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Everton goalkeeper Joao Virginia is close to joining Sporting Lisbon on an initial loan deal with an option to buy, according to Portuguese media outlet Record (via Sport Witness).

The lowdown

The Liverpool Echo reported last week that the Toffees had sanctioned a loan move for the 21-year-old, who has been attracting interest from the Championship and from abroad.

Virginia played three games for Everton last season, making his Premier League debut against Burnley in March when Jordan Pickford was forced off with an injury. He kept his place for the FA Cup quarter-final against Manchester City and helped the Blues keep the eventual Premier League champions at bay for 84 minutes.

Everton under-23 boss David Unsworth has lavished the ‘keeper with praise, describing him as ‘unbelievable’.

The latest

Record claimed (via Sport Witness) that negotiations between Everton and defending Primeira Liga champions Sporting are now ‘very advanced’ and that an agreement should be reached this week.

The Lisbon club will then be able to decide whether they want to sign Virginia permanently at the end of his loan spell.

The verdict

Virginia remains well down the pecking order at Goodison Park. He may have sensed an opportunity when Robin Olsen returned to Roma following his Merseyside loan spell, but the signing of Asmir Begovic means that the youngster’s first team prospects are very limited.

If there is an option to buy, what kind of fee should Everton propose? Virginia is only 21 years old and will still have two years left on his contract come the end of the season, so somewhere around the £2m mark would probably be reasonable.

In other news, many Everton fans ripped into this player during the Southampton game. 

Former Crystal Palace striker Marcus Bent is confident Odsonne Edouard can progress further at his old club.

Edouard joined Palace from Celtic on deadline day in a £14m deal after a prolific spell in Glasgow.

In 179 appearances for the Scottish giants, the French forward scored an impressive 86 goals, making it no surprise his new side were willing to take a punt on him and offer him a £70,000-a-week deal.

Ultimately, for Bent, it is a good move for Edouard and he is now expecting the 23-year-old to take his game to the next level.

Speaking exclusively to FFC about his move to Selhurst Park, the ex-Palace star said:

“I know Palace haven’t got the money and the finances that, you know, the big teams have. But bringing him in – and he’s done well at Celtic – I think it will be good bringing him in for him to progress and score some goals for Palace.”

With the likes of Marc Guehi and Conor Gallagher also joining the club, you would have to say that it was a positive transfer window for Palace.

The Eagles were able to strengthen in defence, midfield and attack, so Patrick Vieira can be pleased with his side’s business.

West Bromwich Albion have been dealt a major blow in their bid to bring Liam Delap to The Hawthorns this summer.

What’s the talk?

That’s according to a claim made by Alan Nixon, with The Sun journalist revealing in a post on Twitter that Stoke City look to be the centre-forward’s most likely destination if he is to leave Manchester City on a temporary deal in the summer transfer window.

In his tweet, Nixon said: “Everybody interested thinks he goes to Stoke.”

Previous reports have suggested that West Brom manager Valerien Ismael is also extremely keen on a move for the 18-year-old, as the Frenchman believes that his Albion squad is lacking depth in the number nine role.

Fans will be gutted

While it may seem that West Brom are not in desperate need of attacking reinforcements at present, as the Baggies have scored a league-high 11 Championship goals over their opening four fixtures of the season, Ismael’s concerns regarding his lack of depth up front do seem well-founded.

Indeed, while it is true that both Karlan Grant and Callum Robinson are more than capable of operating in the middle of a front three, both players are perhaps more suited to cutting in from the wing rather than being the focal point of the attack – with Kenneth Zohore being Ismael’s only real option as an out and out centre-forward.

And, considering the 27-year-old was loaned out to Millwall last season, where he scored a mere two Championship goals over 17 appearances, it would certainly appear as if the Denmark international could be upgraded on.

As such, a move for Delap would have seemed to make a great deal of sense for West Brom, with the Man City starlet appearing to boast a substantial amount of potential, having scored a whopping 30 goals across his 27 appearances for City’s U23 side and first-team last season.

However, if Nixon is to be believed, it looks as if Ismael’s apparent hesitation in sanctioning a swoop for the 18-year-old has presented Stoke with something of a clear run at the striker, which will be gutting news for Albion fans to read.

And, with the Potters highly impressing over their opening fixtures of the new Championship season, only sitting behind Albion in the league on goal difference, should Michael O’Neill’s side indeed go on to land Delap this summer, his potential goals for Stoke could well directly impact the Baggies’ chances of securing a top-two finish in the league.

