EPL Gossip Tuesday June 9th
Valencia striker David Villa will decide on a move to either Real Madrid or Chelsea this week.
(The Sun)
One of these years the press will get it right regarding Villa. With Real Madrid buying players Chelsea wish they could attract, I have a feeling Chelsea will over spend on a player trying to make up for it.
Aston Villa owner Randy Lerner has backed boss Martin O’Neill’s attempts to outgun Everton and Roma in the battle for Newcastle striker Michael Owen. (Various)
Villa is coming up 3rd in this race. Living in Rome and playing Serie A wouldn’t be a bad place to finish playing the prime years of your career. He could sign for the team he cheered as a boy in Everton. Either way Villa would have to do something special to land Owen.
Villa will also compete with Liverpool in trying to sign Portsmouth defender Sylvain Distin. (Daily Mail)
Distin would make a strong bench player for a top team provided he is ok with spending his last years in football as cover for the first team.
Liverpool boss Rafael Benitez, meanwhile, says he is not interested in signing striker Ezequiel Lavezzi from Napoli. (Daily Mail)
Nor should he be for the 20 million euros it would take for Napoli to sell him.
West Ham’s takeover will result in manager Gianfranco Zola upping his attempt to sign Inter Milan’s £15m-rated attacking midfielder Luis Jimenez. (Various)
Inter Milan would sing and dance if West Ham came up with 15 million for a player not even on Mourinho’s radar as first team football is concerned.
Tottenham could make a £4.8m loss by offloading striker Roman Pavlyuchenko to Italian side Roma for £9m. (Daily Mirror)
With Roma not playing Champions League football next season don’t see them spending 9 million on a player who is no sure thing.
Birmingham will have to battle it out with Bolton for the signing of defender Danny Shittu, while the Midlands club also set their sights on Newcastle defender David Edgar. (Daily Star)
Since David Edgar is Canadian I’ll include this. Don’t know what Birmingham see’s in Edgar however.
Newcastle owner Mike Ashley has had offers of £10, Oasis tickets and a curly wurly after inviting offers for the Tyneside outfit by e-mail. The Magpies have been given a £100m price tag. (The Sun)
Funny and really what else could Newcastle expect when they invited offers by e-mail.