Why Arsenal and Man City are battling over Sverre Nypan

Welcome to the weekly transfer rumours roundup. Today, we start off with a look at one of the most interesting players likely to move in the next few days. 18-year-old Norwegian wonderkid Sverre Nypan.

The January transfer window often features a lot of hype, followed by nothing happening and players declaring they’d rather wait for the summer to make a move. But that’s generally not the case for players based in North America or Scandinavia, where the schedule works differently. Those clubs want to get deals over the line now, rather than lose their stars to big European clubs in the middle of their seasons.

Someone’s going to sign Nypan in the next few days, but no one knows who. He’s considering offers from Arsenal, Aston Villa, and the City Football Group, who would likely assign him to Girona in La Liga rather than the flagship club in Manchester.

No one seems to have more than speculation based on Transfermarkt when it comes to a potential fee, so it’s tough to evaluate the financial aspect of a potential move. But I’ve really enjoyed watching a bunch of Nypan since these rumours popped up, and I think he’s a really exciting prospect. He’s a bit green for the Premier League — City want him to start at Girona for good reason — but he has an exciting and well-rounded skillset.

For a technical and attack-minded central midfielder, Nypan has some surprisingly decent-looking defensive metrics. He’s a good dribbler and shooter, but a bit limited as a passer at the moment, which shows in his data. This is not particularly alarming — passing vision is often something players develop as they get older, much more so than other skills — but it’s worth noting that he’s not a natural Xavi.

Nypan’s shot map looks very nice for a box-crashing attacking mid, and he looks to have very good instincts in this regard on the tape. This dude really wants to get on the end of loose balls between the 6-yard box and penalty spot and score goals.

Nypan didn’t look to me like he had true No. 10 playmaking instincts, and his key pass locations support that. He’s just not setting up a lot of shots from central areas. He has the technical quality to make those passes — his highlight tape is filled with difficult passes — but he doesn’t make the really high value ones through traffic in the center at this point in his career.

You might notice that a lot of those passes are from the left half-space. His pressures data also suggests that he’s extremely left-leaning; I think this is both a player preference to drift wide and a team tactic. Interestingly, he is not left-footed, which is usually the case for central midfielders who like to operate out wide this much. He’s pretty impressively two-footed though, with 41% of his passes coming off his left foot.

Because he’s very attack-minded and technically gifted, Nypan gets portrayed in rumours as a No. 10, and in the case of Arsenal or Man City, a player to rotate with Martin Ødegaard or Kevin De Bruyne. But I don’t think that’s the idea with him at all.

Nypan has grown a ton physically in the last year. If you watch clips of him in his first season, he looks a bit undersized; he’s now 6’0” and winning headers in the box. Between that, his surprisingly good defensive data, his tendency to drift towards the left half-space and his lack of central playmaking, I think he’s much more of a Mikel Merino/İlkay Gündoğan understudy and eventual replacement. He’s a box-to-box 8, but with the technical ability to play in a very possession-heavy system.

And personally, I think he’s a huge talent who will be making a big impact on a top Champions League club within a couple of years. —KM

News and rumours

• The Xavi Simons story is a weird one. He’s moved to RB Leipzig for €50m + a potential €30m in add-ons, which doesn’t seem too absurd on its face, even if it’s a lot of money for Leipzig. The weird bit is that he’s only signed a contract until 2027, suggesting there is a part 2 coming soon. Teams do not pay transfer fees like that to sign players to such short contracts. Another sale or contract extension has obviously been agreed upon for the summer, but I hope Leipzig dotted their is and crossed their ts, and don’t get rugpulled.

• Injury-riddled Tottenham Hotspur have been linked to just about every known available player over the past week. Presumably they won’t sign more than one of these guys, but they’re apparently asking around about all of: Mathys Tel, Yoane Wissa, Tyler Dibling, Noah Okafor, Stefanos Tzimas, Breel Embolo. A tiny piece of defender, please? Just a crumb perhaps?

• Speaking of Tel, he’s going to be the main character of deadline day. Bayern boss Max Eberl said “I’ve rarely had so many clubs call me about a player before.” None of the journofluencers seem to know which direction he’s leaning.

• The Mail say Arsenal have made a second, improved bid for Ollie Watkins. But they’re going to be told to do one, because Aston Villa have sold Jhon Duran to Al Nassr for £65m. I’m personally disappointed to see such a young player walk away from Champions League football, but that’s a pretty good sale for Villa.

• Miguel Delaney reports that a loan to Juventus is the only viable option Marcus Rashford has to leave Manchester United during this window. Every bit of reporting on this saga makes him sound completely delusional about the severity of Barcelona’s financial and player registration issues. But if he wants to end up there in the future, getting playing time at Juve instead of sitting in reserve at United is a reasonable step 1.

• West Ham seem pretty intent on getting a new young striker in the door, though they’re struggling to get a deal over the line. A potential Brian Brobbey deal from Ajax has yet to materialize. PSV have rejected a loan + €25m buy obligation for Ricardo Pepi. Brighton are apparently still playing hardball over Evan Ferguson. That Füllkrug money would be quite useful right now.

• Chelsea seem to be struggling to find buyers for a lot of the excess squad fat they wish to trim, but at least Cesare Casadei is going to make them some money. He’s finalizing a move to Lazio for a reported €14m + potential sell-on clause, which is almost exactly what they paid to sign him from Inter.

• Jordan Henderson is having an interesting late-career globetrotting run. He’s gone from Saudi Arabia to the Netherlands, and now apparently he’s heading to Monaco. I assume he’ll be there for 6 months before he heads to either Sunderland or MLS.

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