With Neymar due to complete his ludicrously expensive move to Paris Saint-Germain at any moment, the football world is abuzz with speculation over precisely where Barcelona will take their massively-enlarged chequebook first. According to the Sun they will hotfoot it straight to England, where they will wave it in the faces of a variety of English clubs before “blowing the lot” on Eden Hazard and Philippe Coutinho. Apparently Barça “have already asked a third party to sound out the Belgian forward” and will “test Chelsea’s resolve with a bid of around £100m”.

That’s according to the Sun, though L’Equipe reckon the cash will be heading elsewhere, with talks already underway with representatives of Kylian Mbappé. The Gazzetta dello Sport suggest on their front page that Barcelona will “reach for the stars: Coutinho, Mbappé or Di María”. Mbappé has reportedly made the decision to leave Monaco, also listing Manchester City and Liverpool among the teams wasting their time by pretending they could sign him before he moves to Real Madrid instead.

Tottenham are actually going to sign someone! Mauricio Pochettino recently reassured his club’s fans that they would eventually hit the market – “Our moment will arrive,” he said. “We have a plan. We have a very clear idea of what we want and what we need to do to try and achieve our target.” Well, their moment has arrived! We all have a very clear idea of what they want, and it is the 25-year-old former Gillingham shot-stopper Paulo Gazzaniga, who Southampton are willing to sell for about £2m and will warm the Wembley bench next season.

Gylfi Sigurdsson’s long-anticipated move to Everton may be about to happen, after the Swansea manager Paul Clement was asked whether the interminable saga would all be over by the weekend and replied: “I hope so.” He might take Aaron Lennon’s peg in the dressing room, with Watford keen to take the quicksilver winger on a season’s loan.

Diego Costa’s refusal to entertain the idea of joining any club but Atlético Madrid, coupled with Atlético’s summer transfer ban, means that Chelsea might be forced to continue paying the sulky striker’s £185,000-a-week wages until January – a £4.07m outlay. He hogs the front page of this morning’s Corriere dello Sport, with the paper believing that “in a World Cup year Costa cannot stay on the periphery” and that he could therefore end up agreeing a £65m deal with Milan.

Chelsea have tightened their purse strings elsewhere, placing an upper limit of £30m on the amount they are willing to spend on Leicester’s Danny Drinkwater, though they are also being linked with Internazionale’s Antonio Candreva. Talking of Inter, they might get Anthony Martial from Manchester United in part-exchange for the Croatian winger Ivan Perisic, though perhaps only on a season’s loan.

Stoke have identified the man they want to replace Marko Arnautovic, and it’s Crystal Palace’s Andros Townsend. Mark Hughes is ready to bid just below Stoke’s record transfer fee of £18.3m, reports the Sun. Finally, Chris Wood is suddenly a popular man. Besiktas have just joined the chase for the New Zealander, who was already under consideration at every single Premier League club beginning with the letter S – Stoke, Swansea and Southampton. In a bid to scare them all away, Leeds are demanding £20m for his services, a seven-fold increase on the sum they paid Leicester for him two years ago.