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.
Torres wants out…
Liverpool have confirmed that striker Fernando Torres made an official transfer request yesterday afternoon amidst interest from Chelsea, and that the club have also turned it down – telling the Spaniard that they expect him to honour his long-term contract at Anfield:
“Fernando Torres tonight submitted a written transfer request, which has been rejected by Liverpool.
“Fernando is under long-term contract and the club expect him to honour the commitment he made to Liverpool FC and its supporters when he signed the agreement.”
The Sun and the Independent are already suggesting that Chelsea are going to get their man before the transfer window closes, and will do so by offering Liverpool a tidy bid of £42.5 million-plus-Daniel Sturridge for his services.
The news filtered through just hours after the club announced that they had agreed a £22.8 million fee for Ajax forward Luis Suarez.
Carroll singing…
The Currant Bun is also reporting this morning that Tottenham have made a colossal bid of £25 million for colossal Newcastle striker Andy Carroll.
Word is that ‘Spurs chairman Daniel Levy submitted the meaty offer for Carroll directly to owner Mike Ashley yesterday – a package that would see Newcastle recoup £22 million straight off the bat, with a further fee £3 million to follow in future increments.
Strangely, this fairly significant piece of transfer ‘news’ hasn’t been picked up by any other major news outlet.
Stek-ing point…
The man who replaced Edwin van der Sar in the Dutch national team is now set to take up his mantle at Old Trafford, if Manchester United coach Rene Meulensteen is to be believed – who blabbed to Voetbal International that Ajax stopper Maarten Stekelenberg is now sitting pretty at the top of the club’s shortlist of replacements for the outbound veteran:
“Stekelenburg is indeed the goalkeeper who is at the top of our wanted list. We have naturally been talking a lot among ourselves about who should replace Van der Sar.
“Alex Ferguson has spoken about Stekelenburg with Edwin and that does not seem strange to me at all.”
So there you go.
The best of the rest…
- Tottenham have prepared an £8 million-plus-Robbie Keane offer for West Ham lynchpin Scott Parker…
- Speaking of Spurs, manager Harry Redknapp has told the club that they must do their utmost to hold on to Gareth Bale in the summer and should ‘break the bank’ if necessary…
- Manchester City ‘keeper Shay Given is so desperate for first-team football that he is willing to drop down to savage wilderness of the Championship to find it…
- Chelsea are mulling over an offer for Bolton centre-back Gary Cahill after failing to reach an agreement with Benfica for Brazilian David Luiz…
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