Arsenal will not give up on the signing of Julian Alvarez right until the end but, with his heart set on a move to Barcelona and Atletico refusing to sell to them, it still looks unlikely to happen at this stage.
Everyone is waiting to see if Alvarez changes his stance and opens up to the idea, but if he doesn’t, Arsenal are happy with their squad and won’t
There is no doubt the club like Newcastle’s Lewis Hall. At 21, he is the right age profile and ideally suited to challenging Shaw for his place, with the safety net of there being enough games to keep both men happy.
However, Newcastle don’t want to sell. It would take a huge offer to persuade them otherwise and Manchester United’s powerbrokers have proved on numerous occasions this summer they will
Brentford are in the fortunate position of being able to choose their deals carefully after some excellent squad strengthening.
The Bees have been looking at left-back, with West Ham’s El Hadji Malick Diouf strongly linked, but it hardly seems a matter of urgency with Keane Lewis-Potter able to play as a wing-back with Rico Henry and Aaron Hickey also in the mix.
In February, about 100 club officials, scouts and agents gathered at Villa Park for a networking event.
Over coffee and pastries, in William McGregor’s in the Trinity Road Stand, representatives from clubs including Liverpool, West Ham, Birmingham, Preston, Derby, Aston Villa and Manchester City chatted, along with agents, to prepare for the summer and debrief the winter.
In the afternoon, Villa’s head of emerging talent and loans Adam Henshall gave
Arsenal have the bulk of their business still to do after bringing in Christos Tzolis for £34m as a Leandro Trossard replacement and Illan Meslier as a third-choice goalkeeper on a free transfer after his departure from Leeds.
The Premier League champions have ambitious plans to capitalise on their title success by targeting elite signings for the left-wing and central-midfield positions. Work has been done to explore the cost
They certainly did in John Mousinho and Richard Hughes’ first summer together in 2023, constructing a squad that won promotion from League One.
Three of last season’s first choice back four arrived in that summer. The past two years have been more of a mixed bag, with Championship survival requiring good January windows.
They still need to secure their own free agents. New
City did not need eleventh-hour drama or wheeling and dealing having completed their incoming business in advance of the weekend. And impressive business it appears to be with five new faces – three on-loan and two permanent.
Despite being under the constraints of the second of their two-window EFL transfer restriction sanctions, City were still able to bring in a mix of experience and younger, promising talent using free transfers
Gallows humour may lead to some Blackburn fans claiming the sacking of Valerien Ismael on deadline day actually ended a challenging month with a positive, given the perceived detrimental impact the Frenchman was having on the Rovers team.
But in a strategic sense, whoever replaces Ismael inherits the same problems he has been wrestling with and zero flexibility to do anything about it until June which, by then, could be
The loss of Mehmeti to a rival is a blow for a side hoping to reach the top six again this campaign.
Yet he was out of contract this summer and had been offered a new deal.
Mehmeti signed from League One club Wycombe in 2023 and has developed considerably in the past two seasons, scoring nine goals in 31 appearances this season, as well as 12 during 2024-25.
