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Manchester United have reportedly cast their eyes in the direction of Patrick Schick, with focus on bolstering the centre-forward position as the club look to rise up the ranks in the Premier League.

This is according to reports stemming from Spain, which chalk Schick’s name onto the list of candidates to take Cristiano Ronald0’s role in the side, after the legendary Portuguese forward came to a mutual agreement with the club to terminate his contract in acrimonious circumstances in November.

Offensive “genius”

United’s issues in attack have been laid on the table for all to see this season, with Anthony Martial and Marcus Rashford the only two established players capable of adopting the role.

Rashford has been in blistering form under Red Devils boss Erik ten Hag, scoring 12 goals and serving four assists from 23 outings across all competitions, but his most bounteous rewards are found when out on the left flank, while Martial has only scored eight Premier League goals since the beginning of the 20/21 campaign.

Last season was when the £94k-per-week Schick was thriving with form to rival any forward across Europe, with the 35-cap star recording an average rating of 7.26, as per Sofascore, exhibiting physicality and a clinical nature with aplomb, captivating with the sheer regularity of his net-breaking strikes.

Indeed, plying his trade for Bayer Leverkusen in the German Bundesliga, the £26m-rated striker scored 24 goals from 27 league appearances – outscoring Erling Haaland’s 22 strikes – but he has fallen wide of the mark this term, netting only three times amid Leverkusen’s struggles; the club languish in 12th place after 15 matches, albeit with three wins on the trot.

United will be hoping he can emulate his feats of last season if technical director John Murtough can indeed instigate a transfer, combining the cogs to unleash a formidable machine against Premier League defences.

Despite the Czech forward’s current woes, a change of scenery might well spark the fire back in his belly, with his feats over the past several years evidence that he can prosper among any division, and bypass any defence.

Nearly signing for Juventus in a £26m deal in 2017 before failing his medical, the 26-year-old “genius” – as dubbed by Jaroslav Šilhavý – has indeed since gone on to successfully test his mettle against some of football’s finest backlines, and he would certainly flourish in a United team on an upward trajectory and holding a rekindled flame to alight their offensive drive.

Liverpool have been boosted by journalist Jan Aage’s Fjortoft’s claim that Jude Bellingham could potentially leave Borussia Dortmund in January.

The Lowdown: Bellingham tipped for Summer move

The Englishman is one of the top young players in the world at the moment, already become a key man for both Dortmund and England, making five appearances at the 2022 World Cup.

Bellingham is considered Liverpool’s main transfer target in the summer transfer window, with the Bundesliga giants willing to sell once it comes around as the Reds, Manchester City and Real Madrid queue up for a bidding war come June (Sky Sports).

However, a potential change in the saga has now emerged – one that could excite supporters who are desperate for immediate midfield reinforcements.

The Latest: January exit possible?

Writing on Twitter, Fjortoft revealed some new information – Dortmund could become ‘weak’ to the idea of selling this month, should a €150million (£132.5m) bid arrive.

“No signs suggesting that Dortmund will let him go this winter. An insider telling me though… For 150 million Euro they could get weak.”

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The Verdict: Too good to be true

In truth, the likelihood is that Bellingham will stay put at Dortmund for the remainder of this season, with such a huge offer unlikely to arrive so soon, especially from Liverpool.

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Should the chance arise to snap him up early, the Reds simply must try to get a move over the line, however, considering he is one of the most exciting footballers of his generation.

FSG are often criticised for their refusal to spend big, though, and it feels more likely that a cheaper midfielder may come in in January, if at all, before a big-money summer move for Bellingham.

Everton have been linked with a move for Matheus Cunha and now a new update has emerged on the club’s chances of the signing the player in January.

What’s the latest?

According to journalist Simon Phillips, Everton have a better chance to sign the Atletico Madrid striker over Premier League competitors Wolverhampton Wanderers.

