Yahoo News Gossip: Neymar 'demands pay rise to stay at PSG', Luis Enrique 'prefers Arsenal job to Chelsea', Pogba 'offered to other clubs'
Not everything has been difficult for Neymar at Paris Saint-Germain. League results have been good; he has several fellow Brazilian internationals to make him feel at home; the side averages more than three goals a game; the standard of cheese is exceptional. Overall, it has been an fairly decent experience.
But there’s been one nagging problem: money.
True, Neymar earns around a million pounds a week in Paris, which sounds like a lot. But the French capital is one of the most expensive cities in the world, and this has evidently been a bit of a shock for a lad who spent the previous 25 years in Santos and Barcelona.
So he’s done the same thing anyone struggling to make ends meet would do: he’s asked for a pay rise.
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The Sunday Times reports that Neymar has demanded a “hefty” salary increase as a “condition” for staying with the Ligue 1 leaders for a second season.
The deal the forward signed when he made his £198m move from Barca last summer included a “basic” wage of £264.5m over five years, but it has evidently become clear that this won’t be enough.
So will PSG take pity on their record signing and pay up? They might have to, because the Sunday Express says he will move to Real Madrid if they don’t.
Neymar reportedly told Brazilian media that “five months has felt like five years” at the Parc des Princes – a sentiment that will chime with anyone else who has been forced to live in abject poverty.
Luis Enrique waits for Wenger’s job
Neymar’s former club manager Luis Enrique could also be moving to an expensive city soon: London.
The ex-Barcelona coach has been tipped to replace Antonio Conte at Chelsea in the summer, but the Daily Star Sunday says he would prefer to take charge of… wait for it… Arsenal.
The 46-year-old Spaniard is apparently “stalling” on agreeing a deal to take charge at Stamford Bridge because he is waiting to see what happens to Arsene Wenger at the Emirates.
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Although as any Gunners fan will tell him, he really shouldn’t get his hopes up on that one.
Enrique apparently favours a move to Arsenal over Chelsea due to the Blues’ reputation for “constantly hiring and firing managers”.
Meanwhile, the Manchester United future of Paul Pogba – who was conspicuously not named by Jose Mourinho this week as one of the players who would form part of his Old Trafford “heritage” – has been thrown into fresh doubt.
The Sunday Mirror says the Frenchman is being “dangled in front of potential buyers” by his agent Mino Raiola, which sounds like a bit of an injury risk. Raiola is unlikely to care about that though, given that he earned £41m out of Pogba’s last transfer and would be in line for a similar windfall if he moves again.
Elsewhere, Liverpool manager Jurgen Klopp is trying to persuade the club’s board to sign unsettled PSG winger Julian Draxler (Sunday Express), John Terry wants to stay with promotion-chasing Aston Villa for another season (Sunday People) and Man Utd striker Romelu Lukaku says he knows “that a lot of players, a lot of good players” will be signed by the Red Devils in the summer (Mail on Sunday). Is Romelu going a bit Donald Trump on us?