In other news: Journalist drops West Brom transfer claim on “surprising” £6m beast, Ismael would love him

England are praying Andrew Flintoff’s knee suffers no lingering effects from his first bowl with the side since steering them to a mood-changing victory at Lord’s last week

Andrew Miller and Alex Brown29-Jul-2009Andrew Strauss has provided a telling insight into the growing confidence within the England team by insisting Ricky Ponting’s squad has lost its aura of invincibility. Ten days after England ended Australia’s 75-year unbeaten streak at Lord’s, Strauss leapt onto the offensive on the eve of the Edgbaston Test, suggesting Ponting’s youthful band do not possess the intimidatory powers of their predecessors.”I don’t think this Australian side has got an aura about it to be honest with you and prior to this Test series starting we didn’t feel they had an aura about them,” Strauss said. “That’s not disrespectful to the players they’ve got because they’ve got a lot of very good players but I think the aura came with the likes of Warne and McGrath and Hayden and Gilchrist, all those sort of guys.”This [Australian] team over time might develop an aura, but right at the moment you’ve got a lot of guys who are at the start of their Test careers. It doesn’t mean you are any more likely to beat them or anything like that but it feels like you are playing against any other Test team.”Strauss’ comments are someway short of revelatory – Graeme Smith and Anil Kumble have previously commented on Australia’s decline following the retirements of Shane Warne, Glenn McGrath and Adam Gilchrist, to name but a few – and even his opposite number, Ricky Ponting, conceded that there was a grain of truth in his sentiments.”Any feeling of aura that you get against opposition sides is something that is built up over a period of time,” said Ponting. “There are some reasonably fresh faces around our group who are just starting to find their feet at international level, so it’s inevitable that the aura of our side is going to change. But it’s okay for him to say that now, I’m not sure he was saying that after Cardiff – we had it well and truly over most of their batsmen down there.”Since last year’s tour of India, Ponting’s side has won five, lost six and drawn three Test matches, and is fighting to repel South Africa’s bid for their No. 1 ranking. Australia’s crown has already slipped in the shorter forms of the game – the South Africans are rated the world’s top-ranked 50-over side, while Australia suffered an embarrassing first-round exit at the World Twenty20 – and Strauss insisted the rest of the world was fast reeling them in on the Test front.”An aura is when the opposition teams, even though they are on top, are not confident they are going to beat you,” he said. “They always expect something dramatic to happen that will bring your team back in the game and put them under pressure again.”We certainly felt that in 2006-07. Even when we had good days, we were thinking what is going to happen now. Is Gilchrist going to blast a hundred or Warne take five wickets from nowhere? It only comes with a large consistent level of performance for a long period of time. Australia had that, personally I don’t feel that’s where they are right at the moment.”Strauss conceded England would not establish its own aura without a sustained period of success; a point that was met with agreement by Ponting at his ensuing press conference. “You create aura with a group of guys on top of their game, all heading in the same direction, and with stand-out performances,” he said. “It’s generated over a period of time with some excellent play, and England’s current Test rating would probably indicate that they don’t have one.”Key to England’s hopes of achieving success in this series is Andrew Flintoff, a man who possessed an aura all of his own at Lord’s, and despite not training on Wednesday, Strauss was confident his allrounder would be fit for the third Test.In the lead-up to Lord’s, where he took five second-innings wickets, Flintoff had scans on the injury and it has required regular pain killing to provide him with the chance of repeating his 2005 Ashes triumph. “He bowled two good spells [on Tuesday], one in the middle, one in the nets, and he seemed to come through those okay,” Strauss said. “It’s always the case, you’ve got to see how he responds to bowling more than actually what happens when he’s bowling. But we are optimistic at this stage.”Given the overcast conditions, the only reasons England will have to change their second Test line-up are if Flintoff is injured or they are desperate to bring in Steve Harmison. “The guys who played at Lord’s all performed pretty well so we’d have to be sure the conditions were going to help someone else if we were going to make that change,” Strauss said. By confirming that Monty Panesar has been released from the squad, the likelihood of an unchanged attack has increased.The England dressing room is a quieter place since Pietersen’s foot surgery and Ian Bell has tip-toed back into the XI after being dropped during the West Indies tour. Strauss said the entry of Bell, who will bat in Pietersen’s spot at No. 4, was reassuring.”He’s a proven Test performer, he’s played in the Ashes before and he’s done that spell out of the side that a lot of us have been through,” he said. “It’s not much fun when you are out of it but it makes you very, very hungry when you come back in. And also, you’ve got a kind of mindset that you’ve got nothing to lose. You’ve been out of the side, this is another opportunity for you. I expect him to grasp that with two hands and play some really good innings in the coming matches.”For Ponting, however, the absence of Pietersen provided an undoubted boost to his hopes of making in-roads into their batting. “They’ve lost some skill out of their middle-order,” he said. “I think [Pietersen] is one of the better and more dominant players in world cricket, and I firmly believe England look to him to give them something with the bat, so we’ll see over the next five days whether anything has changed.”Bell is a good player, as we’ve seen through his career, but he hasn’t played as well as he would like against Australia, so it’s a great opportunity for us. If we can get the openers out early and get the middle-order out there against a relatively new and shiny hard ball, we can do some damage.”Strauss said it would be “massive” if England could enter the fourth Test in Leeds next week with a 2-0 advantage. “One thing we are very conscious of is not resting on our laurels now we are 1-0 up,” he said. “We’ve got a fantastic opportunity this week to build on that. Complacency is the furthest thing from our minds at the moment. We are expecting a much harder Test match this week and we’re ready for it.”