When asked by GIVEMESPORT if a move to the Merseyside club would be more appealing than a move to Wolves, Phillips responded:

“Oh, for sure. Everton have got a good history as a club anyway, and I think what’s more important is Frank Lampard’s pulling power.

“If a player is picking between Everton and Wolves, I think Lampard is going to be the standout decision-maker for any player really. We saw it at Chelsea, he single-handedly got players to sign for the club like Thiago Silva and Kai Havertz just with his influence.

“So, I think he can use that again at Everton, especially for a player like Cunha. I think they’ve got a better chance of signing him than Wolves.”

Lampard must avoid Cunha

There is no doubt that Everton are in desperate need of improvements in their attacking threat and Frank Lampard will be given the golden opportunity to turn the Toffees’ season around with the acquirement of players who can make a genuine positive impact on the team over the second half of the campaign.

However, due to Everton’s current league position in 17th – just one point shy of the relegation zone – the manager is afforded no room for error in terms of making sure he brings in the right profile of forward to help the team secure safety in the top flight for another season.

As a result, the signing of Cunha may not be the best approach for Everton if their intention is to increase and improve their goal-scoring opportunities over the remainder of their fixtures this season.

The £49k-per-week forward has only managed to score seven goals and register eight assists over 54 appearances for Atletico Madrid and has averaged just 33 minutes per game, proving that he is not a trusted or consistent goal-scorer for the La Liga giants.

Over 11 league appearances this season, Cunha has scored no goals, registered two assists and missed four big chances, as well as averaging 13.3 touches, 5.6 accurate passes and 0.7 shots on target per game, further confirming that the player does not command a big presence on the pitch and isn’t the natural finisher Everton are crying out for.

In fact, the 23-year-old was once dubbed “out of order” by his former coach at Hertha BSC, Pal Dardai, for a poor performance when the player was caught strolling in a defeat to Koln last year.

“In Germany, you can’t just stop working when you’re not in possession. Then everything falls apart,” he fumed.

“There were scenes that were absolutely out of order. As a striker, just staying up front, walking back. I don’t understand the world anymore. How does a footballer get into walk mode in 90 minutes? I don’t know.”

With that being said, Lampard must focus on his other potential targets to fill the striker role needed at Goodison Park as Cunha is clearly neither in form nor clinical enough in front of goal to provide Everton with the goal contributions needed to save their season.

Chelsea manager Graham Potter has the ‘full support’ of the club’s board despite a poor run of form, according to Fabrizio Romano.

The Lowdown: Early pressure building

The Premier League giants appointed the 47-year-old in September following the sacking of Thomas Tuchel, but just two months into the job, early pressure is already mounting on the former Brighton boss.

The Blues suffered a 1-0 defeat to Newcastle last weekend, with the west Londoners having now lost four of their last five games in all competitions, and they are already eight points adrift from the top four.

The Latest: Potter has Chelsea board’s backing

Taking to Twitter, Romano revealed that, whilst Chelsea are currently in a slump, Potter isn’t in any way under threat of losing his job and has the backing of Todd Boehly.

The Italian wrote: “Chelsea have no doubts on Graham Potter. Full support as long-term project has just started – feeling internally is that he needs time and he [is] the right man for the job.

“Board additions will continue with Paul Winstanley.”

The Verdict: Rightly so

The Stamford Bridge outfit have been struggling to get results of late, but there’s absolutely no denying that backing Potter is most definitely the right decision moving forward.

Brighton’s former manager has so far won seven, drawn three and lost four of his opening 14 games in the Chelsea dugout, averaging 1.71 points per match (Transfermarkt).

Also, he hasn’t had any opportunity to bring in his own players yet, so January will provide the perfect chance for him to start creating his new-look squad once the transfer market reopens.

Everton have been name-checked in a potential race to sign Club Brugge winger Noa Lang in the January transfer window.

The Lowdown: Winger wanted

Having recently been linked with the likes of Wolves’ Daniel Podence and Sporting Lisbon’s Fatawu Issahaku, it is clear that the Goodison Park outfit want to bring in a new winger come January.

