Coquelin and Parejo together to Villarreal? Kubo instead of Oscar?

Hard to keep up with all the rumors as the Spanish transfer window opens.

One thing we do know: Fulham have won promotion to the Premier League, so that presumably means we have little chance of getting Zambo Anguissa—or at least, a lot less chance than we did if Fulham had remained in the Championship.

So, rumor 1: Superdeporte is reporting that Villarreal are interested in acquiring both Dani Parejo and Francis Coquelin from Valencia, for a price tag presumably in the €20-25m mark.

I’m not even going to get into the whole Dani Parejo—Valencia CF—Valencia CF ownership thing, suffice it to say Dani and his family are happy in Valencia the city but the relationship with the club is less than ideal. Dani is clearly not going to move overseas to play so if Valencia want to get value for him, Villarreal would be an option.

Superdeporte is usually a very pro-Valencia sort of paper and I would take what they say with a grain of salt, especially when they start talking about Villarreal’s negotiating strategy.

Rumor 2 is that Villarreal are frontrunners to acquire Takefusa Kubo. This comes from AS and makes sense since we could offer Europa League football. However, Madrid may yet shoot itself in the foot by upping the price of the loan. And in Villarreal’s case Kubo’s arrival would probably mean Oscar Rodriguez isn’t coming—the deal that was supposed to be “closed except for a few details” now appearing to be “blocked” as we wait to find out what is happening with Kubo.

Rumor 3 is pretty outlandish and involves Mattéo Guendouzi, young French midfielder who Mikel Arteta pretty much froze out at Arsenal after a post-match altercation with Brighton players in June. Arsenal want €40-50m for him (he was signed for about €8m when Emery was there) so I think this one is not terribly likely. He is supposed to be the next big defensive midfielder (transfermarkt values him at €32m); Barcelona wanted him but were only willing to offer Rakitic and Vidal in exchange, apparently, while Juventus are also interested. Out of our league, though I suppose if Arsenal can’t find anyone to buy him, we could always suggest a loan.....