Arsenal, Chelsea and Tottenham have been handed a cryptic hint in their unlikely race to sign PSG and France star Kylian Mbappe in the summer. Reports earlier in the week claimed the 23-year-old felt "betrayed" by his current club and wanted to eye a potential exit in the coming months.
The French club were said to be reluctant to let the forward leave in January while winning the Champions League remains a possibility, but a bid in the summer could see a switch finally made. It comes just months after Mbappe decided to commit his future to a new deal in Paris despite edging towards being a free agent.
The star claimed that the sporting project convinced him that staying at the club was a better option than joining another club, with Real Madrid being one of the sides heavily linked. However, with that tone seemingly shifting again just months later, it means a potential transfer is on the cards.
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"I am here to clearly deny, he [Mbappé] did not speak to me or to my president about leaving in January," PSG sporting director Luis Campos told Canal+. "This question never came up and we never talked about it. There are rumours every day, and we can't talk about them every day."
Despite that emphatic denial, discussions of a transfer remain top of the pile for Mbappe as a number of teams continue to be linked with a switch. Chelsea have previously been rumoured with making a move, while Arsenal had made an approach in years gone by but couldn't get the deal over the line and Tottenham have been an unlikely link as fan and Spider-Man actor Tom Holland famously tried to convince the France international to join.
However, if all three were interested in a serious approach, France national team manager Didier Deschamps has put out a cryptic transfer hint, claiming some things are far from the truth. He told RMC Sport: "Kylian is Kylian, by what he does on the field and what he can do outside too. We talk a lot about him. It’s not a negative thing to say, given what he does, it’s logical that we talk about him. Unfortunately, in these times, there are many people who think they have the truth. But it is far from reality.”
It remains to be seen how the saga plays out, but all three London clubs could be on the periphery in case of an unlikely switch for the forward.
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