They currently have four wide options in the senior squad at the moment, but Andros Townsend is out with a long-term injury, while Anthony Gordon has been consistently linked with a move away.

The Latest: Lang interest?

As per Belgian news outlet Voetbal Belgie, the Merseyside club are ‘looking for new forces for the attack’, with Lang name-checked as a player they could possibly go for in January.

However, they may face competition from a host of Premier League rivals.

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The Verdict: Great option

Lang would offer Frank Lampard another great option for his squad, providing he makes the transition from Belgian football to the Premier League smoothly.

Although not as prolific this season so far, the 23-year-old has still managed 22 goals and 22 assists in 66 games in the Belgian top flight (five senior caps.

Describing himself as an ‘entertainer’, Lang is somewhat of a flamboyant character; his Dutch team-mates have even called him ‘trouble’ in the past (talkSPORT).

Nonetheless, he has the potential to light up the Premier League, should the Toffees make their move.

Sunderland return to action in the Championship this afternoon as they take on fellow newly-promoted side Wigan Athletic at the Stadium of Light.

Tony Mowbray’s side are on a run of four games without a win in the division and are currently sitting 13th in the table after 13 matches.

The Black Cats lost 2-1 away to Swansea last time out and have only scored once in their last three games, whilst having to deal without having a natural number nine available due to the injuries to Ross Stewart and Ellis Simms.

They now come up against a Wigan side who are two points and four places ahead of them in the table but will be without captain Corry Evans for the game after he picked up his fifth booking of the campaign against the Swans.

His suspension leaves a position in the middle of the park up for grabs and Mowbray could spark Sunderland into life by unleashing Edouard Michut from the start.

The Frenchman arrived from Paris Saint-Germain in the summer and the manager recently praised him after a performance for the U21s, saying: 

“My dilemmas really are around, do we replace Corry with a real technician? So if you saw the U21 games on Monday night against Leeds United, Edouard Michut showed what a lovely footballer is, passing the ball between the lines. He was competitive in the game and I think he covered 13 kilometres as well.”

These comments indicate that the Black Cats boss is a fan of the 19-year-old and Evans’ absence provides him with an opportunity to unleash the young gem.

Football talent scout Jacek Kulig previously claimed that the dynamo has “natural football IQ” and once described him as being “highly technical and creative”. This suggests that he has the vision and intelligence to open up opposition defences, which is something Evans – who has created 0.3 chances per game – is not adept at.

On the other side of the game, Michut is not a lightweight who will be easily bullied by the opposition. He made his Championship debut against Blackpool earlier this month and made four tackles and interceptions combined in 14 minutes, whilst also winning 100% (1/1) of his aerial battles.

Therefore, the Frenchman – who provided one assist in 70 minutes of Ligue 1 action for PSG last term – could spark life into Sunderland’s recently dim attack by getting on the ball and making things happen in midfield, whilst remaining strong out of possession and not being a liability from a physical point of view.

Arsenal are a side who have reaped the benefits of possessing an impressive academy set up in recent years, with the likes of Eddie Nketiah, Emile Smith Rowe and Bukayo Saka having all graduated from the Gunners’ youth ranks before establishing themselves as regulars in Mikel Arteta’s first-team squad.

However, arguably one of the club’s most talented academy prospects in recent memory, Reiss Nelson, is yet to fulfil his undoubted potential at The Emirates. And, with a matter of months remaining on his current contract in north London, time is running out for the 22-year-old to prove he has what it takes to make it at the club.

Indeed, former Arsenal manager, Arsene Wenger, previously stated his belief that Nelson “has shown that he can dribble, go past people and he isn’t fazed by the occasion,” while legendary Gunners centre-back Martin Keown claimed that the winger “showed the sort of touches you often see or associate with a Neymar or a real top player.”

