Man City plot shock transfer hijack to land £50m Liverpool target as Chelsea chase latest wonderkid

Welcome to Wednesday’s round-up of the biggest and boldest Premier League transfer rumours currently doing the media rounds – and we’ll start with a response to the news that Manchester City superstar Rodri may well be out for the rest of the season.

The Spaniard, who has been integral to his side’s success over the past few seasons, was taken off with an injury during Sunday’s showdown with Arsenal and it appears that he will be sidelined for some time – and the result is that Pep Guardiola has quickly assembled a list of potential replacements, at least according to TeamTalk.

They claim that although there is “no panic” at the Etihad, Real Sociedad midfielder Martín Zubimendi (previously a summer target for both Arsenal and Liverpool) is top of the list, even though City are “reluctant to splash out big sums in January” – and Zubimendi surely wouldn’t be cheap.

The other names on the shortlist don’t sound all that budget-friendly, either – Inter Milan’s Nicolò Barella, Atalanta’s Éderson and Crystal Palace’s Adam Wharton are all options, with the latter having “caught the eye” in particular. The report reckons that Barella is really a target for next summer, but the implication is that a move could be fast-tracked.

The 3AM Verdict: Losing Rodri is terrible news for Manchester City and will have any other teams with pretentions on silverware licking their lips, but we doubt the club will panic buy this winter, and the fact that they spent so little this summer suggests that they have decided to keep it pretty tight all season long. Only expect them to make any of these moves if Rico Lewis struggles with the extra workload or if another player goes down too.

London clubs chase wonderkid

News from Caught Offside now, who reckon that Arsenal and Chelsea are the two Premier League sides preparing to get involved in the battle for 17-year-old River Plate wonderkid Franco Mastantuono, who has been drawing rage reviews from scouts in South America.

An entire “host” of top continental clubs are keen on the Argentine, it would seem, and Real Madrid are at the very front of the queue with the player himself supposedly especially keen on moving to the Bernabeu, but the two London sides “can’t be entirely ruled out” and are very much scouting him, with Manchester City and Barcelona doing the same.

The 3AM Verdict: The article doesn’t explain why it singles out Arsenal and Chelsea even though Manchester City could also be interested, but the inference is that their interest is further developed. Chelsea, in particular, have already spent a fortune stockpiling South American talent, so we certainly believe they’d been keen to add Mastantuono to their collection. He’s an attacking midfielder who could end up playing further forward and has been compared to Julián Álvarez. No price tag is mentioned.

Forest loss ‘inevitable’

We’ll wrap today’s round-up off with some bad news for Nottingham Forest fans – according to Football Insider, it’s now “inevitable” that star centre-half Murillo will leave the club, thanks to interest from clubs as impressive as Real Madrid and Barcelona in the young Brazilian.

Apparently unspecified sources are now convinced he’ll be gone next summer after he was linked with a move to La Liga in recent months, although most of the rumours from the most recent transfer window focused on Atlético Madrid. A healthy profit should follow, at least.

The 3AM Verdict: A good rule of thumb with Premier League rumours is not to put too much stock in Football Insider stories, but whether they have an inside track here or not it’s pretty hard to imagine Murillo hanging around too much longer – he’s become hot property and has a long list of suitors at this point. The good news is that at least there’s nothing here to suggest that he may be off in January.