Transfer: Liverpool to sign Christian Benteke this week?

Christian Benteke

The Mill struggles to wake up most mornings, which isn’t ideal given that the hour of work a day that it is contractually obliged to do tends to fall around the crack of dawn. But when we’re triggered into action there’s nothing to stop us pouring forth. 

A few shrill seconds of our alarm – Don’t Stop Movin by S Club 7, if you’re asking – triggers us and the consequences speak for themselves.

 There is only one other thing that responds as dynamically to being triggered, and that’s a transfer release clause. So expect all hell to break loose this week as Christian Benteke, with his £32.5m release clause dynamically, explosively and apocalyptically triggered by Liverpool, leaves Aston Villa for a journey of mind and body under Brendan Rodgers, who will apparently make the Belgian his seventh summer signing.

Things have not been quite as incendiary on the other side of this sunny island.
For a man once dubbed “the ever-smiling Steve McClaren” by his former player Massimo Maccarone, Newcastle’s new manager hasn’t had too much to act the Cheshire cat about since pitching up at St James’ Park. 

There was the bottle of new world wine, price sticker half-heartedly scratched at, the paperweight on the desk, the swift pint at the end of his first day with two men from down the corridor called Mike and Graham. But those are mere trinkets on the welcome-gift scale and it is just as well that Newcastle have got their act together now.

Gift-wrapped and waiting for McClaren when he unlocks his office door some day soon – it could be any day, and that’s the fun of it – will be the PSV winger Georginio Wijnaldum, who has been left out of his club’s squad for a pre-season friendly and seems likely to be crossing the North Sea sooner rather than later. The catch? Surely there won’t be a catch? The clubs still need to agree a fee …

Newcastle are at least looking busy, though. Charlie Austin is in their sights though with £15m likely to buy a healthy goal return next season, the Magpies are sticking to their guns with a £12m bid. Never mind, you might say – at least the Bordeaux striker Diego Rolán is available. But not for the price Newcastle have weighed in at. This time, £12m is too rich for their blood and the French club are unwilling to set their sights low

Robin van Persie likes a quiet life, as he proved with his completely sub-radar move from Arsenal to Manchester United three years ago. He is not a man for any fuss, which might explain why his move to Fenerbahce appears to have hit the skids. Van Persie’s agent, Kees Vos, has denied reports that the 

Manchester United striker is set for the delights of Istanbul, a development whose collateral would be that the Dutchman might never see Nani again and might miss out entirely on the kind of jubilant, firework-exploding airport reception that thousands of the Turkish club’s fans laid on for the former United winger when he arrived to complete his own move at the weekend. Van Persie will now follow the likes of Raheem Sterling in an unusual move called “reporting to training for pre-season”.

Things seem a little more clear cut at West Ham, whose early business should include a permanent move for their former loanee, Alex Song. And he could be joined by ex-Hammer Glen Johnson, who is in talks about an emotional return on a free transfer.

A tidy forward, lacking in consistent end-product, linked with Arsenal? Surely we jest, but the Gunners’ link to Barcelona wide man Pedro appears to be a serious business, and he could be snapped up for a fee as low as £15m. Perhaps he will be joined by Morgan Schneiderlin, whose confession to friends that he would rather join Arsenal than Manchester United might just trigger Arsène Wenger into handing over the required readies to Southampton.

Source: Guardian