Football news - Paper Round: Real Madrid consider January striker options, Arnautovic coy on rumours

We start with reports surrounding Real Madrid. The club are short on goals following the departure of Cristiano Ronaldo in the summer and they are reportedly making a short-term move for a more experienced player to cover them until the summer. The two players reportedly under consideration are Zlatan Ibrahimovic and Radamel Falcao. Ibrahimovic would be cheaper than Falcao given that his contract with the LA Galaxy is technically set to expire.

Paper Round's view: On one hand this seems really odd, it's hard to imagine either of these players rocking up at the Bernabeu in January. Then you remember that this is a club that signed Julien Faubert, Thomas Gravesen and Emmanuel Adebayor so they do have history. If you think about it for long enough you can almost convince yourself Ibrahimovic makes sense given his personality, cost and the fact that he didn't exactly leave Barcelona on good terms...

We now move from one mercurial striker to another, Marko Arnautovic. The Austrian has long been linked with a move away from West Ham but over the summer he stayed put. During the international break he was asked about a potential transfer but Arnautovic flat-batted the question and said that he was focused only on the next game.

Paper Round's view: These quotes are all well and good but other recent quotes from Arnautovic, plus comments from his brother (who is his agent) tell a slightly different story. These new quotes almost seem like an attempt to backtrack following those previous comments. Arnautovic is no fool, he is aware that there is still a market for him and he has a shot at playing European football again.

We now end with a couple of stories concerning Manchester City and the first focuses on central defender Nicolas Otamendi. The defender has slipped down the pecking order at City and he reportedly wants talks with manager Pep Guardiola over his future. If he does decide to leave then Spanish giants Real Madrid and Barcelona are mentioned as possible interested parties.

Paper Round's view: Otamendi is not a bad defender, it's just that Guardiola is fully invested in the axis of John Stones and Aymeric Laporte. When you throw in club captain Vincent Kompany then it is easy to see why Otamendi is struggling for playing time. He deserves to be allowed to move on, possibly even in January, to help get his career back on track.

And our second City report says that the club are in talks with supporters group over the possibility of expanding the Etihad Stadium to 63,000 seats. The North Stand is the topic of discussion and might be turned into a two-tier development that would allow for the expansion.

Paper Round's view: We're just going to say what everybody's thinking, City don't always sell out their games, particularly in Europe. However that hasn't stopped other teams from looking to expand so who knows, maybe it'll all be fine.