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.
What King Kenneth wants…
Newly-instated Liverpool manager Kenny Dalglish has scheduled a meeting with the club’s hierarchy (including owner John Henry, who flew in from the States on Tuesday) later today and the national press are adamant that the Scot will use the opportunity to ask for a shed-load of cash to spend on a shed-load of players.
Whilst the Guardian seem certain that a right-back and a striker will be prioritised, the Daily Mirror are suggesting that Dalglish will plead for a ‘midfield enforcer to ride shotgun alongside Steven Gerrard‘, as well as £10 million-rated Southampton prodigy Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain (though Arsenal are also rumoured to be ‘close’ to tying up his signature) and a clutch of ‘more experienced strikers’ to be bought in during January.
And just who are these ‘more experienced strikers’?
Well, the Mirror proffer forth the names of Ajax’s toothy hitman Luis Suarez, Dutch winger Eljero Elias, Wigan’s wantaway flanker Charles N’zogbia, Chelsea youngster Daniel Sturridge and Cluj target man Lacina Traore.
Oh, and that midfield enforcer we mentioned earlier? Well it seems that it will either be Dutch destroyer Mark van Bommel, Sunderland’s resident red-card magnet Lee Cattermole, West Ham’s blustering dynamo Scott Parker, Wigan’s Mohamed Diame or Real Madrid’s Lassana Diarra.
Which, all-in-all, amounts to 11 potential new faces at Anfield. Top work.
Benzema mulling over Houllier reunion?…
With Gonzalo Higuain finally succumbing to a herniated spine that is now likely to see him ruled out for the next four months, you’d assume that Karim Benzema‘s first-team prospects at Real Madrid immediately took an turn for the better this week – not so, according to those good folk over at the Daily Mirror.
The rag are ruminating that, should Madrid seek a loan deal for Manchester City wastrel Emmanuel Adebayor to plug the gap left in Higuain’s absence as planned, ‘Benny’ will find himself with no option but to reunite himself with his former Lyon mentor Gerard Houllier who, as I’m sure you’re aware, is in charge over at Aston Villa these days.
Sound reasoning, I’m sure you’ll agree.
Liverpool in for Inter sprinter…
Presenting: the 12th man that Liverpool have been linked with in this morning’s gossip columns.
Reports emanating from Italy are suggesting that the Reds have put somewhere in the region of £8 million aside with the express intent of making a summer bid for Inter Milan’s Nigerian forward Victor Obinna, i.e. the West Ham loanee that almost put paid to Birmingham midfielder Sebastian Larsson‘s dreams of siring an heir in the Carling Cup the other night.
Obinna has previously stated that he wouldn’t be against remaining at Upton Park after his loan spell finishes, but it is equally possible that the 23-year-old may have his head turned if presented with the possibility of battling mid-table obscurity rather than relegation at Anfield.
A finger in every Pie-naar…
The Sun seem adamant that Chelsea have definitely submitted a £3 million bid for Everton’s clock-watching winger Steven Pienaar, with the soon-to-be-out-of-contract South African keen to leave Goodison in search of Champions League football.
Tottenham are also known to be circling, but it is thought that Chelsea have ‘jumped straight to the front of the queue’ by getting their act together and filing an offer in January – rather than waiting until Pienaar becomes a free agent in the summer.
It looks as though the Toffees may have already lined up Pienaar’s replacement, with former Manchester United winger Chris Eagles expected to seal a £1.5 million switch from Burnley within the next couple of days.
The best of the rest…
- Rather worryingly, Arsenal are still working towards the signing of Matthew Upson – though manager Arsene Wenger is only willing to pay £500,000 for the centre-back’s rather lumpen services.
- Newcastle are in talks with Cardiff over a move for ‘England striker’ Jay Bothroyd…
- Leicester City have snapped up Everton striker Yakubu on loan until the end of the season…
- The agent of Bayern Munich scrapper Mark van Bommel insists his client would prefer a move to England after being heavily linked with AC Milan earlier in the week…
- Aforementioned Brum midfielder Sebastian Larsson‘s proposed move to Newcastle has been called off after the two parties failed to agree terms…
- Sunderland have lodged an offer of a permanent deal for PSG winger Stephane Sessegnon, after having several loan approaches for the Benin international dismissed by the Ligue 1 side…
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