Transfer Clockwatch
Tuesday May 21
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According to Sky Sources, West Ham have agreed a deal with Liverpool to sign Andy Carroll on a permanent basis.
1830 -
West Ham have confirmed the free-transfer signing of Romanian full-back Razvan Rat on an initial one-year deal.
1810 -
BIG DUTCH NEWS. Ajax coach Frank de Boer has agreed a new four-year contract with the Eredivisie champions.
1710 -
Ross County boss Derek Adams has acted swiftly to ensure he does not lose any more of his first-team squad by handing nine players new deals.
1705 -
Hearts have announced that midfielder Mehdi Taouil will leave the club when his contract expires at the end of May.
1655 -
News that can't fill the Inter boss with too much reassurance. Club president Massimo Moratti admits he has a difficult decision to reach as he considers whether Andrea Stramaccioni should remain as the club's head coach.
1638 -
The full details on the new team that even the little man can support.
1626 -
Robert Carter writes: "All this talk of Mou going back (and mean going back in every sense) to Chelsea, and their fans wetting themselves with excitement, aren't they all forgetting that his relationahip with Ra had broken down and that¡s why he left in the first place? - so what's changed?http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/football/teams/c/chelsea/7004780.stm (sorry couldn't find an SL link) - and another thing, has anyone coupled Pulis with Everton yet?"
1622 -
Certainly didn't see this breaking news coming this afternoon. Manchester City and the New York Yankees have formed an agreement to purchase an expansion franchise in Major League Soccer, the Premier League club announced today. The team known as New York City Football Club will join MLS in 2015.
1603 -
Breaking news. Everywhere. Help. Yaya Sanogo has confirmed he is looking forward to linking up with Arsenal next season.
1536 -
Andrew Jackson enters the merciless fold, writing: "Hi I'm Andrew Jackson and for many a year I have watched from afar (slightly voyeuristic I know) the ramblings, pearls of wisdom and the sometimes hilariously biased comments of all those contributers to TC. Good work all round and I'm glad I have taken my first step into the TC fold. The topic I wanted to talk about was whether Mourinho heading back to Chelsea is a good thing for them. When he first came to England the situation was perfect for him to be successful - only Man U were able to compete financially with Abramovich's money, Arsenal were moving to a new stadium (the financial noose) and Liverpool still had a monkey on their shoulder - Mourinho was essentially able to buy who he needed to win the titles and cups for Chelsea. Forward wind to his apparent 'Second Coming' for the 2013-14 season and we can now see that he will be competing in a completely different PL to the one he inhabited before. Everyone will now have lots of money to spend, not just Chelsea - and though some may disagree - the fight at the top has stretched from 4 teams in the mid-noughties to 7-8 teams today. I hear lots of the older Chelsea pros ringing Mourinho's praises, but very little from the more recent arrivals (Hazard, Mata, Oscar etc). Will they been unified under his often caustic approach to man management? I think going back to your ex always ends in disaster. Thoughts on that one?"
1532 -
Huddersfield Town striker Lee Novak has agreed to join Birmingham City on a three-year contract.
1531 -
Sheffield United have made an approach to Motherwell for permission to hold talks with Stuart McCall over their managerial vacancy.
1529 -
This is going to be one heck of a ride at Sunderland. Gordon Taylor has confirmed the PFA has been contacted by Sunderland players about fines issued by Paolo Di Canio.
1525 -
All the Stoke details as and when they emerge will appear here.
1521 -
Let's hear from our Sky Bet friends regarding that Stoke news now. They have tweeted the following: "Di Matteo is the early favourite for the Stoke City job at 3/1 followed by Mark Hughes at 6/1. Who should get it? http://sky.me/10RPmJB"
1459 -
Philippe Montanier has been confirmed as the manager of Ligue 1 side Rennes for next season on the same day his departure from Primera Division high-fliers Real Sociedad was announced.
1453 -
Peter Eldrett isn't a happy chap. He writes: "I would like to see Gareth Bale sue referees for defamation of character! All bookings he has received for "diving" this season have been shown on replays to have been wrong, especially the joke booking handed out by Marriner on Sunday. He is being branded a cheat when he clearly is not."
1450 -
Sky sources have gone for it. They add more fuel to those reports by claiming that Tony Pulis has indeed left Stoke City.
1444 -
Joao Moutinho insists he has no intention of leaving Porto this summer after fresh links with a move away from the club.