The PCB had said Akhtar had been diagnosed with genital viral warts, and subsequently removed him from the 15-man squad for the World Twenty20

Cricinfo staff09-Jul-2009Fast bowler Shoaib Akhtar has said he considered suing the Pakistan cricket management for revealing, in a public statement, the skin ailment that forced him to miss last month’s World Twenty20. The PCB’s statement on his fitness ahead of the tournament in England said Akhtar had been diagnosed with genital viral warts; he was subsequently removed from the squad.”I kept quiet because I have a central contract and didn’t want to offend the PCB, but I could have sued the Pakistan team management,” Akhtar said in a TV programme on . “I didn’t want the Pakistan team to suffer because my news is published all over the world.”Akhtar belongs to category A of the PCB’s centrally contracted players, who are barred from openly criticising the cricket board’s decisions.The injury-prone fast bowler last played a Test in 2007, against India, before he was sidelined for 14 months with fitness and disciplinary problems. He made two unimpressive comebacks to international cricket this year – in the one-day series at home against Sri Lanka, and the five ODIs and lone Twenty20 against Australia in Abu Dhabi and Dubai. Akhtar, however, believes he can still get back to his best.”There’s still three-four good years left in me,” he said. “I am the fastest bowler in history and it’s not possible for everyone to bowl at 150 (kph).”He also said he felt shortening his run-up – as suggested by former Pakistan coach Bob Woolmer – would not prolong his career. “It doesn’t suit me,” Akhtar said. “My run-up is my speed, previously (in cricket) nobody has bowled as fast as I have bowled.”Akhtar believed he could have been picked for the ongoing three-Test series away to Sri Lanka as he had regained full fitness. “I am perfectly fine now and I can play five-day matches, why not?” he said. “But it depends on which tour suits me. Had they [selectors] considered me for the Sri Lanka series only, then I could have told you whether it suited me. If they considered me for two Test matches out of three I could have considered it.”

Pakistan’s sports minister, Pir Aftab Shah Jilani, has said that the country’s cricket board must be brought under the control of the ministry in order to keep a check on the PCB’s functioning

Cricinfo staff05-Jan-2009Pakistan’s sports minister, Pir Aftab Shah Jilani, has said that the country’s cricket board must be brought under the control of the ministry in order to keep a check on the PCB’s functioning.”PCB ‘s paid employees are creating controversies with their statements and their lavish spending ways are going without any check,” Jilani was quoted by cricketnirvana.com. “Under this scenario it is important that the PCB is put under the sports ministry.”Chief selector Abdul Qadir, director-general Javed Miandad and coach Intikhab Alam are making statements after statements and it gives the impression that no-one is there to stop them,” he said. “Their statements create a lot of confusion and differences between them and all of them are paid employees. So there is a need to put a check on them.”The sports ministry has also been sent the proposed changes recommended in the PCB constitution by Pakistan president Asif Ali Zardari, who is also the patron of the board.”I am thankful to the president for sending the recommendations to the ministry because the new chairman Ijaz Butt is asking for more power than given to Nasim Ashraf and this is not feasible,” said Jilani. “If the board has no accountability and balance, the officials will spend money like they are doing now and the mismanagement will continue.”

