Midweek Round-up

Andrew Psaras

— 1 min read
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Here's the midweek round-up.

Man Utd closing in on Baleba. United are reportedly close to a full agreement with Brighton for Cameroon midfielder Carlos Baleba, with talk of him possibly featuring against Hull this weekend. Confirmed by Sky Sports and corroborated independently by FootballTransfers and Sports Illustrated.

Newcastle push for Bergvall. Lucas Bergvall told Tottenham back in June he wanted more first-team football elsewhere; that's now sharpened into reports this week of Newcastle preparing an improved bid worth up to £60m. The "wants to leave" element is confirmed directly on Sky Sports; the fresh £60m bid detail is currently only on secondary outlets (CaughtOffside, Goal, TheHardTackle) rather than the BBC/Sky/Premier League sites yet, so I'd treat the price tag as still developing rather than nailed on.

West Ham's Parrott move collapses, pivot to Piroe. West Ham's pursuit of AZ Alkmaar striker Troy Parrott broke down over fee disagreement; Parrott is instead heading to Real Betis for around £17m (via Ben Jacobs, reported the72.co.uk, 19 August). West Ham have turned their attention to Leeds' Joël Piroe instead, per FourFourTwo and separately corroborated by West Ham fan-site reporting on advanced Piroe talks.

Arsenal's academy tug-of-war. A different kind of Arsenal "transfer request" story than the headline suggested at first glance: it's teenage Blackburn Rovers striker Igor Tyjon, who's formally asked to be de-registered so he can push through a move to Arsenal, reportedly worth £1m plus £2m in add-ons. He's not training or playing while it goes to an independent panel. Confirmed via Daily Cannon (18 August) and picked up by FourFourTwo.

Context for kick-off weekend. A reminder of how much has already been spent this summer: Chelsea's Morgan Rogers signing from Villa is a club-record £117m, Tottenham's Sandro Tonali deal from Newcastle a club-record £100m, and Arsenal paid £75m for Bruno Guimaraes - all confirmed on Sky Sports. On the injury side, Arsenal's William Saliba remains out with a back issue, which Al Jazeera's season preview flags as a genuine concern for the champions' title defence.

The season itself kicks off Friday 21 August, Arsenal hosting Coventry City, with Opta's supercomputer giving Arsenal a 38% title chance, Man City 20.5%, Liverpool 9.2% and Man Utd 6.2%.

Sources:

  • Skysports.com
  • caughtoffside.com
  • the72.co.uk
  • fourfourtwo.com
  • dailycannon.com
  • aljazeera.com/sports

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