Manchester City, Juventus and Barcelona fight for Marcus Thuram - Paper Round

The Sun reports that Manchester City are keen on Borussia Monchengladbach’s striker Marcus Thuram. The 23-year-old son of French international legend Lilian Thuram has started brilliantly this season and is also attracting attention from both Barcelona and Juventus. Thuram Sr played for Juventus in his own career which may put them at the front of the pack.

Paper Round’s view: Thuram’s form after the restart for Gladbach was superb and he showed a killer instinct in front of goal. Since the start of the new campaign he has only got better, and it is a matter of time until he finds a bigger club. Given his technique, size and talent, there are few players of his age who can match him, with perhaps only Erling Haaland way ahead of him.

Fiyako Tomori has been filmed out at a West London restaurant with Callum Hudson-Odoi, with the event happening some time last month. That came at a period when coronavirus restrictions meant that households were not meant to be mixing in these kinds of establishments. Hudson-Odoi contracted coronavirus in March and also broke lockdown rules in May.

Paper Round’s view: There may be scepticism about how much the rules on mixing in restaurants, pubs and so on need to be observed, and many others in Britain have done similar. Realistically, it is not the biggest crime in the world but after being caught breaking the rules in May, this kind of transgression just makes Hudson-Odoi look reckless. He has enough on his plate trying to break into the first team without adding more pressure.

Toni Freixa, a potential candidate to take over at Barcelona as president following the exit of Josep Maria Bartomeu, has said that Lionel Messi must take a cut in his salary if he is to extend his stay at the club. The 33-year-old striker is on around £500,000 a week but due to the coronavirus pandemic and its financial impacts, the club is aiming to reduce their wages outlay.

Paper Round’s view: Barcelona are a catastrophically badly managed club and it would be interesting to see where they would be now if it were not for Messi’s genius. It is hard to see them properly climbing out of their financial problems unless they cut loose many senior players, including Messi, and start to reinvest more sensibly on younger players.

Luka Jovic is considering his future at Real Madrid. The 22-year-old Serbian striker was told to look for a new club in the summer but nothing was done, and now he realises that to get game time he must move on, according to Spanish newspaper Marca. A move in January may not be easy, and a player in a similar position is Isco, who finds himself low down the pecking order under Zinedine Zidane.

Paper Round’s view: When Zidane doesn’t want you, as Gareth Bale found out, there is very little to be done that can persuade him to let you back in the side. For Jovic, he might find that a loan move in January will let him rediscover his best form, and for Isco the 28-year-old Spaniard needs to be playing games at this stage, even if he doesn’t want to leave the club.