Manchester City set to let Raheem Sterling leave as Chelsea prepare £50 million offer – Paper Round

City ready to let Sterling leave

Manchester City are prepared to let Raheem Sterling leave for the right price, reports The Sun. The 27-year-old England international forward wants to leave before his contract runs out next year, preferring to find regular first team football. Chelsea are the current frontrunners for his signature and are ready to make a bid of £50 million for the player.

Paper Round’s view: City are generally fairly generous when it comes to letting players leave if they feel they have put the work in for them over the course of their stay. Sterling has always acted professionally and he has contributed over the course of a half-decade to a huge amount of City’s success. He will almost certainly continue to impress if he moves to Stamford Bridge.

Everton playing chicken over Richarlison offer

Tottenham want to sign Richarlison from Everton, and have also shown interest in young teammate Anthony Gordon. However, the Mirror claims that Everton are sticking to their £60m valuation of the Brazilian striker and will not consider part-exchange offers including Steven Bergwijn and Harry Winks. However the club must sell by June 30 in order to beat Financial Fair Play regulations.

Paper Round’s view: If Everton want to avoid points deductions, financial punishments or administrative and transfer embargos, then they will need to act quickly to be sure. Richarlison is perhaps their trophy player and can raise the biggest sum at short notice. It may be galling to have to take a hit on his true valuation, but that looks to be unavoidable now.

Chelsea close in on Raphinha

The Daily Mail believes that Chelsea will beat Arsenal to the signature of Leeds United winger Raphinha. The 25-year-old is subject of a £55m bid from Todd Boehly, a figure which is almost double the initial sum offered by Edu and Arsenal. The plan is to team Raphinha with Raheem Sterling, while they continue negotiations with Juventus over defender Matthijs de Ligt.

Paper Round’s view: Raphinha offers pace out wide and would be a way to reinvigorate Chelsea’s attack which had grown a touch stale as Timo Werner and Romelu Lukaku failed to play to their full potential last season. There is not too long to go before pre-season begins in earnest, so adding De Ligt in quick order would leave only a couple of signings left to make for Thomas Tuchel.

United move in for Malacia

Manchester United may have left it too late in their pursuit of Tyrell Malacia. The 22-year-old left-back appeared to be on his way to French side Lyon, who have offered around £13m for the Netherlands international, but now United have decided to try to steal in to secure the player. Malacia played under United’s new boss Erik ten Hag at Ajax and they could soon be reunited.

Paper Round’s view: Alex Telles failed to convince either Ole Gunnar Solskjaer or Ralf Rangnick that he was the player to displace Luke Shaw in the long term, and Shaw himself has marginally improved over the last couple of years, but is still nowhere near the player he once threatened to be. United need to act quickly to give Ten Hag the time he needs with his new squad.