BREAKING GOSSIP
Tottenham Hotspur forward Robbie Keane is set to complete an £18m transfer to Liverpool within the next 48 hours. (Daily Telegraph, 1555)

Andrei Arshavin's agent has insisted the Russian would be interested in leaving Zenit St Petersburg for Tottenham. (Daily Mail, 1150)

Barcelona manager Pep Guardiola has refused to rule out making offers for Arsenal striker Emmanuel Adebayor and Chelsea's Didier Drogba. (Daily Mail, 1110)


Portsmouth manager Harry Redknapp will step up his interest in Chelsea winger Shaun Wright-Phillips when Sulley Muntari's £12m move to Inter Milan goes through. (BBC Sport, 1100)


TRANSFER RUMOURS
Sunderland manager Roy Keane is to continue his ambitious summer recruitment plans by bidding up to £7m for Taye Ismaila Taiwo, the Marseille left-back who was named African young player of the year in 2006. (The Times)

Manchester United winger Cristiano Ronaldo has told one of his closest pals - Portugal and Real Madrid centre-half Pepe - that he wants to join him and move to the Bernabeu. (The Sun)

Wigan's England striker Emile Heskey is a shock £6m target for wealthy Greek giants Panathinaikos and new boss Henk Ten Cate. (Daily Mirror)

606: DEBATE
A mate told me last week that Arshavin had signed for Barcelona. Quite clearly he was telling a porky. Where is the Russian ace going to end up?...

CW

Russian ace Andrei Arshavin risks pricing himself out of a dream move to England with wage demands of £100,000 a week, along with club Zenit St Petersburg's £16m price tag. (Daily Mirror)

Furious Aston Villa boss Martin O'Neill has told Liverpool to get on with their move for Gareth Barry or they will be barred from signing him. (Daily Mirror)

O'Neill has offered Barry a peace pact - along with a place in Villa's Intertoto Cup squad for the Odense match - and is ready to bury the hatchet after telling the England midfielder: "I want you to stay". (The Sun)

AS Monaco have denied a claim by Portsmouth manager Harry Redknapp that they made a £12m bid for Croatian midfielder Niko Kranjcar. (The Times)

Liverpool's young Argentine winger Sebastian Leto is set to go on loan to Greek club Olympiakos for a season. (The Sun)

Stoke boss Tony Pulis is in talks with Nuremberg's Angelos Charisteas about a £3m move, although the Greek striker has already turned down Ipswich. (Daily Star)

Blackburn Rovers boss Paul Ince, having pulled out of a deal for £6m-rated Ecudorian midfielder Segundo Castillo, is still trying to land Liverpool winger Jermaine Pennant. (Daily Mail)

Tottenham have accepted a bid of around £3m from Blackburn Rovers for their goalkeeper Paul Robinson. (The Independent)

Newcastle's increasingly desperate hunt for a new central defender has caused them to look again at the Argentine international Fabricio Coloccini, a mainstay of the Deportivo La Coruna team. (The Independent)

Sheffield United boss Kevin Blackwell is desperate to re-sign Welsh international striker David Cotterill on loan from Wigan Athletic. (Sheffield Star)

Arsenal manager Arsene Wenger faces a tough battle to prise away teenage forward Victor Moses from Crystal Palace, with the London club wanting three times the £1m he is prepared to offer. (The Sun)


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OTHER GOSSIP
Newcastle striker Obafemi Martins is set to miss the start of the season after his mother died in a blaze horror in Nigeria. (The Sun)

Manchester City midfielder Michael Johnson, 20, has been offered a new deal by boss Mark Hughes after recently being linked with Liverpool, Everton and Spurs. (The Sun)

England defender Rio Ferdinand has flown home early from Manchester United's tour of South Africa for the birth of his second child after his fiancee Rebecca Ellison went into labour. (Daily Star)

Sir Alex Ferguson is the hot favourite to manage a Great Britain football team at the 2012 Olympics in London as the prospect of an entry grows. (Various)

Manchester United are considering offers to play in India next summer after being approached to become the first leading Premier League club to visit the world's emerging financial powerhouse. (Various)


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AND FINALLY
Newly promoted to the Premier League, West Bromwich Albion are scheduled to kick off the season without a shirt sponsor - although the club are in talks with several companies to replace former sponsor T-Mobile. Fans buying replica shirts have been promised that a sponsor's logo will be put on free of charge at a later date. (The Times)

Middlesbrough striker Mido reckons he is fitter than ever after forgoing a summer holiday in an effort to lose weight for the new season. (The Times)

Sporting Lisbon goalkeeper Vladimir Stojkovic has denied that he left Everton only an hour after arriving for a trial last week. "I'm not a troublemaker," he said. (The Times)

England's Italian boss Fabio Capello will allow himself to be submerged into the culture of his adopted country after agreeing to sample a genuine English boozer as part of a new TV show hosted by Matt Lorenzo called 'Off the Bar' by Sky Sports. (Daily Express)