Paper Round: Conte's summer spending spree as Chelsea line up Moussa Dembele, Morata and van Dijk

Antonio Conte’s planned raid on the summer transfer window gets a back page billing in Thursday’s Daily Mirror.

According to the newspaper, with Chelsea’s owner Roman Abramovich – famously not short of a couple of quid – increasingly impressed by the club’s new manager and anticipating a departure by Diego Costa, he’s going to give him £100 million to spend on the holy trinity of Celtic’s Moussa Dembele, Real Madrid’s Alvaro Morata and Southampton’s Virgil van Dijk.

Paper Round’s view: We know the January transfer window is well and truly shut, but the back pages are far from safe and I’m sorry guys but they’re not about to be anytime soon, especially with that pesky *whispers* Antoine Griezmann’s name lingering in the air. And of course Costa’s whose future remains unclear.

Let’s be thankful for small mercies – we were saved some of the speculation about Van Dijk thanks to his injury, which possibly prevented a move in January, but he’ll not be injured forever. Now joining him on the list of names that shall be mentioned far more than anyone cares to hear, is Dembele who was spotted in London on deadline day. Surely knee scans are also available in Scotland?

[Read the full story here]

And let’s face it, Chelsea will no doubt be officially searching for a John Terry replacement at the end of the season.

Terry, who surprisingly hung on in the Premier League at the end of last season for what was widely anticipated as his swansong, has barely touched a football this season and he’s happy keeping it that way, he told Steven Gerard in an interview for BT Sport.

“I’m honestly hoping that I don’t play this season which means that they keep winning,” he said.

Paper Round’s view: John Terry is happy to stay on the books at Chelsea without playing? AS IF.

Oh come on, don’t be such a cynic, we’re sure this is heartfelt and simply symbolic of a deep love for his team and new manager, and as he says, they are doing rather well at the minute – we can’t argue they don’t need him.

[Read the full story here]

In perhaps a surprising turn of events following Arsenal’s much spoken of “humiliating defeat” by Watford on Tuesday, Arsene Wenger has apparently given his player not one but two days off training.

Despite saying his team were complacent in Tuesday’s match, Wenger’s men can apparently look forward to a couple of “light gym sessions” and will “not even touch a ball” until Friday.

Paper Round’s view: I think this is technically what’s known as rewarding failure, but look, as Wenger rightly (probably) pointed out on Wednesday, he’s not “completely stupid” guys – he knows when a player needs resting? So what if his entire squad needs resting? They do have a lot of fixtures remaining.

I hope you’re taking this all in, Alexis Sanchez and Mesut Ozil? Oh to be an Arsenal player.

Peter Crouch celebrated joining the Premier League’s exclusive “century” club on Wednesday night by dusting off some moves of a bygone era. That’s right, spectators at Stoke City’s 1-1 draw against Everton were treated to none other than the robot – you remember that right?

Paper Round’s view: Peter Crouch has done something *quite good* here, and no I’m not just talking about acting as the pre-cursor to Paul Pogba’s Dab and Daniel Sturridge’s (what are we calling this, given it’s also got something of the robot about it?), um, dance. The 36-year-old becomes just one of 26 players to have scored 100 Premier League goals and is in fact just 10 goals from qualifying as one of English top flight football’s top 20 scorers. Yes, we know.

[Read the full story here]