffer blow in defender pursuit

Over to a transfer tale from TBR Football now – they claim that Manchester United are one of the sides who are “interested” in striking a deal for Bayer Leverkusen’s soon-to-be free agent defender Jonathan Tah, but who are set to be frustrated.

Apparently, with Xabi Alonso expected to become Real Madrid’s new manager this summer, Tah is likely to follow. The Spanish coach “would like” to bring the Germany international with him, and Tah seems keen enough himself.

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United are the headline side in this report, but Tottenham Hotspur, Manchester City, Chelsea, Aston Villa and Newcastle United are all said to have “maintained contact with Tah’s camp” lately, so quite a few Premier League sides could be disappointed if Alonso does indeed make the move to the Bernabeu.

The 3AM Verdict: Tah has always looked more likely to move to a club in Spain or to Bayern Munich than to the Premier League, not that we blame teams for keeping an eye out given how rarely such good players become available on a free transfer. We’re not sure United would have been leading the race from the English side, either, but Tah is said not to have made a decision yet – beyond leaving Leverkusen.

West Ham expected to make bid for defender in June

West Ham United will be getting some early work done in the transfer window, if a story from Sport Witness turns out to be true – they report on claims that the Hammers will make a bid for Independiente defender Kevin Lomónaco “at the beginning of June.”

The offer is supposedly set to be worth £15m, although it isn’t made clear whether the Argentine side would accept the offer for Lomónaco, who has been linked with a move to the London Stadium since April.

The 23-year-old, a ball-playing defender who previously played for Brazilian side Red Bull Bragantino, was originally expected to be worth rather less, and Sport Witness’ story hints at the chance that the size of the deal is inflated.

The 3AM Verdict: Enough smoke for us to suspect a real fire, at this stage, although it’s only really been reported in the South American press. As for the price point, we suspect that £15m is on the high side, but we’ll find out in due course – well, really rather soon, if the story has its timeline straight.