There has been evidence of these claims on the pitch, with the £5.85m-rated talent having impressed during a loan spell at TSG 1899 Hoffenheim back in 2018/19, scoring seven goals and registering one assist over his 23 Bundesliga appearances, with Julian Nagelsmann going as far as to compare the attacker to another of Arsenal’s former academy graduates, Serge Gnabry.

Regarding Nelson, the former Hoffenheim manager said: “Reiss is a player whose qualities can be compared to those of Serge Gnabry, but just not so well developed.”

And, considering the fact that Gnabry now boasts a market valuation of £72m – having scored 67 goals and registered 43 assists over 182 appearances for Bayern Munich – just eight years after he left Arsenal for a measly £4.5m, it would appear extremely wise for the Gunners to learn their lesson from the 27-year-old’s rise and hand Nelson one more chance to impress before the end of his current deal.

Indeed, it is undeniable that the academy prospect possesses the potential to be a massive success in the professional game, perhaps even going on to match the level of the Germany international, but whether or not this development occurs at The Emirates looks to solely depend on whether or not Arteta affords the £15k-per-week starlet a final opportunity in an Arsenal shirt.

Leeds United manager Jesse Marsch will have some big decisions to make on a number of his first-team players in the next year or so as the club have a host of contracts expiring in 2024.

The Whites have four senior centre-backs with their deals set to expire at the end of the 2023/24 Premier League campaign, with Pascal Struijk, Liam Cooper, Robin Koch, and Diego Llorente all in that bracket.

Llorente and Cooper will both be in their 30s by that point and Marsch may decide that moving them on and replacing them with youngster options may be the way to go, or the players themselves – including Koch and Struijk – may decide that they do not want to stay.

Either way, Leeds could find themselves needing to sign another centre-back either next summer, if they opt to cash in on one of them instead of allowing them to leave for nothing, or in 2024.

However, Marsch could prevent Victor Orta from needing to spend millions in the transfer market if he is able to unearth 18-year-old talent Kris Moore from the academy side.

The teenage gem does not turn 19 until November and has already racked up 31 appearances for the under-23 side, after featuring in 27 matches for the U18s.

U23 head coach Mark Jackson revealed that he and his staff never doubted the youngster’s quality and backed him to make the step up to the U23 side at the age of 17, saying:

“He’s been training with the group now since the start of pre-season, and last season as well. We had no doubts in Kris’ ability to deal with the situation and the step up and he did fantastically well against a tough opponent in Street up top, who was physical and good in the air. I thought we coped well with it.”

These quotes show that the staff at Elland Road have a lot of faith in his maturity and ability, which bodes well for a potential step up to the first-team in the future.

Whites journalist Joe Donnohue previously described him as “solid” at the back and the reporter hailed his performance against Mansfield earlier this year, writing:

“Encouraging display, leading the team from centre-back. Moore maintained his positioning well through the game, snuffing out danger by simply ensuring he was in the right place at the right time.”

The gem also caught the eye in a 3-2 win over Oldham in the EFL Trophy last season. He earned a SofaScore rating of 7.00 as he won three of his four individual duels, made five clearances, and completed 86% of his passes.

Moore, who was named on the bench in the Premier League during Marcelo Bielsa’s reign, is a promising young player who has shown signs of having the potential to make the step up to the first team, with his accelerated progress at youth level.

Therefore, Marsch could save Orta millions by bringing the youngster through to the senior side and offering him a chance to prove that he can be a viable option for many years to come.

West Ham United took four games of the new Premier League season to score their first goal of the campaign, which came during their recent 1-0 win over Aston Villa.

The player that managed to get the east London club their first goal and opening win was Pablo Fornals.

While the Hammers have already brought in a couple of attacking players during the current summer transfer window in the shape of Gianluca Scamacca and Maxwel Cornet, the remaining days of the window may give them an ideal opportunity to bring in an upgrade on Fornals.

One figure that could be that is West Ham-linked Adnan Januzaj.

The former Manchester United winger is currently a free agent after leaving Real Sociedad at the end of last season.

