Football Transfer News

There’s certainly a lot of huffing and puffing in the transfer market at the moment, especially as far as some of the big names are concerned, and surely something’s about to give.

Gareth Bale, Luis Suarez, Wayne Rooney and Cesc Fabregas are all the subject of daily media reports of claim and counterclaim and every Tom, Dick and Harry you meet on the street and down the pub is convinced they know what’s going on and how it’s all going to turn out.

Well, that confidence is definitely not reflected in the betting market. Let’s go through them one by one, starting with Bale.

Marca, the newspaper with strong links to Real Madrid, have reported that the Spurs winger is definitely on his way to the Spanish capital. They have even quoted the figures: a staggering £85 million fee, plus a wage bill of €10m a year.

This is denied at White Hart Lane and Andre Villas-Boas keeps on repeating that his prize asset is not for sale. And the market hasn’t been too disturbed by Marca’s ‘scoop’ either. Most observers expect Bale to end up at the Bernabeu sooner or later, but Coral go 1/3 that he is still in north London at the start of the 2013-14 season (2/1 that he isn’t).

Arsenal have made a £40 million bid for Suarez (actually £40 million plus an extra quid to trigger a buy-out clause), but it has apparently been dismissed out of hand by Liverpool, whose American owner, John W Henry responded by asking publicly: “What do you think they’re smoking over there at the Emirates.”

Anfield manager, Brendan Rogers, is also adamant Suarez is going nowhere, although his message hasn’t been quite so unequivocal. He said that no bid would even be considered unless it was close to the value they put on Suarez, later adding that even if an acceptable bid was tabled, it didn’t mean that Liverpool would accept it.

We shall see. Coral rate the unsettled Uruguayan striker a 1/2 chance to leave Liverpool and 6/4 to stay. It appears there are three equally possible scenarios: he moves to Arsenal, he moves to Real Madrid, or he stays where he is.

It’s a bit quiet at the moment on the Rooney front – it seems he is still a little more likely to leave Manchester United than stay. Chelsea (1/3 with Coral) remain in the driving seat should he choose to quit Old Trafford.

And though there is growing speculation in the Press that Fabregas has not been given the assurance of regular starts he sought at Barcelona, punters are still not convinced that United boss, David Moyes, will get his man before the end of the summer transfer window.

Written by Jon Freeman