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Paper Talk
DAILY TELEGRAPH
Bayern Munich midfielder Bastian Schweinsteiger is to sign for Manchester United after the two clubs reached a deal for the Germany international.
Stoke City have scrapped their £12m pursuit of Xherdan Shaqiri after the Inter Milan midfielder failed to respond to the club's deadline.
Arsenal 'keeper David Ospina has described the prospect of moving to Everton as a "great possibility" following the Gunners' signing of Petr Cech.
DAILY MAIL
Manchester United will step up their striker search with Harry Kane, Edinson Cavani, Gonzalo Higuain, Karim Benzema and Thomas Muller all to be tempted with big-money moves.
David de Gea will be part of Manchester United's pre-season tour of the US despite ongoing saga with Real Madrid.
Sevilla are prioritising Ciro Immobile over Manchester United striker Javier Hernandez.
Manchester City's Stevan Jovetic and Chelsea's Mo Salah top Inter Milan's shopping list this summer.
Lionel Messi's own grandfather has criticised him as bad and lazy at the Copa America.
DAILY MIRROR
Liverpool will let Raheem Sterling rot in the reserves if they do not get £50m from Manchester City for him.
Manchester United goalkeeper Victor Valdes is in talks over a move to Turkish outfit Antalyaspor.
Newcastle are facing a late battle with Porto for Alexander Mitrovic.
Aston Villa manager Tim Sherwood is desperate to sign Spurs winger Andros Townsend.
THE SUN
Manchester United are on the brink of landing Bayern Munich midfielder Bastian Schweinstieger after having a £15m bid accepted.
Manchester City are poised to make a third bid for Raheem Sterling.
Galatasaray are in the hunt for Tottenham’s Romanian defender Vlad Chiriches.
Fabian Delph will complete his £8m move from Aston Villa to Manchester City in the next 24 hours.
Aston Villa have signed £9million Idrissa Gueye from Lille on a four-year deal.
Watford are chasing former West Ham duo Alessandro Diamanti and Valon Behrami.
DAILY EXPRESS
Manchester United could end their interest in Morgan Schneiderlin if they sign Bastian Schweinsteiger.
Bayern Munich want Angel Di Maria as part of the Bastian Schweinsteiger deal.
Manchester City's raised bid for Liverpool star Raheem Sterling is £44m.
THE STAR
Manchester United are plotting a £60m swoop for Bayern Munich's Thomas Muller.
Manchester United and Arsenal are the leading candidates to sign Napoli striker Gonzalo Higuain.
Stoke have signed Chelsea midfielder Marco van Ginkel on a season-long loan.
Chelsea are considering a move for Chilean winger Charles Aranguiz.
Liverpool are ready to play hardball with Manchester City over Raheem Sterling and keep him until January. They will not accept any bid of below £50m for the winger.
Leicester City are ready to try and tempt Martin O'Neill back to the club as manager.
BBC
Liverpool's owners are prepared to keep forward Raheem Sterling, 20, in the reserves rather than allow him to leave for below their valuation. (Daily Mirror)
Sterling has returned for pre-season training having called in sick for two sessions - but it remains to be seen whether he will take part in the club's pre-season tour, which begins on Sunday. (Guardian)
The Professional Footballers' Association has said it is prepared to mediate between Sterling and Liverpool. The PFA performed a similar role when former Reds striker Luis Suarez was the subject of a bid from Arsenal in 2013. (Telegraph)
World Cup-winning Bayern Munich midfielder Bastian Schweinsteiger, 30, has agreed to join Manchester United on a three-year contract believed to be worth £7.2m a year. (Bild - in German)
The fee for Germany international Schweinsteiger is believed to be about £5.75m. (Manchester Evening News)
United may now end their interest in 25-year-old Southampton midfielder Morgan Schneiderlin. The Manchester club had seen a £20m bid for the Frenchman rejected. (Daily Express)
The Football Association of Ireland will not stand in Martin O'Neill's way if he wants to exit his contract as national coach early to return to club management. At least one bookmaker has suspended betting on the 63-year-old being named as the next manager of Leicester. (Guardian)
O'Neill's return would be popular among fans, according to former Leicester captain Matt Elliott. (Leicester Mercury)
Suspended Fifa vice-president Jeffrey Webb, one of seven officials arrested in Zurich in May, has agreed to be extradited to the United States, where he faces corruption charges. (Bloomberg Business)
Chelsea manager Jose Mourinho has been left frustrated by the club's lack of ambition in the transfer market so far this summer, and is urging the board to provide him with more resources. (Sun - subscription required)
Watford are targeting 32-year-old Guangzhou Evergrande midfielder Alessandro Diamanti and 30-year-old Hamburg midfielder Valon Behrami. Both used to play for West Ham. (Sun - subscription required)
Tottenham have turned down a £3.6m bid from Turkish club Galatasaray for 25-year-old Romania international defender Vlad Chiriches. (London Evening Standard)
