The Telegraph’s chief football correspondent Jason Burt claims that Bayern Munich are prepared to offer £50m to sign Joao Palhinha in the closing days of the summer transfer window. That should be a fairly short conversation, seeing as Fulham turned down a similar offer from West Ham last month.

Reporting from Germany suggested that, whilst Thomas Tuchel was a fan of the former Sporting Lisbon midfielder, Bayern had been spooked by Fulham’s high valuation of the 28 year-old. With Palhinha on a four-year contract, the Bundesliga giants will have to spend big to land him in this transfer window. The Whites feel that the summer deals that saw Arsenal spend £105m on Declan Rice, whom the Portuguese international utterly dominated at the Emirates on Saturday, and Chelsea splash £115 on Moises Caicedo mean that they can demand a hefty fee for Palhinha.

The defensive midfielder, who scored in the penalty shoot-out win over Tottenham on Tuesday, left Sporting who had qualified for the Champions’ League for Craven Cottage to be reunited with his mentor Marco Silva. Fulham are ready to play hardball with Bayern, who have already signed Harry Kane for £86m this summer, and it would be a huge gamble to sanction sale of the Premier League’s most proficient tackler in the same window as Aleksandar Mitrovic – with little time to sign a replacement.