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Hot Football Transfer Gossip: Inter Milan ‘chase Rooney’, Chelsea and Man Utd target ‘new Zlatan’

There are classic choices that most of us face at some point in our lifetime. Beer or wine? Scrambled or fried? Inter Milan or Jiangsu Suning?

Well maybe that one is not strictly a *classic* yet, but it’s the choice currently facing Wayne Rooney, who the Express claims will have the option of joining those two clubs when if he leaves Manchester United in the summer.

And even if it isn’t a classic choice yet, it certainly seems set to become one for footballers. Namely: rich Chinese club or European club run by rich Chinese men?

In fact, it appears to be the same rich Chinese men who own both these clubs. Suning Commerce Group Ltd were the lads who bought a 69% stake in Inter a few months ago, and obviously they are also quite heavily involved in Jiangsu Suning (clue’s in the name). So perhaps they are going “head-head”, as the Express puts it, with themselves.

Inter are reportedly planning a “huge overhaul” of their attacking players and will try to sign Rooney if they can make space for him in their squad (i.e. by selling Mauro Icardi).

Jiangsu Suning already have plenty of space for the Roonster - their squad consists of Ramires, Alex Teixeira and a load of easily disposable Chinese players.

Rooney could be replaced at Old Trafford by Zlatan Ibrahimovic - not the old one (he’s already there) but the “new” one.

Alexander Isak, a 17-year-old Swedish striker who has been likened to Zlatan, was watched by United scouts playing for AIK Solna last weekend, reports the Sun.

It sounds like it might have been fairly cramped in the AIK stadium though, because there were apparently 90 other talent spotters watching Isak too, including some from Chelsea.

Red Bull Leipzig midfielder Naby Keita turned down a move to Arsenal this summer, reports the Mirror. The 21-year-old said he did “not want to join a big Champions League club right away”. He would have been fine at the Emirates then; the Gunners haven’t been big in the Champions League since about 2009.

Other players who might have done things in the summer but didn’t include Liverpool’s Marko Grujic, who reportedly turned down Chelsea (Star) and Blues forward Pedro, who has revealed he “spoke to” his former club Barcelona about going back to the Nou Camp (Mirror).

Finally, in hot manager gossip, Wigan could appoint Ryan Giggs after sacking Gary Caldwell (ESPN), Wolves could turn to Olympiakos boss Marco Silva after firing Walter Zenga (Mail) and Jose Mourinho has described his life living alone in a Manchester hotel as “a bit of a disaster” (Telegraph). Partridge-esque is the phrase that springs to mind.

@darlingkevin