Euro paper talk: Manchester United in £43m battle for Barcelona's Ivan Rakitic

With less than two months of the season remaining, transfer talk in Europe is rife. Our friends at Football Whispers have rounded up the latest rumours.

Spain

Paul Pogba has won the praise of Real Madrid manager Zinedine Zidane, potentially opening the door for a move to the Spanish club for the Manchester United midfielder. (Marca)

Manchester United and Inter Milan are said to be in competition over the signing of Ivan Rakitic in the coming summer. Barcelona are willing to part with the Croatian midfielder for €50m (£43m). (Mundo Deportivo)

Italy

Rumours of Jose Mourinho's return to Inter Milan have been shrugged off as 'disrespectful to [current manager] Luciano Spalletti' by the club's vice-president Javier Zanetti. Spalletti's future appears to rest on how Inter finish the season, with the club currently third in Serie A. (Sky Italia)

Mauro Icardi being dropped from the squad for today's match against Lazio appears to have come about through a refusal to apologise to his team-mates. Icardi was stripped of the captaincy in February, and he and his wife and agent Wanda Nara are embroiled in a long-running saga involving a series of disputes with the club. (Corriere della Sera)

Carlo Ancelotti has sent a warning to the club about selling his team's stars, saying that he'll protest if Allan and Kalidou Koulibaly are sold. (Corriere dello Sport)

Juventus' 19-year-old striker Moise Kean has been compared to David Trezeguet and Mario Balotelli by Giorgio Chiellini after scoring the team's winning goal against Empoli. "Kean has more physicality than Mario," the Juventus captain said. "His goal against Empoli was almost in the Trezeguet style." (Italian press)

France

The Champions League will continue to play its matches mid-week, despite reports that weekend matches were up for discussion as UEFA officials debated changes to the competition's format. (L'Equipe)

Zlatan Ibrahimovic still has a soft spot for Manchester United. He wanted the Premier League club to get past another of his former clubs, Paris Saint-Germain, in the Champions League, according to current LA Galaxy teammate Diedie Toure. (Le Parisien)

Fatherhood has changed France and Paris Saint-Germain left-back Layvin Kurzawa. The 26-year-old, who found himself starting for Les Bleus in the international break, has previously admitted that he hasn't been the peak of professionalism in the past, and his manager Thomas Tuchel has noticed the change in him as well. (Le Parisien)

Germany

Bayern Munich president Uli Hoeness believes Bayern have 'saved half the clubs in Germany from ruin' during his 40 years at the club.

"I don't think I have real enemies," he said in a recent interview. "It was different in the past. The others didn't know me and said, now Hoeness will come with the money and take our players away. By now we've saved half the league from ruin with several benefit matches and events over the decades." (Bayern Munich website)

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