Paper Round: Manchester City close in on Kylian Mbappe move as Real Madrid up the ante

Manchester City’s reported ongoing quest to sign AS Monaco striker Kylian Mbappe is the focus of a number of the back pages on Wednesday – with conflicting stories. Several of Wednesday’s newspapers suggest City boss Pep Guardiola is on the cusp of outbidding Real Madrid’s reported £143m offer for the 18-year-old and City are said to be in “advanced talks” with AS Monaco regarding the youngster. Meanwhile, just hours earlier, it was reported that Real had already agreed a fee of £160m for the striker.

Paper Round’s view: After all this talk of almost doubling the existing record transfer fee, alleged illegal approaches and links made between Mbappe and almost every top-four club in every European league, wouldn’t it be funny if Mbappe just stayed put? Perhaps the more interesting rumour emerging in all this is that Real would be prepared to sell Gareth Bale in order to seal the deal.

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Jose Mourinho was all over Wednesday’s back pages after doing what he does best in a press conference on Tuesday. The Manchester United boss voiced some pretty strong views on the transfer market, in particular around the increasingly high fees paid for less-than-great players. Though funnily enough, Mourinho didn’t think this concern should extend across the entire transfer market. Describing the current situation as “dangerous” he said: “I don’t think the problem is what you pay for Paul Pogba…I think the problem is with the other group.”

But there were many more of Mourinho’s lines picked up by Wednesday's sports pages, including his insistence that United aren’t the favourites for the title; “hints” that he loves his current squad as much as he loved his first Chelsea squad; and that he felt “emotional” when Wayne Rooney left for boyhood club Everton this summer.

Paper Round’s view: Mourinho makes a pretty sound point about the transfer market. Of course by “other group” Mourinho means the likes of Kyle Walker, for example, who was dropping from the starting XI at Tottenham yet still able to command a fee of £52m for a move to Manchester City *whistles slowly.* Nonetheless, we’re not sure we buy the logic that concern around this somehow shouldn’t extend to the Paul Pogbas of the world – can we legitimately claim Pogba matched his record-breaking price tag last season?

As for the rest of it, if we’re honest, we wonder if Mourinho will miss Rooney all that much, and we also wonder if he loves his squad equally – Chris Smalling and Phil Jones, for example, how does he feel about them? We’re pretty sure he’s got a fair point that Rooney’s departure from the club was the right move for his former captain, however.

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Chelsea were said to be fighting to save their reputation in China after having been forced to send home 21-year-old Kenedy for making offensive social media posts during the club’s pre-season tour. Apparently a less popular team in China than Arsenal, Manchester United and Liverpool, the club are reportedly rattled by the possible consequences of the Brazilian’s comments for their efforts to break through into the increasingly lucrative Chinese market. Kenedy’s comments have attracted attention for all the wrong reasons from the Chinese media and The FA, who will apparently seek an explanation from the player regarding his actions.

Paper Round’s view: It’s a bold move by a player who’s only made two appearances during Antonio Conte’s reign as Chelsea boss. Not only has he been absolutely useless in terms of his contribution to the club’s success on the pitch, now he’s actually threatened their commercial value. You do wonder what goes on inside the minds of footballers when a story like this comes about – it’s almost as if they don’t read the papers. Oh.

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