1434 -
An astonishing fact should Pulis leave: Alan Pardew would be the second longest serving Premier League manager, after Arsenal's Arsene Wenger .
1408 -
Plenty of reports doing the Twitter rounds that Tony Pulis is set to leave Stoke. I'm on it like a rash.
1402 -
A big line from the Liverpool Echo this afternoon: "Liverpool are set to launch a £12million bid to sign Schalke centre-back Kyriakos Papadopoulos."
1358 -
Graham Hunter is sure the deal for Jose Mourinho to take over at Chelsea is already done. Watch him say these words in this video.
1353 -
Burnley midfielder Chris McCann is poised to leave Turf Moor this summer, the Championship club have confirmed.
1350 -
A very interesting tweet from our Sky Bet companions now: "French newspaper L'Equipe are reporting that Rafa Benitez is in talks with PSG. We have him at 6/4 for the job --> http://sky.me/156yaaI"
1335 -
Lovely news for the Bees. Barnet head coach Edgar Davids has agreed to remain with the London club for next season.
1322 -
Tim Iles writes: "Just wondering what Wenger's reluctance is to buy a proven top class striker. No disrespect to Jovetic but he is not worth 24m. He's only scored 12 goals this season and besides, Arsenal have Walcott and Podolski who are both better strikers and that's not even their preferred position. Also, at 23, Jovetic has already suffered an ACL so why go there...especially at 24m! There's no doubt he could be a good addition to Arsenal's squad but at 10-15m max. If they got in quick they could probably get Lewandowski or Cavani for 30-35m and that would be money much better spent. It's not worth breaking the clubs transfer record for an average player." I have to echo those thoughts. £24million would be an extortionate price for him and indeed there are much better players around for that kind of money. Hard to belief Wenger would allow that much be to forked out for him, but as the grossly unpopular cliche states, time will tell.
1319 -
With Mats Hummels earlier pledging his loyalty to Dortmund, the news that Franck Ribery has reiterated his desire to stay at Bayern Munich makes the Champions League final a little more competetive than perhaps it would have been before. I may just be spewing nonsense though.
1312 -
Andy Mitchell has signed a new one-year deal with Rangers after an impressive end to the campaign.
1306 -
Plenty covered by Ryan Bridgett, who writes: "Don't get the people slagging Jovetic off. Fiorentina are generally agreed to have played the best football in Italy this season, and key to that has been Jovetic, who has been switching between out-and-out striker to his preferred number 10 role all season. Would totally suit Arsenal's play, and with Giroud finding some goalscoring form towards the back end of the season I think he'd definitely help. £24m is perhaps a bit steep but he's still young so you're paying for the potential there. Can I also mention the U21 Premier League final last night? United-Spurs at Old Trafford, the top two teams in both phases of the competition. Don't know why it was held at Old Trafford, but it was a thoroughly entertaining match. Spurs were on top in the first half and could have had 3 or 4, but went in at half time 2-0 thanks to some dodgy defending from United, possibly to do with Michael Keane coming back in from Leicester. United were playing with Adnan Januzaj up front, who isn't a striker, and as such weren't really able to keep possession in the Spurs half. On Spurs part, Obika, Ceballos, Carroll and Pritchard all looked excellent going forward, and it was Obika and Pritchard who got the goals. Zeki Fryers dealt with the twin threat of Larnell Cole and Marnik Vermijl very well. Second half was a different story as Tom Lawrence came on for United, allowing Januzaj to drop deeper. It told early in the half as Vermijl finished brilliantly after a great ball over the top. A bit later Cole was booked for a dive, though it was an even more blatant penalty than Bale's on Sunday, and would have been a red for the keeper taboot. A few minutes later after some great passing play he showed great composure to find space for himself in the box and tuck away the equaliser. It was all United at that point although Spurs had a couple decent chances to go ahead again, until Cole finished off another great move in the 88th minute to give United a classic comeback win. Some very promising players in both sides, and even better, both teams started with 8 Englishmen."
1303 -
Lunchtime for me, but what a gift I'm leaving you with. Yours truly compiled this week's Transfer Focus earlier this morning, read it now!
1243 -
Brad's back and he has news from the grapevine: "Word on the street is that long term Spurs target, and someone AVB has allegedly based Spurs future around, Moutinho, is set to sign for Monaco. Interesting if true."
1241 -
Plenty of feedback to get through so let's kick things off with Rich. He writes: "Balotelli scored as many goals as Jovetic in the 13 games he played for AC this season. Assume it's not going to be £24m but if it is no wonder the Arsenal board have never let Wenger loose with cash before!!! Worse than Arry!!!"
