You know what Manchester City need? A sense of perspective? Nope. To give someone from their expensively built youth academy a chance in the first team? Absolutely not. To give a pay rise to whoever it was that checked out Fabian Delph’s hamstrings during his medical? You get the picture. No, reader, what they really need is … another attacking midfielder!

Fresh from making £51m’s Kevin De Bruyne the club’s most expensive ever signing, Manuel Pellegrini has decided that City’s David Silva, Raheem Sterling, Jesús Navas, Samir Nasri, sometimes Yaya Touré and Patrick Roberts probably don’t have enough collective pizzazz to find the required space “in between the lines”. Conveniently, the Chilean remembers somebody that does from his time at Málaga: a man with a touch so deft, with a beard so well groomed, that he – like Pelé, Eusébio and er… Fred – is known all over the globe by just one word that sounds like the wind has just whispered it into your ear: Isco.

Isco is indeed quite good at football, and while it may seem like a stretch to convince the 23-year-old to leave Real Madrid, Sport seem to think that the move to rainy Manchester from sunny Spain is most definitely on! Isco is reportedly fed up of having to play second fiddle to BBC (and James Rodríguez) and will disco his way to Blighty next summer if things don’t improve. He won’t come cheap though, remember Isco was the subject of two Manchester City bids in 2013 prior to his £23m (€30m) move to Real Madrid, and the Spain international will cost significantly more bunce now that the Premier League TV deal secret is out. Arsenal, their coffers swelled from a summer of transfer inactivity, are also keen.

We might be well into September but the The Charlie Austin Saga rolls on. Newcastle United just don’t know when they’re beat, and with the striker now in the last year of his contract, there is a chance that he could be sold for a lot less than Queens Park Rangers’ £15m summer asking price. Steve McClaren bid £10m plus young whippersnapper Rolando Aarons on deadline day, which was rejected, but the same bid in January could force the London club’s hand, as they do not want to lose Austin for free next summer.

Another January departure could be Tottenham’s Alex Pritchard. Mauricio Pochettino is prepared to wait to see if the England Under-21 star has got the goods to succeed at the Lane, but if he fails to break into the first team between now and the new year, a loan deal – which proved so successful last season at Brentford – is on the cards. Norwich are sniffing about for that one.

Despite linking up so brilliantly with the new Paris Saint-Germain signing Ángel Di María in the club’s last match against Monaco, Ezequiel Lavezzi has announced that il veut quitter Paris at the end of the season when his contract expires. “I’m very happy for new signing Di María, it’s always good to play with your friends,” the Argentinian told Telefoot. “He is a great player, I hope he adapts quickly. I think it’s my last year in Paris. But I’m OK and I want to finish it the best way possible. You never know what can happen. Today I want to stay, tomorrow we’ll see.” Arsenal, Juventus and the 30-year-old’s former club Napoli are all forming an inorderly queue.

Oh and Kevin Nolan is training with Leyton Orient following his release by West Ham. How the mighty have fallen.