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Whether it’s lining up transfers for January or desperately trying to plug gaps now with free transfers, clubs are busy looking at new players. The latest transfer rumours suggest that Manchester United, Manchester City and Chelsea are in a three-way battle for Benfica’s Portuguese striker Nélson Oliveira (pictured, right), while West Ham and Southampton look like snapping up free agents Craig Gordon and John Mensah respectively, both formerly of Sunderland. Will these deals happen? The Life’s a Pitch team take a look.

“He’s a very good player, very talented and excellent technically, as you’d expect from someone brought up at Benfica,” begins the Times’ Rory Smith of Oliveira. ”He’s gone [on loan] to Deportivo, where there are [even] more Portuguese players than at Blackburn! It’s not a natural career progression for a natural talent. And then to go on to Man Utd, Man City or Chelsea for £25m strikes me as being unlikely, so I’ll say a three out of 10.”

Unsurprisingly, the panel see more potential in the free transfers of Gordon and Mensah. The Daily Mirror’s Martin Lipton thinks Gordon could be exactly what Southampton need to stem the flow of goals conceded so far. “Kelvin Davies is not having a great time at the moment, they’re shipping goals left, right and centre. Gordon has still got the mentality of a top keeper and I do think that Southampton need something at the back to bolster that defence. If he is available, and he’s fit in mind and body, I think Southampton would be foolish not to try to turn that into a reality. That’s got a genuine eight out of 10 chance, maybe higher.”

The People’s Dave Kidd reckons Mensah’s chances of being snapped up by West Ham are equally healthy. ”There is definitely interest from Allardyce there. He’s a free agent, a Ghanaian World Cup player, who did reasonably well at Sunderland when he was there. I know there is definitely a lot of truth in it. There’s every chance that he’d want to come back to the Premier League and I’ll give that a nine out of 10.”

Watch the full video discussion by clicking on the play button in the image above.

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