Morning all. Throughout January Soccerlens is going to be bringing you a daily round-up of the morning’s various goings-on. Be it juicy morsels of spurious transfer gossip or real, actual bona fide news, rest assured, we’ll have it covered.
Here’s this morning’s batch.
Chelsea quash ‘Atleti double swoop’ rumours…
Reports in the Spanish press yesterday were carrying quotes supposedly attributed to Miguel Angel Gil, in which Atletico Madrid’s majority shareholder claimed that Chelsea had made a €60 million double bid for striker Sergio Aguero and centre-back Diego Godin.
Sadly, as with the vast majority of articles that emanate from the Spanish press circles, it seems as though either Gil was fibbing or that the newspapers responsible were peddling their usual line in horse-cock and poppy-feathers – with a Chelsea spokesman later confirming that the club were unwilling to even acknowledge such ‘wild transfer speculation’.
So…that’s a ‘no’ then, is it?
Liverpool’s Suarez deal lurches on…
The Daily Telegraph seem fairly certain that Luis Suarez is set to hold talks with the Ajax board in an effort to persuade the Dutch club to ease up on their £30 million valuation of him – a meaty price tag that is undoubtedly impeding his vaunted move to Liverpool.
The Premier League club would apparently prefer not to breach the £20 million mark for the Uruguayan, though their opening bid of just £12.7 million was deemed laughably inadequate by the Ajax hierarchy.
In further Liverpool news, Blackpool have slapped a whacking great £12 million price tag on Charlie Adam‘s head, and with King Kenny and his associates not willing to go any higher than £5 million for the Scottish midfielder, it looks as though the staunchly recalcitrant Ian Holloway may be about to get his way after all.
Adebayor seals Bernabeu switch…
Emmanuel Adebayor‘s patchy Manchester City career was brought to a temporary end last night, when the Togolese target man finally completed his on/off loan switch to Real Madrid.
So said the Spanish giants:
“Real Madrid and Manchester City have reached a deal that will see Emmanuel Adebayor play on loan for the former club.
The player will remain at Real Madrid until the end of the current season, at which point the club hold a unilateral option to purchase the player.”
Adebayor is now due in Madrid today for a routine medical.
Babel-ing on…
Speaking of wayward forwards, Liverpool wastrel Ryan Babel has officially completed his move to Hoffenheim after signing a two-and-a-half-year contract, according to a statement posted yesterday evening on behalf of the German club.
The Reds accepted a £6 million bid for the Dutchman last week, but the deal appeared to be wavering until late on Monday when the player flew out to finalise contract details.
Just before ‘close of play’ yesterday, Hoffenheim’s posted the following update on their official website, www.achtzehn99.de:
“[Babel] signed on Tuesday a contract for two-and-a-half years until June 30th, 2013 (plus an option for another year).”
Bye bye Babs, you won’t be missed.
The best of the rest…
- Arsenal are hoping PSG centre-half Mamadou Sakho will be the man to solve their defensive woes, and are willing to go as high as £12 million to land the French international…
- Manchester United hope to open contract talks with Patrice Evra earlier than initially planned after learning that Real Madrid are keeping a keen eye on developments at Old Trafford…
- Sunderland are hoping to bring in Frederic Piquionne, Sulley Muntari and Stephane Sessegnon before the transfer window closes…
- Aston Villa are on the verge of flogging hopeless misfit Stephen Ireland to Newcastle and have sounded out Tottenham midfielder Jermaine Jenas as his direct replacement…
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