Rumor round-up: Costa 'massive bid', Christensen 'club record bid', Lichsteiner 'come and get me' bid

Silly Season never sleeps.  But sometimes it takes a nap.  And when it does, we get reruns of greatest hits, or clip shows, or just something completely random and bizarre.  There's a bit of all three in the following round-up.

First up, the rerun.  This one's from the Star/Express stable, a bit of daylight soap opera churning its wheels and going nowhere.  Simeone wants Diego Costa!  Like, really really badly wants him.  Again.  Still.  Now and forever.  Please keep hands and feet inside the vehicle; brace for massive "bumper bid" impact.  Stop. Drop. Roll. Again.  And yet, the Star also claim that Chelsea don't want to sell and Costa doesn't want to leave, so what are we bracing for again?

Once we're done bracing there could actually be potential business to conduct.  According to Bild, Borussia Mönchengladbach aren't satisfied with just another year on loan from Andreas Christensen and are willing to making him their club record signing for around €20m.  At first glance, this would appear to be a non-starter (Christensen's one for our future, not yours!), but the rumor does claim that Chelsea would insist on a buy-back clause (like we did with Thorgan Hazard), which would basically mean it's still a loan if we want it to be, and merely a profitable transaction if we don't.  Win-win!

Lastly, we have the random though perhaps not all that bizarre, which is that supposedly Stephan Lichsteiner has told Antonio Conte that if Juventus sign Dani Alves, then he would want to move to Chelsea.  Lichsteiner and Conte of course worked together for several years at Juventus, as the Swiss international made a name for himself playing as the wing-back up and down the right flank.  But given that he's older than even Branislav Ivanovic, this is probably a non-starter (Juventus have already denied it, too).  Plus, it comes from the journalist who claimed the whole Hazard-Mourinho thing last week (and the Zouma-to-Arsenal thing as well).  There's a Tancredi born every minute.