Football transfer rumours: Celta Vigo's Maxi Gómez to Tottenham?

And breathe. Following their team’s stunning performance against Manchester City in last night’s truly epic Champions League encounter at the Etihad Stadium, those Tottenham supporters who managed to calm down for long enough to get to sleep will wake up to the rather less seismic news that Celta Vigo striker Maxi Gómez could be on his way to White Hart Lane. The Uruguayan international has a release clause of £42m in his contract, a figure that would halve if his team are relegated to the Spanish second division. They currently sit fourth from bottom, one place off the relegation zone with six games of the season to go.

Resigned to the very strong possibility of losing Toby Alderweireld during the summer, Tottenham are also being linked with 22-year-old Lazio central defender Luiz Felipe, who at a cost of £17m would represent better value than Sampdoria’s Joachim Andersen or Everton’s Michael Keane, although both players are also on the Spurs’ radar. With no end of extremely important on-field business to keep them occupied, Tottenham fans will be understandably more concerned about players they currently have on the payroll than those they do not.

While most people are of a mind that Manchester United need a dressing-room clear-out this summer, they are also of the opinion that Marcus Rashford is one of the players they should definitely keep. The striker is said to be stalling over signing a contract extension, while Barcelona monitor his situation with interest.

The agent of Mo Salah has rubbished claims by the Spanish news outlet AS that his client will demanded a summer transfer away from Liverpool after an alleged bust-up with Jürgen Klopp. The fact that the Egyptian played and scored against Porto as Liverpool sauntered into the Champions League semi-finals last night would suggest there is little if any beef between player and manager, while Salah’s agent, Ramy Abbas Issa took to Twitter to rubbish the speculation by acerbically joking that the Spanish publication was “Talking out of their AS.” In other news, Salah has been hailed as feminist “icon” after telling Time magazine he thinks Egypt needs “to change the way we treat women in our culture” after he was named on of the publication’s top 100 most influential people in the world.

Mo Salah speaks to Time Magazine after being named among their 100 most influential people in the world.

Rumours abound that Newcastle are interested in signing Bournemouth winger Ryan Fraser and the Mail say they’d be prepared to offer Matt Ritchie plus cash to get their man. Following an excellent season on the south coast, Fraser has also been strongly linked with Arsenal and has even gone so far as to say that their apparent interest in him has been a bit of a distraction. “Maybe it hasn’t helped,” he told the BBC in a recent interview. “Subconsciously, you might think about it. I’m just trying to get on with my work.”

Meanwhile at Chelsea, Olivier Giroud has made no secret of his displeasure at playing such a peripheral role and will reject the offer of a contract extension. Russian club Zenit St Petersburg are waiting in the wings and are ready to pounce if Chelsea are unable to overturn their transfer ban and prevented from making the loan move of Mateo Kovacic from Real Madrid permanent.

And finally, reports from Germany say both Arsenal and Everton are interested in making a Premier League player of 24-year-old Fortuna Düsseldorf’s Belgian striker Benito Raman, who has scored 10 goals in 27 appearances for the mid-table Bundesliga side.

source: theguardian.com