The Dortmund youngster every Premier League club wants

Transfer Flow oldheads might remember that this started as, unsurprisingly, a newsletter about transfers and transfer rumours. It will become that once again for much of January, and then full time again come June. For now, we’ll ramp up to the window re-opening with a rumour roundup about once a week, and we’ve got some juicy ones to cover today.

First up, a dribbly boy from the Bundesliga.

Stop me if you’ve heard this one before: Talented winger tearing it up for Manchester City youth teams, but doesn’t see a pathway to the first team. Decides to make a move to Borussia Dortmund. Gets into the first team there as a teenager. Starts drawing huge transfer interest from English clubs.

I promise that Jamie Gittens is not actually a Jadon Sancho regen, but he is also a right-footed left winger who likes to cut inside and is good at dribbling. Every Premier League club with money besides City would like to sign him, including the one that currently employs Sancho.

I do not think Gittens is a €100m player right now, but with 3.5 years left on his contract, there’s no reason for Dortmund to open negotiations with a lower figure. If English teams want him, they’ll probably need to wait for his contract to run down a couple more years or pay a premium.

And those clubs will continue to be interested if Gittens is putting up numbers like this. He’s not really a similar profile to Sancho, besides being a right-footed left winger who is a good player. He’s much more direct, better at getting in behind the defense, and is not nearly as good at passing.

Also, StatsBomb has not developed an xFun metric yet, but this dude LOVES a stepover. I promise I am not saying he is going to become Cristiano Ronaldo, but he’s very reminiscent of the way Ronaldo played at the same age.

Out of the above-listed clubs, I think Arsenal is probably the one that ostensibly has the budget to take a big swing on Gittens and the squad in place to get the most out of his talents. Chelsea have a glut of players at the position, Liverpool have much more pressing needs, and I’d say the same about Tottenham even though Son Heung-Min might not have too much time left at the top level.

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Some more rumours

• I promise I’m not just trying to send every good young player to Arsenal, but I think they’d also be a better fit for Liam Delap than all the clubs currently interested in him. Though this would certainly be a better allocation of resources from Man United than signing the other striker they’re linked to.

• Every single paper and influencer in Europe says Manchester United wants to bring Viktor Gyökeres to Old Trafford. He’s a good player who would make them better, but the club has much more pressing needs in midfield and defense. Also, just signing guys the manager likes is what got them into the crummy situation they’re currently in. Perhaps you could try a different process than the one that made you the most underachieving club on the planet?

• In more “this guy is good but fixes none of your problems” news, Man United is also linked to Kvara. Sure, spend £175m on Gyökeres and Kvara while you run Casemiro and Dalot out there every week. Sounds great.

• Trent Alexander-Arnold’s future and associated fallout is probably going to be the biggest transfer story of January, and maybe even the summer too if he draws this out. Sport say Real Madrid are looking at Tottenham’s Pedro Porro as an alternative if Trent decides to stick at Liverpool, while Bild says the Reds are interested in signing Jeremie Frimpong from Bayer Leverkusen if Trent decides to leave. All of this makes perfect sense for all parties.

• Chelsea have apparently finally accepted that they should try to loan Mykhailo Mudryk a.k.a. Ukraine Bolt even if they have to eat a ton of his wages to do so. If you squint at his Conference League numbers, he looks like he’d make a decent winger in the Championship.

• Spurs are interested in signing THE NEXT NGOLO KANTE, according to The Paper That Shall Not Be Named. You know, the one they don’t sell in Merseyside. 19-year-old Reims midfielder Valentin Atangana is extremely talented at running and tackling, but currently does not have much more to his game. If you’ve watched him play (intently, I’ve seen Reims but not watched for him specifically), let us know if he’s better with the ball at his feet than these numbers suggest. My first reaction to hearing a Prem team might drop 8 figures on this guy is “don’t do that,” but the nickname has certainly succeeded in getting me to pencil a Reims game into my busy schedule.

—KM

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