1238 -
Worrying news for Motherwell fans. Michael Higdon has told Motherwell he may have to move on from Fir Park if he is to cash in on the best season of his career.
1214 -
Bacary Sagna's agent insists no decision has yet been made over the future of the Arsenal defender.
1200 -
A potential scoop from Brad: "Stefan Jovetic is in London sealing his move to Arsenal. £24m. Great player. Great signing. Surprised he was that cheap. This is the start of New Arsenal."
1159 -
Daniel Levy, pay attention to Gordon Mays. He writes: "Having looked at today's early contributions I thought I would highlight some possible transfer targets for Tottenham - how about Kolo Toure to replace Gallas and Chamakh to replace Adebayor so that they would have someone to moan about every week. Then they could go for McManaman and Gardner to help give Charlie Adam a good kicking next next season - that tackle by Gardner on Adam at the Stadium Of Light a couple of weeks ago must have put him at the top of the wish list for Rich, Rob & Noel and then they could approach Man Utd for Nani and Ashley Young to support Bale with the diving duties. I find it remarkable that none of those three have yet to be out injured with 'the bends'."
1157 -
Several topics covered by Ralph Gomez here: "Looking forward to Liverpool in Australia. What are the chances of Benteke staying at Villa? As usual, Liverpool are linked with a number of players. It would be great to see what Ken's inside info is. I feel sorry for Carroll and hope a proper mutually beneficial agreement can be reached for him to move on. I think he may have moved to Liverpool for 35Mil rather than the 50Mil in your column today."
1136 -
Mickey writes: "The rumours floating around here in Liverpool is that Downing is off to Southampton. What a joy that would be. Brendan has already got his replacement in Diago Capel, now what a great signing he would be. It means in his first game we would have a player on the wing that could go past a player and actually double the attempts by Downing in a whole season to do just that! It truly is going to be a good summer if we offload ONE of Kenny's bad signings, but Carroll as well? My goodness, never mind the Pimms,break out the Champers!"
1129 -
1104
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Rob Lynn writes: "Loving the Chelsea rumours around strikers. Has no one noticed that Lukaku scored more than any of their players at an average club whilst being on the bench for a vast number of games? I'd take him at Spurs if they've forgotten about him! I'd also take Dzeko if he's available at a realistic price. Higuain is a tough one to judge, seems to get a lot of niggles and also doesn't score that many considering Real create about 20 good chances a game. 14 league goals isn't much to shout about playing in that side so hopefully he'll go to Arsenal to give Giroud and Gervinho some competition. Cavani is a massively dangerous purchase as well if they're talking roughly £50m. Serie A is so poor IMO from what I've seen this season and he's only played in the CL for one season."
1104 -
Fulham are reportedly closing in on the signing of long-term target Derek Boateng from Ukrainian club Dnipro.
1101 -
Gylfi Sigurdsson knows it is vital Tottenham Hotspur keep hold of Gareth Bale this summer if they want to return to the UEFA Champions League.
1047 -
Matt Smith has sent me swooning. He writes: "Hey Jack. Is it true that Lambert has been given a 70 million quid budget for summer signings? I would be shocked if it were true, but I have seen it on 2 different sites now!" I have not heard that until now, but I am struggling to keep the glee from my face. We could buy up to 20 League Two players with that money!
1029 -
Romelu Lukaku says his future is out of his hands and he will wait to see what happens when he returns to Chelsea for pre-season training.
1026 -
A tweet from our Sky Bet chums: "Mourinho looks poised, but who else in at Chelsea? Falcao at 10/1? Cavani at 4/1? Who do you think they need? http://sky.me/15U0kFP"
1020 -
Napoli chief Aurelio De Laurentiis could be an entertaining chap this summer. He has denied that he flew to London for talks with Rafa Benitez, but admitted he sent his sporting director to talk with Manchester City about a possible swap deal involving Edin Dzeko and Edinson Cavani.
1019 -
Tim Iles writes: "Interesting talk of Higuain to Arsenal. Personally I think their money would be better spent elsewhere. He is still young as someone has already mentioned but at 25 he has already sustained a career-threatening injury and I think that's why none of the top teams are interested but typical of Arsenal! Back injuries are nasty and the seriousness of his injury is sure to give him trouble in the future. If 19m is the asking price then why not spend an extra 10m and get Lewandowski who is coming into the prime of his career. According to all reports they have 70m to spend so why not?! The remaining 40m is more than enough to get a keeper and a back-up defender and perhaps another world class midfielder."
