Paper Round: Manchester United to use Wayne Rooney as Romelu Lukaku leverage with Everton

A day after it was reported that Wayne Rooney would join Everton this summer on a free transfer from Manchester United, the plot appeared to thicken. Tales began to appear on Thursday’s back pages that striker Romelu Lukaku is the price Everton are prepared to pay in order to bring Rooney back to Goodison Park. According to The Mirror, United plan to use Rooney, or rather the payment of Rooney’s wages, as leverage to bring the Belgium international, valued at £100 million by his current club, to Old Trafford in Rooney's place.

Paper Round’s view: If you believe – and we do – that Lukaku is definitely leaving Everton this summer, and will most likely end up at Chelsea or United, there are a few things to consider. Firstly, Lukaku played at Chelsea in the past, but left with the club having failed to make the most of his now much-lauded talents. The club’s manager at that time was of course Jose Mourinho. However, Lukaku’s agent Mino Raiola, responsible for the signing of Paul Pogba and Zlatan Ibrahimovic by United last summer, seems to be on pretty good terms with Mourinho, even if Lukaku is not. And if United and Everton are now in a position to help each other out, it’s hard to see how Chelsea would fit in with this.

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And in a story that seems to wrap up all the loose, oft-cited Premier League transfer ends (bar Sanchez and Ozil, but of course, we’ll be coming back to them) part of the issue Chelsea face in their quest for Lukaku is uncertainty around Diego Costa, who they are keen to get rid of, so says the Spain international. Costa is said to be keen on a move to Atletico Madrid, who are subject to a transfer ban until January 2018, but despite this, they may have found a solution to their mutual dilemma.

Paper Round’s view: The Mirror claims that Atletico Madrid will look to loan Costa to Chinese Super League club Tianjian Quanjian until their transfer ban is spent, in order to help finance the move. However, it seems improbable that Atletico could arrange any such loan with the club banned from even registering new players ahead of January 2018 – a ban that was upheld by the Court of Arbitration for Sport just last month.

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Meanwhile as Arsenal finally seemed to have something to celebrate with the announcement that they had completed the signing of Lyon forward Alexandre Lacazette, on Wednesday, Thursday’s back pages continued to dine out on the ongoing Alexis Sanchez contract saga. According to reports, in the latest development Sanchez has turned down an offer by the North London club of £275,000 per week, because he is holding out for £400,000 per week instead.

Paper Round’s view: It’s almost as if we’ve had every single permutation of the Sanchez transfer saga possible, now. We hope Sanchez isn’t holding out for £400k per week, because we’re not sure where that would leave him other than, possibly unemployed – which would be a shame. We believe Sanchez wants a pay rise, we agree he’s worth a pay rise if the club are hell bent on keeping him, but a pay rise of that magnitude seems an unlikely goal within European leagues.

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It was a great day for Brits at Wimbledon on Wednesday and an even better day for media outlets everywhere to make Beatle-related puns as not one, not two, not three but FOUR of GB’s tennis players progressed to the third round. Andy Murray took it in his stride with an easy second round victory against Germany’s Dustin Brown, Johanna Konta battled against Donna Vekic, while even Heather Watson and Aljaz Bedene were in on the act.

Paper Round’s view: It’s 20 years since Great Britain last had four players in the third round at Wimbledon and it could yet be five if Kyle Edmund enjoys success against Gael Monfils. Though we might not hold our breaths. Andy Murray says he wants to see five or six British players in the quarter-finals of Grand Slams, though we think that might be a lofty ambition this time around, with Watson up against Victoria Azarenka and Bedene meeting Gilles Muller in the third round. It’s certainly a time to be excited about British tennis, though.

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