An online petition calling on Barcelona to drop shirt sponsor Qatar Airways "until workers' conditions improve" has reached over 40,000 signatures in less than 24 hours. (Telegraph)
Arsenal manager Arsene Wenger wants to get his squad fully fit before he considers "quality" additions. (London Evening Standard)
Arsenal goalkeeper David Ospina is open to a move to Everton. The Colombian 26-year-old has described the Toffees as "a very competitive team" and "a great possibility". Daily Express
West Ham winger Stewart Downing is set to miss Saturday's friendly at Peterborough as Middlesbrough move closer to re-signing the 30-year-old England international. (Teesside Gazette)
Newcastle United will confirm the £13m signing of 24-year-old Netherlands midfielder Georginio Wijnaldum from PSV Eindhoven this weekend. (Daily Mail)
Southampton executive director Les Reed said the club have bids in for a number of players after Atletico Madrid defender Toby Alderweireld, 26, joined Spurs rather than Saints. (Southern Daily Echo)
Norwich City have doubled their offer for 23-year-old Hull City winger Robbie Brady - but have been told that £6m is still not enough. (Daily Mirror)
Swansea City manager Garry Monk does not want 32-year-old midfielder Leon Britton to leave. (South Wales Evening Post)
David Moyes made a losing return to Scotland as his Real Sociedad team lost 1-0 to Celtic on Friday. (Celticfc.net)
Best of social media
Former Liverpool defender Jamie Carragher tweeted his congratulations to Gary McAllister, with the 50-year-old Scot set to be named first-team coach at Anfield.
New Arsenal goalkeeper Petr Cech posted a picture on Twitter of his first training session at Arsenal. The 33-year-old, who joined from Chelsea, wrote: "First training session done... let's go."
Chelsea midfielder Cesc Fabregas had reason to celebrate. "Father once again, I couldn't be prouder and happier. Thank u baby @daniellasemaan7 for bringing another angel to the family and being so brave," wrote the Spain international on Instagram.
West Ham United midfielder Diego Poyet thanked the fans who travelled to Andorra to cheer the team in their Europa League qualifying tie with Lusitanos. "Good win yesterday to get us through to the next round, thanks to all the fans who made the trip," wrote Poyet on Instagram.
Former Manchester City and Newcastle United midfielder Joey Barton could not help but admire Roger Federer's efforts against Andy Murray at Wimbledon. "How can you not have a man crush on Roger Federer?" he wrote on Twitter.
And finally
Liverpool forward Raheem Sterling has been put up for sale - on an auction site. (Liverpool Echo)
Football Italia
Zarate must pay Lazio €6m
Lazio received an unexpected windfall, as Mauro Zarate lost his legal battle and must pay the club €5.9m.
The striker had his contract terminated in 2013 and ever since then has been embroiled in a series of court cases.
Now FIFA arbitration ruled that Zarate was in the wrong when he tried to interrupt his time at Lazio with a year left to run on the contract.
The Argentine must therefore pay €5.3m compensation, plus €300,000 interest.
Current West Ham forward Zarate can now appeal, but has 30 days to pay the Biancocelesti.
Get French Football News
A GFFN100 Profile: Dimitri Payet
The following article is extracted from Get French Football News’s 200,000 word guide to the world of French football, The Get French Football News 100 which focused on ranking individuals’ performances over the course of 2014 as a calendar year.
The following piece was written in December 2014 and published on the 5th January 2015. Dimitri Payet ranked an impressive 8th in our index out of French football’s 100 best players in this year’s Get French Football News 100.
Fans of French football will have known this man’s name for a long while now, and it should not come as a surprise to those “Ligue 1 hipsters” that last year’s number 9 name features as highly as he does in the GFFN 100. Since ‘sealing his dream move to Marseille’ and ‘finding his feet’ at the south coast giants, it seems that recognition for the striker’s prowess has only augmented, despite circumstances at his club last season and at international level that might otherwise have diminished his value.
The 27 year-old hails from Reunion, France’s ‘intense island’ departement in the Indian Ocean, where as a boy Payet played for home town Saint-Pierroise before trying his luck in the ‘metropole’ with Le Havre at the tender age of 12. After four years in Normandy he returned to his native Reunion to play for AS Excelsior, and true to his club’s name, he indeed went higher, both literally and metaphorically, when FC Nantes swept in for the young midfielder and took him back to metropolitan France to begin the 2005-6 season.
Unable to save the Canaries from relegation at the close of play in 2007, Payet’s subsequent transfer request led him to signing for Saint-Étienne. Three tough years followed for the young midfield man, with his new club often flirting with the relegation zone. But he gained valuable European experience with Les verts in the then named UEFA Cup, scoring his first against Hapoel Tel Aviv in September 2008.
