Spurs and Man Utd to lose Bale and Rooney, but later in window
Published:Pace may be gathering regarding the high-profile departures of two of the Premier League’s biggest names, but Ladbrokes believe that neither will have new employers by the end of the week.
The firm have Welsh sensation Gareth Bale priced up as short as 1/6 to join Real Madrid before the closure of the summer transfer window, but he’s odds-on 4/6 to still be contracted to Tottenham by the end of the week.
A price of 11/10 states that his impending exit will be confirmed by midnight of the coming Sunday, with a shortest price of 2/1 suggesting that the fee will fall into a world record-smashing bracket of £85-£90m.
It would unquestionably be in Spurs’ best interests to address this matter urgently, with the player reportedly keen to leave. Dragging out the transfer until the last possible moment, as Arsenal infamously did with Cesc Fabregas and Samir Nasri two summers back, can have disastrous ramifications on a club’s start to the season.
Shipping out the want-away winger and swelling their transfer kitty to monstrous proportions with time to draft in replacements is surely the way the Lilywhites have to go, either that or refuse to sell him altogether.
Elsewhere, it has emerged that Chelsea have had a second bid for Manchester United’s England international Wayne Rooney knocked back, with the Premier League champions determined not to sell to a rival.
The odds are somewhat bulkier for Rooney’s transfer to be complete by the week’s end, with Ladbrokes offering 7/2 for the former Evertonian to be decked out in all blue before next Monday. A microscopic 1/5 insists he’ll still be with the Red Devils for a while longer yet.
He’s expected to go a lot cheaper than Bale, but Chelsea must up their £30m bid in order to land their primary target.
It’s fancied anything up to another £5m will see them granted permission to speak to Rooney, with 7/4 the offering for a transfer to go through in the bracket of £30-£35m.
All odds and markets accurate as of publication’s time and date
