Gossip: Chelsea 'refuse to pay over odds for Morata', Arsenal 'will sell players to sign £80m Lemar'

Alvaro Morata seems like a nice guy, he really does. You can tell from the way he plays football. He’s unselfish, reliable, not flashy, always trying to help out his team-mates with lay-offs, flicks and knockdowns. He’s a solid fella.

But maybe that’s the problem – he’s too nice. He gets taken for granted. He’s the kind of guy who will lend you his lawnmower and, although you obviously intend to give it back, you feel no pressure to do so. And then two years later, you go to his house and the garden is completely overgrown and there are loads of spiders, and you suddenly remember you still have his mower.

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But he’s too polite to ask about it, and you don’t bring it up, and eventually he just buys a new one. You feel bad but then you think, ‘It’s only Alvaro, he’ll be all right about it.’

But the things is, one day a man like that will snap. One little thing will push them over the edge and they’ll do something demented, like leave their wife or kidnap a horse. And in Morata’s case, that one little thing could be Chelsea.

Since they missed out on Romelu Lukaku, Morata has been the obvious centre-forward target for the Blues. But because it’s only Alvaro, they’re taking their time over it.

The Star reports that the Chelsea board have “refused to be dragged into a bidding war” for the Real Madrid man. Despite previously having been willing to pay £63m for him, Roman Abramovich is now “stepping back” from the transfer because he “doesn’t want to pay over the odds”.

Meanwhile, the Russian is reportedly flirting with the idea of an £88m bid for Gonzalo Higuain (Mirror), an £80m move for Sergio Aguero (Sky Sports) and a £65m swoop for Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang (SkySports). Not to mention the £75m bid he made for Lukaku.

But for Morata? Oh no, we wouldn’t want to pay over the odds for him.

And the silliest thing is, Morata is the one they really want. The Mail says the Spaniard remains Antonio Conte’s “top target”, whereas the likes of Aubameyang and Torino’s Andrea Belotti are just back-up options. But if Chelsea keep sniffing around these other targets, they’ll only have themselves to blame with Alvaro goes to AC Milan instead.

Meanwhile, Arsenal will seek to offload fringe players before deciding whether to smash the club’s transfer record for the second time this summer with a raid on Monaco for Thomas Lemar, says the Mail.

Which is obviously a terrible idea, because it takes ages to offload fringe players, and by the time they’ve done it the 21-year-old winger will probably be about 25.

The problem is, the Ligue 1 champions appear to have no inclination whatsoever to sell Lemar and have therefore put a rather prohibitive £80m price tag on his head. Which is a lot of money to pay for a Europa League outfit like Arsenal.

Crystal Palace might help the Gunners out though. The Eagles have allegedly offered £16m for their defender Calum Chambers (Telegraph) and are also trying to sign midfielder Jack Wilshere on loan (Mirror).

It would still be easier to just sell Alexis Sanchez though. The Mirror says Paris Saint-Germain have stepped up their interest in the unsettled Chilean and are “not put off by his wage demands”. They can also guarantee him Champions League football pretty much every season for the rest of his life.

Elsewhere, Manchester City have had a £2.6m bid rejected by Napoli for goalkeeper Pepe Reina (Mirror), Swansea are interested in re-signing City outcast Wilfried Bony (Wales Online) and Nice left-back Dalbert Henrique has revealed that Liverpool wanted to sign him but he has chosen to move to Inter Milan instead (Express). Shame – it could be long time before we get another chance to see a Dalbert in the Premier League.
@darlingkevin