Where's Kyle Walker going?

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Welcome to a new week! The weekend FA Cup round is behind us, which means we are entering back-to-back-to-back weeks of EPL and or Championship mid-week rounds.

And transfer madness.

Yay?

Thank you for the feedback on Friday’s Variance Betting analysis/update. For those who want to sign up to A LOT of upcoming Variance Betting analysis pieces, the link to subscribe is here.

Finally, we have a new sponsor today. I actually think HubSpot is great (honest!), and not JUST because they have an extra capital letter like StatsBomb used to.

Please do us a favour and click through on the ad and give them a tiny moment or two of your time. It will help us pay our amazing writers and podcast people, and it will help us to get better rates on ads in the future. Your support is both appreciated and necessary in exchange for our delightful insight, analysis, and existential suffering. —TK

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News and Rumours

• Last week, Antonio Conte described Khvicha Kvaratskhelia’s request to be sold as “a bolt from the blue.” Which is confusing to us, because Kvara and his agent have been saying this publicly (or at least leaking it to the media) both before Conte came on board the Napoli project, and throughout his time as head coach.
  
  Initially PSG were the noisy frontrunners for Kvara’s signature (which is weird, because Barcola is real good and plays the same spot, and they only get one ball in Ligue 1), but now allegedly Man United are involved (L’Equipe) and so are Liverpool (The Athletic). He’s probably needed at United and could be part of a sexy Garnacho swap deal(?!), while Liverpool links feels more like agents, agenting.

• Marcus Rashford has many teams that may or may not be interested in him as a player, and presumably many fewer teams that are interested in saving him from his Man United nightmare while absorbing a significant amount of his wages. Expect this one to continue until the end of the month (at least) because there’s hagglin’ to be done and that takes time.

• Donyell Malen’s transfer seems to have gotten stuck at the front door of the Villa dressing room. What seemed like a sure thing/done deal last week is now an argument over €5m between Villa and Borussia Dortmund. Malen is signed through 2026 and actively wants to leave, so it feels like Villa have the leverage here, but we’ll see!

• After a 6-month holiday in Turin, Douglas Luiz’s agent is actively working on bringing him back to England. Italy would seem to be a much better home for his skillset, but what do we know?

• I’m bored of Kolo Muani rumours. I assume you are as well.

• Someone reported West Ham have “the opportunity to sign Jonathan David,” but the reality is EVERYONE now has the opportunity to sign Jonathan David because that’s how Bosmans work.

• Jhon Duran to PSG has real heat at this point, which makes sense because PSG have a Duran-shaped hole up front and are shopping Kolo Muani. HOWEVER… it also makes sense for Villa to hang on to him and gradually phase Watkins out/move him on, so I’m curious to see what actually happens.

• Follow-Up: Ollie Ollie Watkins free? I’m just riffing here.

• New West Ham head coach Graham Potter is allegedly interested in signing Bridgerton from his former employers (which makes some sense because Dewsbury-Hall is good enough to play SOMEWHERE), but also Ben Chilwell (?), which ONLY makes sense if West Ham move him to a pay-per-match deal. Broken dude is broken. Even when they are a left back. (See also: Shaw, Luke)

• I am ignoring ALL “Barcelona are interested in” stories until they sell enough players to register the players THEY ALREADY HAVE. This shit has to be vaguely plausible right now, rumourmongers!

• Kyle Walker is either moving to Milan (both teams are rumoured) or Saudi Arabia. If it’s Milan, we’re guessing they haven’t seen him play since the summer. If it’s Saudi, then the giant fork sticking out of his back will be handled with care when they send a private jet to fetch him.

• Niclas Füllkrug picked up a hamstring injury over the weekend that could keep him out for up to three months. That transfer (that I hated) could not be going better for the Hammers.

• Chelsea are seeing interest in some of their extensive moves over the past two seasons. The problem, however, is that many of the teams who want to “buy” the players are insisting on a loan period first, without mandatory purchase clauses, because while they are interested, the players they want to buy don’t have enough minutes of top level play to reassure the buyers of their actual quality.

If you enjoyed this newsletter, we’d appreciate it if you would forward it to a friend. If you’re that friend, welcome! You can subscribe to The Transfer Flow here. We also have a podcast where we go in depth on transfer news and rumours every week. We’re on YouTube here, and you can subscribe on Apple Podcasts or Spotify by searching for “The Transfer Flow Podcast.”