Man United handed crucial edge in ongoing Newcastle United transfer battle as Arsenal lead race for £68m star

It’s once again time for our regular round-up and review of the juiciest new Premier League transfer rumours – and this time, we’re kicking things off with a story that may worry Newcastle United fans excite Manchester United supporters in equal measure.

According to GiveMeSport, while Newcastle are “in the driving seat” in the battle to sign RB Leizpig striker Benjamin Šeško, the player himself isn’t all that sure – and would be “more inclined” to move to Old Trafford instead if given the chance.

Newcastle’s interest is of course more advanced as they work to replace the likely-outgoing Alexander Isak, but United still want a striker and have been connected with Slovenian striker Šeško on a number of occasions, with the 22-year-old “more keen” to link up with Manchester United if he can.

The Athletic also have some discouraging words for Newcastle. While they don’t mention United, they do note that Šeško “is not certain to leave” Leipzig and is “not against spending another year” with the club if he doesn’t get the right offer from elsewhere.

The 3AM Verdict: It would certainly fit the theme of Newcastle’s summer if they contrived to miss out on Šeško as well, and they can’t afford to lowball Leipzig or their striker if they do need to replace Isak in the end. United are interested but have spent heavily already and need to sell before they can buy. That should slow them down and may even keep them out of the bidding altogether.

Arsenal lead Manchester clubs in £68m race

Over to Caught Offside now – they claim to have some updates on the battle to sign Crystal Palace and England attacking midfielder Eberechi Eze, which is apparently “heating up”.

Eze, who is available for £68m due to a release clause in his Palace contract, is of interest to Manchester United, Manchester City and Bayern Munich, but it’s Arsenal who are said to be “leading the race” – and there are even alleged details of their opening offer.

They’re supposedly made a bid of £30m up front with the rest of the release clause to be paid in instalments. The deal hasn’t been finalised and Palace have space to negotiate the payment schedule, but Arsenal are “not looking to rush the deal” with progress being made “behind the scenes” – and they could even include winger Reiss Nelson in a swap deal to spice things up.

The 3AM Verdict: Most sources suggest that a deal for Eze is rather less advanced than this, so we have a healthy degree of scepticism over the specifics, but Arsenal are certainly interested. We believe that they’re waiting to sell a few players before making a move in earnest.

Nottingham Forest sabotage Sunderland deal

An intriguing story now from Sport Witness, which suggests that Nottingham Forest may have accidentally spoiled Sunderland’s transfer plans when they confirmed the signing of Dan Ndoye from Bologna.

Sunderland are hoping to sign Bologna’s Colombian centre-half Jhon Lucumi and have allegedly lodged a bid which meets the Serie A side’s €25m (£21.7m) asking price – but having sold Ndoye, the Rossoblu have immediately raised their demands and Sunderland’s hopes may have been “dashed” by the development.

Bologna seemingly no longer want to sell Lucumi as they don’t care to lose two key players in the same transfer window, and are prepared to “shut the door” on a move, all while hoping to persuade the 25-year-old to sign a new contract. The situation also affects Villarreal and Real Betis, who were both interested in Lucumi too.

The 3AM Verdict: There appear to be two slightly contradictory versions of this story going around – one claims that Bologna won’t sell Lucumi under any circumstances, the other suggests that they just want more money. Clearly, one is a bigger barrier to a Sunderland move than the other. We aren’t sure how serious the Spanish interest is, but Sunderland are certainly keen.