Astonishingly simple player £50 million transfer choice despite interest from…..

According to the fickle beast that is Wikipedia, the name ‘Neto’ is a generational suffix, used to indicate when a Portuguese-speaking person shares the same moniker as both their father and grandfather. Think of it like ‘III’ in English. I only bring this up is because in the case of Pedro Lomba Neto, Wolverhampton Wanderers winger, it feels as if he has been linked with a move to Arsenal since his avô was knee-high to a grasshopper. And still the rumours persist.

There is a reason why Neto, as he is commonly known, is such a darling of the gossip columns. Every now and again, in both the Premier League and beyond, a player will begin to tower over the relatively modest aspirations of a club until their obvious, monolithic potential can no longer be ignored; Declan Rice would be a fitting recent example.

Jack Grealish might be another. In those instances, it is only ever usually a matter of time before a member – or in some cases, several members – of the traditional big six come snooping around, flaunting their tailfeathers and jangling their coin purses. It’s the kind of rote, ritualistic cycle that you can almost imagine narrated in an Attenborough documentary.