Daily Schmankerl: Chelsea planning shock move for Borussia Dortmund’s Erling Haaland?; Jamal Musiala’s other option; Transfer updates on Antonio Rudiger and Wout Weghorst; plus MORE!

Haaland to London? (Foot Mercato)

Borussia Dortmund star Erling Haaland is not going to have a shortage of suitors in 2022 when his release clause can (allegedly) be activated. Foot Mercato compiled a few reports that linked Haaland to a couple of juggernauts:

Real Madrid and Florentino Pérez are said to be keen to make this their new galactic, and hope that the good relationship with Borussia Dortmund will make the difference.

Haaland-to-Madrid makes sense in a lot of ways as the Los Blancos will likely need a megastar forward to take the lead for its offense.

Oddly, another club emerged, which has made looting the Bundesliga a recent priority: Chelsea. After bringing in Timo Werner and Kai Havertz last summer, The London-based club might be ready to get serious with a pursuit of Haaland:

It was Frank Lampard who would have told his leaders that the formidable 20-year-old scorer (16 goals in 12 TCC games this season) should be the Blues’ priority for the transfer window. The London team coach has already played cards on the table with his leaders, asking them to recruit the former Salzburg, whose contract with the German team expires in 2024, with the famous release clause which would take effect from 2022.

Musiala could also choose Nigeria (All Nigeria Soccer)

All of the talk surrounding the international future of Bayern Munich starlet has focused on Germany and England, but Nigeria is still in the mix — albeit as a longshot — for his future:

Chelsea academy product Jamal Musiala has reportedly made a decision on the senior national team to commit his international future to. The Bayern Munich wonderkid was born in Stuttgart to a Nigerian father and a German mother, hence, he qualifies to represent the Super Eagles, Three Lions and Die Mannschaft.

As we’ve covered, both Germany and England are in a race to offer Musiala a first-team position — something that Nigeria could commit to today. Unfortunately for the African nation, the allure and history of playing for Germany or England seems to have captured the youngster’s imagination.

Rudiger’s future could be clear soon (@cfbayern)

Christian Falk thinks Chelsea defender Antonio Rudiger will have a clear picture on what his future looks like very soon:

Leno cites reasons for struggles in London (@honigstein)

Arsenal goalkeeper and Germany international Bernd Leno did not exactly mince words when looking at why the Gunners have been, well, pretty bad:

De Ligt looks back an uneven transition to Juve (Foot Mercato)

Juventus center-back Matthijs de Ligt was one of the most heralded transfers of the past two years. With great natural ability and attributes, De Ligt seemed poised for an easy transition to Serie A fro the Eredivisie.

That did not happen and the 21-year-old understands why:

Matthijs de Ligt took several months to understand his new club. During an interview with The Athletic, the central defender said he “had to forget everything he had learned at Ajax” when he arrived in Turin. “At the beginning, I had a lot of times when I doubted (of myself),” he notably said in hindsight.

Explaining that “at the top, milliseconds are important” and that before mastering them he intervened either a little too late or too early. Finally, beyond the requirement imposed by his club or his coach at the time, it is above all that of the Italian championship to which he had to rise: “the biggest difference (between Serie A and the Eredivisie) is that in every match you play, you face an attacker who can make it difficult for you. Now every day is a big test.”

Weghorst rumors confirmed (@cfbayern)

Could Wolfsburg striker Wout Weghorst soon be teaming up with Harry Kane? It looks like it:

Losing Weghorst would be a devastating blow for the Wolves.