Marcus Rashford, Jack Grealish and the 10 Premier League players who most need a January transfer

Well, we were only ever going to start with one man, weren't we? Marcus Rashford has made no attempt to hide his desire to leave Manchester United, be that through training sessions seemingly so poor he can no longer make the matchday squad despite Ruben Amorim's wishes, or via the interview in which he spelt it out to the club his want for a 'new challenge'.

Rashford's issue is unlikely to be United's reluctance to part ways, rather finding a suitor to take on his significant wage packet and a setup willing to absorb the extra baggage he'll be bringing upon any exit from Old Trafford.

Even if Rashford is happy to take his talents abroad, pickings may be slim in Europe's top five leagues, and a move to Saudi Arabia with Cristiano Ronaldo has been touted while still being within the realms of possibility.

Remember Ben Chilwell? You should, it wasn't long ago he was considered England's best left-back. Now, he can't get a look in at Chelsea, even despite various injuries all across their backline.

New head coach Enzo Maresca was firm with his plans for Chilwell upon his summer arrival at Stamford Bridge, publicly insisting his fellow Leicester alumni wasn't in his plans. And yet he still couldn't find a buyer before the window shut. Poor Chilly.

Now is the time for Chilwell to leave Stamford Bridge, and with left-back still a problem position for so many clubs at home and abroad at this point of a testing season, he should be able to get the move he desires.

Here's a whacky idea that football's lawmakers should think about introducing - if a £100m player ever goes an entire year without scoring a goal, they should be released from their contract. Sounds fair enough, right?

Alright, maybe that doesn't actually marry up with 'rights' and 'ethics', but you get the gist of it, don't you? Jack Grealish going the entirety of 2024 without a single goal for Manchester City is the surefire sign his time at the Etihad Stadium is over.

There's still a player in Grealish surely. He was never simply a ball-carrier to dead ends in his Aston Villa days and he is barely afforded opportunities to break into a sprint at City. Alongside Rashford, he might have the highest upside of players potentially on the market this month.

Every goalkeeper in the modern era has a lowlight reel of their high-profile errors. That's just the way the game's gone. But when those gaffes are increasingly close to one another, it probably means you're in a state of irreversible decline.

Ederson, for all of his skills and his unique style of play, was never really a shot-stopper when Manchester City's backline had adequate protection in front of it. Without Rodri to keep danger at bay, he's been exposed as sub-rate in that department.

Stefan Ortega has proven a more than capable deputy over the last few seasons, so if City receive an offer to take Ederson off their hands, they should certainly mull it over.

There are quite a few Chelsea players who could have cracked this list, with Axel Disasi and Kiernan Dewsbury-Hall also likely to be for sale if the right offer comes in. Considering the Blues' lack of bodies at the back and the midfielder's need to play in the Conference League, they were lower down our list of priorities - we wouldn't want every player here to be from Stamford Bridge.

And so the honour-slash-dishonour falls to forgotten starlet Carney Chukwuemeka, long heralded as one of England's great prospects ever since his days coming through at Aston Villa. To his credit, he has shown glimpses of that great potential across his 32 appearances for Chelsea, but the writing seems to be on the wall - his chance isn't going to come in west London.

It was only three years ago when Kieran Trippier became the face of the new Newcastle, arriving from Spanish champions Atletico Madrid to help the Magpies fight off relegation. Within 18 months he had helped them into the Champions League.

Father Time waits for no man, however. The Magpies boast two of the Premier League's finest young full-backs now in Tino Livramento and Lewis Hall. No longer do they need their expensive vice-captain, and given off-field issues, perhaps a start somewhere new would benefit him in other aspects as well.

At 34, Trippier still probably has one last decent move for decent money left in him, and his retirement from international football should be music to the ears of interested clubs.

In the not-too-distant past, people were talking about how Brighton's future sale of Evan Ferguson would be able to keep his former club Bohemians running for the next thousand years, such would have been the lucrativeness of their sell-on clause and his clear talent.

The Ireland international has stagnated since then, and while he is still a fine striker in the making, he needs a bit more time to sand down his edges, to get chalk on his boots and rub shoulders with adults on a more consistent basis.

Ferguson is an interesting project to work with. Will anyone buy the dip on a player who was tipped to be worth nearly nine figures little over a year ago? He may be worth a punt.

Look, Manchester United are almost always in need of an entirely new squad, but it's only January and much of the rebuilding will have to take place over the summer. In the meantime, they should be looking to cast off their most deadweight of assets, and that includes £82m Antony.

It's not worked out. It isn't going to work out. It's too far gone. It's over. There's no use trying to talk yourself into 'confidence' or 'wing-back' debates. You need to let it go. United need to let him go.

As is the case with Rashford, clubs aren't exactly queueing up around the block to try and secure Antony's signature. This may take a creative sales pitch on United's end in order to simply get him off the books.

This is such a strange and unhappy marriage that Dominic Calvert-Lewin and Everton have found themselves in. He hasn't wanted to be there for a few years now, nor have the club done a lot to tempt him with staying, and yet here they are together anyway.

The 27-year-old's best years are probably behind him and his finishing skills have dropped off a cliff, though he's still serviceable enough as a bog-standard target man that a team might be willing to bring him in.

It's almost too obvious for that team to be Manchester United, granted, but someone should give him a chance in a limited role. Calvert-Lewin can at least be useful elsewhere.

A straw-poll among any number of Arsenal supporters will fetch results concluding they've had enough of seeing Takehiro Tomiyasu on their list of injury absentees. Every time he's nearing a comeback, it falls apart again and he's back to the treatment table.

If the Japan international shows any sign of fitness this month, the Gunners should do all they can to move on from him. He simply isn't reliable even as a squad player, and even despite their injury crisis, they'd be better off searching for alternative solutions. They can't do this dance again and again and again.

Tomiyasu isn't terrible, more he needs a low-pressure environment to regain fitness and put an extended run of games together. With Arsenal chasing four trophies, those opportunities won't come in N5.