Crystal Palace & Nottingham Forest linked with dazzling wonderkid as Liverpool chase ‘Vinicius Jr clone’

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Our round up of the latest Premier League transfer rumours, including news from Liverpool, Aston Villa, Crystal Palace and more...

Welcome to Friday’s round-up of the latest Premier League transfer rumours – today, we’ve got stories about Liverpool’s pursuit of the next Vinícius Junior and Aston Villa’s alleged interest in a £67m Champions League star, but before all that we’re going to kick things off with reports of a potentially remarkable deal involving Bayern Munich wonderkid Mathys Tel.

Regarded as one of the very brightest prospects in European football, Tel has been struggling for minutes under Vincent Kompany and as such could be sent out on loan, according to Caught Offside – and unsurprisingly, there are an awful lot of clubs who want in on the action.

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Crystal Palace, Nottingham Forest, Fulham and Leicester City are all namechecked as being part of the “host” of top-flight sides who would love to take the wildly talented young Frenchman on for a few months from January.

Apparently, Manchester United have also made enquiries about the 19-year-old’s availability in the past but aren’t believed to be interested this time around, presumably because they would want a long-term deal rather than a short loan.

The 3AM Verdict: It’s amazing that Kompany would rather loan Tel out than find the minutes for him because he is supremely talented and has been hugely impressive as a rotational piece over the past couple of seasons. If Tel really is available for loan, then there are only a very small handful of Premier League sides who shouldn’t be interested. Young though he is, Tel is a very special player.

Liverpool’s clone wars

News from Anfield now – TeamTalk have picked up a story from the Catalan media which claims that they’re interested in 18-year-old Brazilian striker Rayan, who has recently broken into the Vasco da Gama first team back in Brazil. But despite the Reds best efforts, it looks like they may well miss out.

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Rayan, who was seen as a potential long-term successor to Mohamed Salah and has already earned comparisons with Vinícius Junior (the article describes him as a “clone” of the Real Madrid man), was apparently the subject of a “great offer” from Liverpool – but it came too late, with Barcelona beating them to the punch. He is supposedly expected to sign for the Blaugrana soon for a fee of around £15m.

The 3AM Verdict: Lyon have been linked with Rayan as well, and we’re not sure that the teenager has made a decision yet – but this is the first we’ve heard about Liverpool’s interest in him. That doesn’t mean this story isn’t true, but we’re wondering if it may be slightly premature in terms of him signing for Barcelona. If Liverpool are in the bidding, they may well still have a chance.

Villa set to take a Sporting chance

Over the past week, we’ve endured a near endless stream of stories suggesting that Rúben Amorim’s old Sporting players would soon be joining him at Old Trafford – so it’s nice to see a tale about Aston Villa signing one of them instead.

This one comes from GiveMeSport, who claim (citing the Portuguese media) that Unai Emery is keen on making a deal for attacking midfielder Pedro Gonçalves, who would presumably either compete with Morgan Rogers for the number ten position or play out on the wing. Villa supposedly had a £33m bid rejected in the summer but could now come back to the table for a player who has a release clause set at €80m (£67m). The report does suggest that this will be a deal for next summer, however, with Sporting apparently “adamant” that they won’t undertake a fire sale in January.

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The 3AM Verdict: This seems like a pretty rational and realistic story and about the right level of player that Villa should be going for, really, although we doubt that they’d pay off his release clause. Something in the £40m region already seems like the absolute most you’d pay for a gifted and hugely entertaining player.

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