Football transfer rumours: Stoke’s Ryan Shawcross to Roma?

http://www.theguardian.com/football/2014/dec/19/football-transfer-rumours-ryan-shawcross-roma

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Eden Hazard isn’t going to feature in popular occasionally semi-humorous regular transfer roundup columns any time soon – unless you count today – having agreed a £52m five-year contract that will keep him at Chelsea until the start of the next decade. We’ll miss you, Eden. Also not going anywhere any time soon: Christian Benteke, who had demanded to leave Aston Villa back in 2013 only to change his mind at the last minute – today he tells the Mirror that the whole thing was “a mistake” and that he has “no regrets about staying”.

Now for some transfers that might happen, and Manchester City’s 21-year-old centre-back Matija Nastasic is a January target for Schalke and Milan, Manuel Pellegrini having decided he isn’t up to much. Another Premier League centre-back potentially leaving for Italy next month is Ryan Shawcross, on the face of it an unlikely Italophile, but it says here that while Newcastle and Everton are both interested in the player, the team currently leading the chase is Roma.

Talking of Roma, their Dutch midfielder Kevin Strootman has already agreed to join Manchester United and with the Italian club now out of the Champions League everyone’s very optimistic – and by “everyone” we do indeed mean “at least one tabloid journalist” – that he can complete a £30m switch to Old Trafford post haste.

Still talking of Roma, Ashley Cole isn’t about to flee the Italian capital because he likes it. “The facts are that he is not going to leave Italy for a year,” revealed Neil Warnock, one of the English managers who would quite like him to. “He is loving it there. He walks about the town without getting recognised. The press are not shoving cameras in his face, so he is loving it.”

Still talking of Italy-based players, though no longer of Roma, Milan’s Stephan El Shaarawy might move to England but not quite yet, according to his agent and brother Manuel. “If he leaves Milan, I’d like to see him play in England, because the Premier League is a competition that is very attractive,” he said. “At the end of the season, we will sit down with Milan and judge how the season has gone.”

Liverpool are ready to ruin the career of yet another defender, with Celtic’s Virgil van Dijk now popping up on their radar. Tottenham and Arsenal are also interested in the Dutchman but it’s Brendan Rodgers – “a certainty to splash the cash again when the transfer window opens,” assures the Express – who’s favourite to win this race. It’s not the only one he’s involved in, though, having decided that Fabian Delph has the potential to replace Steven Gerrard in their lineup, and also that he’d be cheap, what with being out of contract in the summer and stuff. And they’ve also been linked in Italy with deals for the Sampdoria goalkeeper Sergio Romero and the Palermo striker Paulo Dybala.

The Merseyside-based long-shot title aspirants may also profit from a breakdown in transfer negotiations between Newcastle and Rolando Aarons, whose current deal still has 18 months to run but whose performances this season have attracted the interest of Manchester City and Arsenal, as well as the Anfield-based side. Aarons has apparently been offered a six-year contract with his wages set at a paltry £6,000 a week, which is, a “Toon source” told the Star, “what you’d expect them to offer someone in the reserve team”. The cheek of it!

Burnley feel they need to add a little Premier League experience to their squad in January. “We still take value in young players,” said Sean Dyche, “but we are looking for players who’ve had a feel of the Premier League. We are not necessarily a young group, but we’re quite inexperienced as regards regular Premier League football.”

Also looking to get busy when the transfer window opens – less than two weeks now, actual transfer fans! – is Neil Warnock, who wants to add at least three players to the Crystal Palace squad. “We are thin in midfield and up front,” he admitted. “We are trying to get to January, then give our squad better balance. We’re looking for three players.”

His ambition is almost exactly shared by Swansea’s Garry Monk, who admits “we do need those two or three bodies to come in” and is also happy to reveal precisely which positions he wants those bodies to be able to play in. “I have talked about a striker, and it could be that we look at a loan with a view to something longer-term,” he says. “Full-back is another one … We could look for a player capable of playing on both sides … Midfield could be another position we look at, but it has to be the right player.”

Outside the Premier League Derby are considering a January bid for Ross McCormack, even though the striker only signed for Fulham in the summer, for a massive £11m. McCormack has so far scored in precisely one game per month, grabbing one goal in August, a couple in September and one in each of October and November – December’s goal remains pending – and with Fulham foundering in 14th – 10 points from the Championship’s play-off places, the Rams hope they might be able to tempt him away for a cut-price £6m.

And in other essential news, it was revealed today that Wojciech Szczesny’s favourite festive tune is Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree.