Toni Kroos has had enough of life in Madrid. With him being a humble lad from the Baltic coast in north-east Germany, the landlocked Spanish capital appears to have drained him of his creative juices and stomped all over his freewheeling sensibilities. So much so that his most memorable pass this season was the one in which he swerved the Real Madrid Christmas party. Oh Toni! Where’s that sense of adventure? Not to worry. If it’s fun he wants, where better than the ramshackle confines of an underachieving Premier League club? There are plenty of those kicking around this season. Liverpool and Manchester United have both been reported to be more than happy to give a home to the midfield metronome. But it’s Chelsea who appear to be more serious. They’re “in talks” with Kroos’s agent apparently and have £40m – double the money Real Madrid paid Bayern Munich for Kroos in 2014 – burning a hole in their back pocket. The same back pocket that presumably contains a little map showing the quickest route out of Stamford Bridge to be handed to Cesc Fàbregas in the event that Kroos does sign.

One man that isn’t likely to be on his way to Chelsea – or anywhere, for that matter – is Antoine Griezmann who, while he was busy tweeting his praise for Roberto Firmino on Wednesday evening, was also busy having a €100m buyout clause slapped on his noggin by Atlético Madrid, who would quite like to hang on to one of their prized possessions for a change instead of seeing them disappear with the regularity of green bottles from the well-known children’s counting ditty.

It says here that Jürgen Klopp wants to sign Mario Götze from Bayern Munich. So expect Wes Hoolahan to join Liverpool on loan from Norwich instead. Liverpool will have to stump up £37m if they’re serious (about signing Götze, not Hoolahan, let’s just be clear), and they’ll also have Manchester United to tussle with in any rumble for the Germany playmaker’s signature. One player who does look like he’ll be on his way to Anfield is the Schalke centre-back Joel Matip who, if he can prevent teams from being able to score direct off corners, will be an improvement on the current crop of defenders at Klopp’s disposal. The Cameroon international is available on a free transfer in the summer having successfully avoided going anywhere near a pen and ink in Gelsenkirchen for the past six months and has agreed a deal in principle.

Like a petrol-head who has just tweaked the engine on his rusty Vauxhall Nova to get it up to 100mph on the M56 only to see the rear-end fall off at the end of his journey, Louis van Gaal needs to patch things up at the back. He’ll do so by bringing in Aleksandar Dragovic from Dynamo Kyiv. The 24-year-old Austria centre-back is a “tough-tackling’ type who will be on first-name terms with referees soon enough if, as expected, he joins Manchester United for £16m this month.

Things are so bad at Lyon that striker Claudio Beauvue is considering jumping ship to join Bristol City, who are 22nd in the Championship, or Aston Villa. Yes, Aston Villa. Derby County are also sniffing around. He’ll cost £5.5m, whoever he opts to join. On the subject of Villa, Rémi Garde looks to have somehow persuaded Bordeaux centre-back Lamine Sané to join the basement-dwellers on loan for the rest of the season. Yes, insané indeed.

And Arsenal have been put on alert after Laurent Blanc said that he would very much stand aside if grumpy striker Edinson Cavani came galloping towards the PSG exit door. “There is a problem with Cavani’s behaviour but my job is to think of the entire squad as a collective. We did hold a staff meeting and among the various issues we discussed were Cavani and his complaints. The desires of the individual can’t affect the rest of the team. I believe that he can score here but I understand if he wants to consider other career opportunities.”