During his time with the Spanish club, the Belgian scored 23 goals and provided 21 assists in 168 appearances across all competitions.

To compare his previous domestic season with Fornal’s last league campaign with West Ham, Januzaj trumps the Spaniard in a number of metrics. For starters, the Belgian managed a great deal more shots on target per 90 minutes at 0.72 to 0.35.

Meanwhile, the former United man produced more shot-creating actions per 90 with 3.66 to 2.80 and was successful with more dribbles – 2.38 vs 0.80. This statistic is similarly backed up by the number of progressive carries with Januzaj registering 8.12 per 90 to Fornals’ 4.95.

Previously touted to become an “unbelievable” player by David Cotterill, the former United player has certainly shown he has what it takes to be a top player at one of Europe’s big clubs.

Having made 60 appearances under the management of Moyes during the duo’s time at United and Sunderland, this experience would make it easier for the winger to hit the ground running at West Ham and know what the Scotsman expects from his players.

Taking all of this into account, securing a deal for the attacker as a free agent before the summer transfer window shuts should be a no-brainer for the Hammers.

As for the player, a move back to England to play in the Premier League again under a manager he has knowledge of could be a very tempting prospect for him, particularly if there is the potential for him to leapfrog Fornals in the pecking order.

West Ham United are still pressing on with their bid to sign Eintracht Frankfurt star, Filip Kostic, according to the latest reports.

What’s the word?

As per club insider ExWHUemployee – via the West Ham Way Patreon page – the Hammers are hoping that the Serbian international’s agent, Alessandro Lucci, can tempt the 29-year-old into making the switch, with the player currently said to be “indecisive” about the deal.

The respected source stated: “It is believed that Lucci is trying his best to convince the player to be open to a move to West Ham if the Italian move does not happen and that a new improved financial offer has been made to him as of today to try and persuade him to sacrifice the Bosman option,” he wrote.

“It is expected that we will be clearer in the next few days although the player is very indecisive at the moment and as a result, no one in the club knows definitively whether we have a chance or not.”

The 48-cap gem – who has spent the past four seasons in Frankfurt – is reportedly set to be available for a cut-price fee of around €20m (£17m), with just a year remaining on his existing deal with the German outfit.

Unreal signing

It would appear then that a decision over the former Hamburg man’s future could well be imminent, with supporters likely praying that the east Londoners are able to make what would undoubtedly be an unreal signing for the club.

Comfortable anywhere down the left flank, the £43k-per-week sensation would offer a real potent attacking threat to David Moyes’ side, having been in truly sparkling form both domestically and in European competition in recent seasons.

The 2021/22 campaign saw the £21.6m-rated menace register an impressive tally of seven goals and 15 assists in all competitions, notably recording three goals and six assists in just 11 appearances during the Bundesliga side’s triumphant Europa League run – beating the Irons en route to the showpiece.

That haul also ensures his overall record at his current side now stands at 33 goals and 63 assists in 169 games across all fronts, with that stunning form unsurprisingly seeing him dubbed an “assist machine'” by journalist Ronan Murphy.

The one-time Stuttgart man also compares favourably to those in his position across Europe’s top five leagues in a number of metrics, ranking in the top 2% for progressive passes received, the top 5% for progressive carries and the top 6% for touches in the attacking penalty area.

Having largely featured in a wing-back berth at the Waldstadion, it remains to be seen just where the 6 foot wizard would line up at the London Stadium were he to be plucked in the coming weeks, although his versatility could potentially see him usurp Aaron Cresswell at left-back or feature ahead of the Englishman in midfield.

With his cliched wand of a left boot, there is no telling as to the damage that West Ham can inflict with Kostic swinging in inch-perfect deliveries to 6 foot 5 summer arrival Gianluca Scamacca, with that attacking threat a truly mouthwatering prospect.

AND in other news, Moyes can now form “unreal” duo as West Ham given green light for “limitless” £13m signing…