Diego Costa to Chinese Super League for £80m?

Oi Oi! You laaaaaacky people! It’s the Mill bringing you transfer rumours hotter than that burn you’ve got between the temples that makes reading this seem like a particularly sadistic form of torture. That’s right, the Mill is starting the year as it certainly will not go on and working on a weekend. And on the day the January transfer window flings open no less. Woop!

It’s 2017 and it would appear that José Mourinho has his mojo back. United are back to their old selves – that is if you believe Usain Bolt – and so is Mou. He’s told Anthony Martial in no uncertain terms to stop listening to his agent and start listening to him. He’s also plotting a £145m raid of Atlético Madrid for both Antoine Griezmann and Saúl Ñíguez. It gets worse for Atlético. Arsène Wenger will not be replacing Diego Simeone in the dugout because, well he just doesn’t want to.He’s much more interested in sticking with the Gunners and has his sights firmly on Red Bull Salzburg’s Dayotchanculle Upamecano. He’ll face competition from Barcelona on that front though, but both may be trumped by RB Leipzig, what with the Red Bull connection ‘n’ all. Should Wenger fail, he’ll turn his attentions to Oghenekaro Etebo of Nigeria who banged in four goals against Japan at the Olympics way back when in 2016. Leicester are the competition in this instance. Sticking at Arsenal and Borussia Dortmund are after Gedion Zelalem, the German-born USA soccerballer who went on loan to Rangers.

Chinese Super League news for you now. Nope, nothing doing on the Mark Clattenburg front, alas, but Diego Costa is wanted by Tianjin Quanjian, managed by Fabio Cannavaro, of course, and they’re willing to line Chelsea’s already bulging pockets with £80m big ones. Axel Witsel also looks set for a move to Shanghai SIPG where he will sleep on piles of cash by night and dovetail with Oscar in midfield by day. Witsel was going to go to Juventus but, well, he’s not going to do that any more.

At the moment Virgil van Dijk is hotter than that burning sensation the Mill was talking about earlier. The Mill isn’t convinced but onwards and upwards. That’s what Ronald Koeman reckons anyway because he’s trying to pinch the £50m man from under the noses of Manchester City and Chelsea. File that one under ambitious. A more likely move to Merseyside beckons for Joe Hart though, whose Turin adventure is coming to a close. He wants to go to Liverpool. Badly. Whether Jürgen Klopp will have him remains to be seen.And in non-transfer non-news James Rodríguez isn’t leaving Real Madrid, according to his old man, and Andrés Iniesta says he wants to stay at Barcelona for the rest of time.