1017 -
Andy Carroll has thanked West Ham for getting his career back on track during a successful year-long loan spell.
1013 -
I promised you 'plenty' of Mourinho reaction, but that was a bit of a lie. Here's some Frank Lampard quotes, while Sam Allardyce told Sky Sports News: "I suppose it depends on whether he can recapture what he did when he first moved to Chelsea. Looking at his experience since those days he should be better than what he was when he left."
0958 -
Rich Lynn clarification: "200k a week is just paper talk Kumar .... It's obviously what he's 'worth' when compared to lesser players like Tevez on more but he won't be getting that just yet. Luckily, I think he'll be signing his new deal very soon and we won't have to put up with this nonsense all summer. Certainly Real have accepted he's staying for now (according to their ex-president anyway)."
0954 -
Mark Kelly has no idea what he's getting into. He writes: "Hi everyone, first time writing in but love the TC and am always on it. As a Liverpool fan from Ireland for the last 30 odd years I've had some ups but mostly downs recently,but for the first time in a long time I'm feeling good about next season providing we strengthen well in the summer. I would just like to know if Red Ken has any update on the few rumours doing the rounds. Firstly I read that Erikson has told us to make a firm bid and he'd sign. Then there's the Greek defender Papadopoulos and the young left back Digne from Lille. Also we've being linked with many strikers but no definitive names. Hope that's not to much for Ken."
0953 -
Kumar's analysis of all things football: "Chelsea seem to have got a "real" deal in getting Mourinho for free. I guess Perez was just scared that if he demanded the buy-out money, Jose would just stay at Real and clearly, of late, that hasn't been working out for anyone involved. I think it was in everybody's interest that Jose was allowed to leave them without any buy-out or compensation money. Interesting quotes in the papers today about Higuain. He is still very young, Madrid have said that he is unwanted, proven player at the highest level, scores a lot of goals and would be a great addition to the Arsenal squad. He sems like a better option than Jovetic who had an indifferent season and hasn't really proved himself at the highest level. Gonzalo will definitely be available on the cheap too with the club looking to sell. The papers quoted 19mill, I think a bid of around 15mill would be enough to force Real into selling. He doesn't have too many takers, the top teams that is. Arsenal can guarantee him CL football and that should entice him. Surprising story about Kolo and Pool. I wouldn't have thought that Rodgers would sign a 30+ defender to be part of his "revolution", but I guess that its a move to replace the experience of the legendary number 23 rather than a look to the future. Kolo will be available on the cheap and would be a good acquisition by Pool. And last, but not the least, Bale on 200K a week. Insane. Levy is going to have to dig in really deep to keep him at the Lane, and if he does dig deep, it will show a sign of ambition and intent that the club wanna get into the top four rather than be on the fringes every season. Moyes will be taking over our team now with his first assignment being talking to Rooney and SELLING him. Yes, he has been a good servant for us, but, crazy antics can be tolerated once, not twice at a club like United and he has blown his chance to be a United legend. Hopefully Lewandowski comes in to replace him and they find a suitable midfielder too."
0943 -
Having spent far too long concocting a gag involving the word "keeps", here's the story bad gag free. Jose Reina admits he is flattered to be linked with a return to former club Barcelona but has again insisted he is happy at Liverpool, with whom he is under contract until 2016.
0938 -
Trotters chat with Bob Harrison: "Good to see that Dougie Freedman is already recruiting replacements - looks like Marcus Alonso will be on his way to Fiorentina soon. Tierney could be an valuable (free) acquisition."
0915 -
A couple of interesting tidbits from the early hours now. Borussia Dortmund defender Mats Hummels insists the Champions League final will not be his last game for the club, while Radamel Falcao has the full backing of Atletico Madrid as he is set to choose his next club this summer.
0912 -
Paper Talk is in an interesting read. Mourinho to Chelsea is the unsuprisingly dominant line, but Kolo Toure to Liverpool and Gonzalo Higuain to Arsenal are two new additions to the transfer grapevine. Those rumours that Bale has agreed a news Spurs deal are also included.
0907 -
Good morning one and all and welcome to the Transfer Centre. There's plenty of reaction to last night's Mourinho news to bring you and you can get involved with your rumours, views and comedic (clean) anecdotes to jack.woodfield@bskyb.com
0903