Linked with Chelsea and PSG in January 2011, his failed attempts to push a move through to the latter club forced the talented midfielder into a mini-exile with Saint-Étienne. But the big money move did come about at the end of that season with champions Lille parting with ten million euros to capture Payet.
His first goal for the lillois came against Auxerre in a 1-3 victory. Life in the Champions’ League was a little more difficult for Dimitri as he competed for a starting berth with veteran English midfielder Joe Cole; registering only 53 minutes of action over five matches. To his credit he overcame a difficult start and either scored or assisted half of Lille’s goals in the second half of the 12/13 season. A sixth placed finish could not match Payet’s ambitions however, and Marseille splashed ten million on bringing the 15-assist-a-season midfielder to the Stade Velodrome.
It has been a steady rise up the French football food chain for the DOM-TOM man. Yet since, much to his and his club’s fans’ disappointment, Marseille did not enjoy a successful 2013-14 season; a 6th place league finish meant they missed out on the Europa League by one point as his former side Lille finished eleven points higher in 3rd. Payet’s Marseillais conceded 14 goals and scored only five as they ended a dreadful Champions’ League campaign on nul points. Indeed European success seems to be eluding Payet, which must be to his great chagrin.
Last season Payet notched eight times and assisted four of his team-mates’ goals. For a man who prided himself on his through ball skills, the 13/14 season was definitely a disappointment for him. It was, however, his debut season for a new club and a club with greater expectations of its players.
He was the club’s most prolific successful passer alongside Mathieu Valbuena, which is by no means bad going. The 2013-14 season concluded with an uninspiring 1-0 win over En Avant de Guingamp at home, where despite the club’s equally underwhelming campaign players and coaching staff alike applauded the supporters’ loyal support.
Their support aside, criticism of Payet’s lack of defensive work ethic took centre stage and the fact that for a man playing for one of France’s football royalty, a pass completion rate of 79% just was not quite up to scratch. Perhaps an interesting consequence of the negative reviews he garnered at the end of last season were the inevitable transfer rumours which miraculously appeared in late May.
“Payet set for Cut Price Move!” declared England’s The Mirror, citing his slide down the pecking order behind Valbuena, Mandanda, Ayew and N’Koulou as the reason for Marseille’s willingness to cash in. But with Arsenal, Newcastle and West ham linked with the relative journeyman, any potential transfer failed to materialise and new man at the helm Marcelo Bielsa decided that Payet would figure in his plans for the 2014-15 season.
Non-selection for Didier Deschamps’ World Cup squad was a blow for Payet, but his performances simply did not merit selection, especially considering fellow highly talented individuals in Pogba, Sissoko and Yohan Cabaye, among others, had enjoyed solid seasons between them. Substituted 21 times in a season where he played 35 matches told its own story as far as Didier Deschamps was concerned.
Nevertheless, the current season, although still in its formative stages, has provided the Marseille midfielder with a platform on which to improve. Both he and team mate Gignac have recently been selected for France’s 23-man squad for upcoming friendlies against Portugal and Armenia. This is a commendable feat considering it is his first appearance since June 2013.
Payet’s return from the proverbial wilderness has been prompted by a surge in form alongside the aforementioned Gignac so far this term. He has scored five goals at the time of writing and has already doubled his assist count from last season, and in fact leads the assist table for Ligue 1 so far this season.
He scored a cool brace against Nice in a 4-0 romp and has followed up with strikes against Saint-Étienne, Metz and Lorient. It is quite simply turning out to be a satisfying season for an undoubtedly talented player who has had his difficulties. Much of his improvement can be attributed to OM’s new manager. Bielsa has liberated Payet from the bench, using him instead of or alongside the prolific Valbuena as he enjoys more freedom to roam up front that he was portioned last season. He has begun to sit off the main striker, keeping himself right at the head and heart of much of his team’s build-up play.
There is no European football at the Stade Velodrome this season, which may be contributing to the club’s strong vein of form so far. But Payet will be itching to get himself and his club back there again. With Olympique de Marseille leading the Ligue 1 table coming up to the Christmas period, it bodes well for Dimitri Payet. He has become a key team player in a relatively short period of time. Deschamps has maintained that Euro 2016 is a while off, but insists that “each player must have his audition time”; Payet will be hoping he does let his go to waste as he approaches what is likely to prove the best form if his career to date.
C&H
Irons made favourites for Everton star
Bookies firm SkyBet have shortened Kevin Miralles to 2/1 to become a Hammer.
Tottenham were favourites and some sort of swap deal involving him and and Aaron Lennon was believed to be on the cards.
However, should Stewart Downing make his expected move to the north east Slaven Bilic is expected to move in which has led to a flurry of activity at the top of the market.
The Hammers were mentioned as being interested back in the December window and have never lost interest so a deal may be on the cards.
SkyBet have the Irons at 2/1 for the Belgian and Spurs at threes.
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