Irish midfielder Damien Duff agreed to move from Chelsea to Newcastle for £ 10 million, despite belated promises of better terms from Liverpool.
On Friday, Tyneside completed a medical examination of a football player. His move to Newcastle will be a temporary relief for the team’s head coach Glenn Raeder and his team, whose latest success is a victory over the Norwegian Lillestrom in the Intertoto tournament, thanks to which Newcastle made it to the UEFA Cup.
Liverpool promised Duff no less than Newcastle, London Tottenham also offered 5 million pounds. However, the player was attracted by the prospect of getting a guaranteed place on the left edge of the attack. A short statement from Newcastle said the club had "exchanged contracts" with Chelsea and Duff, and the latter agreed to the proposed terms and is undergoing a medical examination.
“Entering the UEFA Cup will certainly help in attracting new players,” Raeder said.
As for other news on the transfer market, the prospect of Arsenal's English defender Ashley Cole moving to Chelsea became more real after the Premier League champions sold Asier del Horno to the Spanish Valencia for 4.8 million pounds (recall that del Horno was bought by Chelsea from Athletic from Bilbao last summer for £ 8 million).
Chelsea head coach Jose Mourinho did not comment on the possibility of buying the 25-year-old Cole, focusing on the return to the team of Wayne Bridge, who recently played on loan at Fulham.
“Ashley Cole is an Arsenal player. It is incorrect to say anything about him, ”Mourinho said. “Wayne Bridge has returned to us.” He was in good shape at Fulham, and this step is equally useful to us and to him. But the transfer window is still open, and, of course, we will have two left-backs. ”
Rob STUART