Cole Palmer and Carlos Baleba Man Utd transfer latest as desperation strikes | OneFootball

Four Man Utd deals are on the cards but none of them are for Carlos Baleba and Cole Palmer, whatever they want you to believe.

But first, some wonderful nonsense…

Non-contact sport

We all love some left-field surprise transfer news on deadline day and Arsenal’s interest in Newcastle midfielder Sandro Tonali was a little slice of heaven on Monday morning.

Here at Mediawatch we mostly enjoyed the speed of the bubble being burst. In some instances, it happened so quickly that we all emerged with whiplash.

‘The two sides are locked in talks with time running out in the window,’ write The Sun in the third paragraph of their story.

And then come the fourth and fifth…

So the two clubs are ‘locked in talks’ despite ‘no offer or approach’ from Arsenal? Is Andrea Berta using a Ouija board?

‘The two Premier League rivals are said to be locked in talks with time running out in the window – but the Magpies may be reluctant to sell the 25-year-old midfielder, who is contracted at the North East side until 2029,’ say the Daily Star.

Jet stream

As far as ‘pretending sh*t is going on’ headlines of the day, this is a belter from the Daily Mail:

The defender JETTING IN (ie. taking a plane rather than a ferry or train) is actual Chelsea defender Mamadou Sarr, recalled on loan from French Chelsea in Strasbourg.

But nobody can come close to the Daily Express for the stretch reporting here…

And those ‘four Man Utd deals’ in full: Ethan Wheatley to Bradford, Sekou Kone to Lausanne, Diego Leon to Nice and Gabriele Biancheri to Real Betis. How will they even field a team if all those go through?

Cole Palmer to Manchester United latest

Back to the Daily Express we go for an update on Cole Palmer to Manchester United. SPOILER: There is no update.

But why let that get in the way of this belting headline?

We’re then told that ‘prising Cole Palmer away from Chelsea would require a world record transfer fee, according to various reports’.

Yes, ‘various reports’ last week, at which point it became clear that ‘Palmer currently has no intention of leaving Chelsea’. Nothing’s ’emerging’ right now but deadline-day desperation.

Talking of which…

Which sounds like a phenomenal story, if Man Utd’s first deadline day had been ‘decided’ by Man Utd. And not by three Express writers given a hypothetical task purely to create that headline.

We’re just surprised they didn’t ‘decide’ that Palmer is on his way.

And their friends at the Manchester Evening News are also keen to jump on board the Man Utd transfer train:

Has Baleba spoken about Man United and/or a potential transfer? Has he f***. What he did say – back in sodding August – was that “if there are big clubs who want me, it’s not something that worries me or gets me excited”.

He has made his feelings on Man United transfer as clear as mud. And all of this has absolutely nothing to do with it being deadline day.

We need to stop getting upset by this, don’t we? Is there therapy available?

No Jacquet required

New Liverpool signing Jeremy Jacquet was asked back in October about his idols and he told L’Equipe:

Three months later, the Mirror have found those quotes and…

How will they ever recover from the ‘snub’ of being Jacquet’s favourite centre-backs? Things are ’bout to get real awkward.

They do bloody love a ‘snub’ at the never-knowingly-undersold Mirror. About as much as they love pretending that old news is actual news.