Paper Round: Chelsea go all-out to bring back Romelu Lukaku - for £60 million

Antonio Conte really wants to sign Romelu Lukaku, and doesn't care who knows it. More to the point, he has plenty of money to throw at this particular cause, according to the Sunday Express. He's increased his bid to £60m - but Everton are hoping to squeeze a little more out of Chelsea before they agree to sell.

Paper Round's view: There's so much money going round at the moment our minds can hardly comprehend it. £60m isn't enough for Romelu Lukaku, and Everton want a whole £15m more? Well, if you know the potential buyers have got sackfuls of cash behind them and are desperate for a replacement for Diego Costa. But the question is are they really desperate? Costa looked like he might be heading to Atletico Madrid until Kevin Gameiro signed for Atleti instead on Saturday, a deal which pretty much ended any chance of Costa leaving Stamford Bridge for his old club. So the question is whether Chelsea still need Lukaku.

The Daily Star Sunday reports that Inter Milan are ready to sell Mauro Icardi to Arsene Wenger's Arsenal, if the Gunners' move for Lyon forward Alexandre Lacazette fails. "Wenger had a £29.3million offer for Lacazette turned down last week and could yet go back for the £42m-rated Frenchman," the papers reports. "But if the Arsenal boss decides not to make another offer, as Lyon president Jean-Michel Aulas has hinted, then a move for Icardi would be next up."

Paper Round's view: The Star's story is backed up to an extent by the quotes from Inter president Erick Thohir saying that the club will listen to offers in excess of €60m for Icardi. Of course, just four days ago Thohir insisted that the player is not for sale at any price. And judging from Inter's mauling at the hands of Bayern Munich on Saturday, they really DON'T need to lose good players right now if they're at all serious about getting back to the top of Italian - and European - football.

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The Sunday Telegraph reveal a planned coup among the big guns of the big European leagues - they want more Champions League places, and what's more, they want guaranteed slots for their most marketable clubs. Yep, regardless of how well they do domestically.

Paper Round's view: This is all those dire warnings about a European Super League coming to fruition, isn't it? Paper Round supposes that in the cold light of day these proposals make some kind of twisted logical sense, but sport is not about logic, it's about competition, emotion, romance, tradition and lots of other things - even if money plays an increasingly important role. It's to the English representatives' credit that they are opposing the guaranteed spots suggestion, at least. These proposals are unlikely to be put into practice; but then probably some people thought the same thing when the Champions League was first mooted as a competition that didn't actually just include champions.

Sam Allardyce is already depressed about the talent pool available to him as England coach. The Mail on Sunday report that he's said that there are so few top-class English players in the top flight that he's going to have to resort to calling up players who aren't even getting regular games for their club.

Paper Round's view: How's that concept behind the Premier League working out for you, Sam? Remember when they kept telling us that the elite clubs would play fewer games and it would allow for fresher, better prepared, home-grown players, ready to represent England? It's not looking good for the brave new Allardyce world when he's already wondering if he can put together an actual squad of players who have pulled their boots on in the last month or so.

Eric Bailly rejected an offer from Manchester City before signing for their rivals United, according to the Sun on Sunday. Intriguingly, they report that it was Didier Drogba's recommendation of Jose Mourinho as a coach that persuaded him - even though Yaya Toure did his best to sell City to him.

Paper Round's view: This one seems to be based on Bailly's own words, so assuming they're accurate, there's no reason to doubt it. You've got to question the wisdom of relying on Yaya Toure as an intermediary, though - he's hardly the poster child for happiness in the workplace.