Man Utd plot stunning transfer hijack for £30m star as Newcastle chase top class Marc Guehi alternative

It’s Saturday, and that means… well, the same thing as every other day, really, as we pore over some of the biggest and boldest Premier League transfer rumours from the last 24 hours and offer up our verdicts – and today, we kick off up at St. James’ Park, with an interesting twist in Newcastle United’s hunt for a centre-half.

Although Marc Guéhi is very much the priority, Caught Offside reckon that a new name has been added to their shortlist, in the shape of Barcelona and Denmark centre-back Andreas Christensen, who remains a regular starter at the Camp Nou two years after trading Chelsea for Catalonia.

Apparently the base price would be £22-23m, with Barcelona “willing to discuss his farewell”. According to the report, both Harry Maguire and free agent Mario Hermoso have been discussed internally at Newcastle as well, although there is little more than “timid interest” at this stage.

The 3AM Verdict: We’re not sure an internal discussion over Maguire needed to be more than someone mentioning his name and someone else saying no, so that bit may well be true – but we can only say that it’s the first we’ve heard of the Christensen link and there’s no clear sourcing, making it hard to assess the veracity of the story. But the Dane can still play and is still a very solid all-round defender, so we can believe he’s on the shortlist.

Details emerge as United go for a gazumping

Details now of an intriguing story from Old Trafford – according to TeamTalk, Manchester United are making a late attempt to hijack Brighton & Hove Albion’s proposed deal for Fenerbahçe full-back Ferdi Kadioglu, who was one of the stars of Turkey’s Euro 2024 campaign.

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The Seagulls had been thought to be top of the pecking order and came in with a €35m (£29.8m) offer, although apparently too much of that is made up of add-ons for Fenerbahçe’s liking – and now United have offered €30m (£25.6m) but with a much larger up-front fee, which could give the Istanbul side pause. A good old-fashioned gazumping could well be in progress.

The 3AM Verdict: Kadioglu could finally fix the issue at left-back and he can cover on the right, too, if either Diego Dalot or Nouassir Mazraoui happened to be unavailable. He’s a gifted attacking wing-back and less defensively-minded that the players United currently have, which could help round the squad out, too. The detail in the transfer fees makes us think the sourcing is legitimate, too, and we know that transfer information leaks pretty freely in the Turkish league.

Brighton fending off Adingra bids

That’s not the only bad news for Brighton fans in today’s column. According to HITC, the Seagulls are now having to fend off interest in Ivorian starlet Simon Adingra, who has attracted the interest of both Arsenal and Tottenham Hotspur.

Several new signings, combined with impressive pre-season performances from some of the younger players at the Amex Stadium, mean that the 22-year-old (practically a veteran by Brighton standards) is facing a threat to his place – but despite that, Brighton have made it “very clear” that they have no interest in selling him this summer.

The 3AM Verdict: A general rule of thumb we follow is that when a transfer story comes with minimal detail, it’s not worth trusting until we hear more – and this report is very light on detail indeed. Which doesn’t mean that the North London rivals haven’t made tentative enquiries, but we suspect this isn’t something either club is pushing for too hard. That said, Adingra was excellent last year and would offer some depth where it’s needed for both teams…