Andrew Flintoff has called for England’s players to show greater spirit and to “help your mates out” as they respond to their drubbing in the first Test against West Indies

Andrew McGlashan in Antigua10-Feb-2009
Andrew Flintoff: ‘The spirit has been good, but perhaps we need to draw on each other a bit more – help your mates out’ © AFP
It was back to the day job for England’s shell-shocked cricketers as they had their first net session since the Saturday afternoon batting implosion for 51 which handed West Indies the opening Test. They trained at the old Recreation Ground in St John’s, a once fine venue which is now decaying around the edges – an analogy which could soon be applied to England unless they’re careful.Both teams had to change their practice plans after it was found that the outfield at the Sir Vivian Richards Stadium wasn’t ready. England had hoped to do fielding practice there tomorrow, but will now return to the Recreation Ground and hope to train at North Sound on Thursday.The pitches used for the centre-wicket practice, especially the one for the quick bowlers, showed more life than anything that was produced here for Test matches. It used to be a back-breaking job trying to extract batsmen on a benign surface, but even without hitting full pace Steve Harmison got a few to lift off a length and poor Ian Bell was flattened by a James Anderson bouncer.One man who came out of the Jamaica debacle with a modicum of respectability – and a hefty bank balance after his IPL deal – was Andrew Flintoff. He bowled his heart out, as he always does, for 33 overs and batted promisingly in the first innings before falling to a weak cut early on the second day.Then, as England’s ship was sinking quicker than the Titanic on the fourth day, his 24 amounted to more than all his team-mates’ scores combined. His batting today looked in good order again as he twice planted Graeme Swann into the old stands and he went back for extra throw downs before completing his media commitments.”I’ve been in early before but 16 for 4, or whatever it was, was bizarre,” Flintoff said, reflecting on recent events. “You still think that you can string a partnership together, in a situation like that you normally get one, but we couldn’t even manage that. We are good players and to get bowled out that quickly…there was a lot of shock.”Since the collapse the England camp have been reinforcing the message that the team has plenty of good players, but it is an argument that is hard to make persuasive after their capitulation. Flintoff admits that the only way to prove people wrong is by being successful on the field.”It’s a big test of everyone,” he said. “After the game we were flat and probably still are a little bit now. I could sit here and tell you we can [bounce back], but we’ve got start performing on the field, taking our wickets and scoring our runs. I’m confident we can do that.”The squad had their own post-mortem after arriving in Antigua yesterday and Flintoff called it “an honest chat.” He added that this was a time for the team to become even closer knit and for players to help each other. “The spirit has been good, but perhaps we need to draw on each other a bit more – help your mates out,” he said.Are Flintoff and Kevin Pietersen mates, after the rumours of falling out over the treatment of Peter Moores? “That’s all done and dusted,” he said. “We get on fine. We’ve moved on from everything and are trying to win Test cricket. We’ve spoke about what happened, the conversation will stay between him and me, and we’ve moved on.”However, the only way many people are going to believe that there aren’t lingering issues is if the pair help England level the series in Antigua.

David Morgan, Sharad Pawar and Haroon Lorgat met Subhash Chandra, the owner of the unauthorised league, in a New Delhi hotel on Monday

Cricinfo staff23-Dec-2008
The presence of Sharad Pawar, the previous BCCI president, at Monday’s meeting is an indication that a resolution is possible © AFP
In what could be a significant step towards the resolution of the ICL situation, the ICC’s three top officials – David Morgan, the president, Sharad Pawar, the vice-president and Haroon Lorgat, the chief executive – met Subhash Chandra, the owner of the unauthorised league, in a New Delhi hotel on Monday.The official cricket establishment has been working for a while on resolving the problem, which affects more than a hundred banned players; one solution, it was learnt, involves accommodating the league within an exhibition framework. At the same time, in a delicate balancing act, the ICC has distributed for feedback a set of draft regulations on official and unofficial cricket to various stakeholders that contains tougher norms to prevent another ICL-like situation in the future.The ICC is clear that the ICL situation is a domestic issue for the Indian board to deal with directly; it is also keen on a “logical and common sense approach” to protect those cricketers already associated with the ICL and banned from all forms of official cricket. Against this background, the presence of Pawar, the previous BCCI president, at Monday’s meeting – first reported by the Hindustan Times newspaper – is an indication that a resolution is possible.In fact, Pawar’s presence within the ICC – the Indian minister became its vice-president this year and still has the final say over Indian cricket affairs – has provided the world body with the perfect platform for a resolution after being inundated with requests from the ICL, its cricketers, and other respected voices in international cricket to lift the ban. Incidentally, Chandra, the industrialist who heads the Zee media group, is known to have been close to Pawar, a veteran politician.The BCCI had initially adopted a hard-line approach against the ICL, barring Indian cricketers associated with the league from accessing even their local college grounds. It also used its significant influence within the ICC to ensure other national boards imposed similar bans on ICL cricketers and officials. Subsequently, two senior BCCI officials – Shashank Manohar, the president, and Lalit Modi, a vice-president and the man behind the IPL – were invited by the ICC to be part of a five-member working group to discuss new rules for official and unofficial cricket. During these discussions, the BCCI officially held talks with ICL – talks that were ended abruptly without any headway reported.Now, with the working group preparing a new set of draft regulations to prevent future unofficial leagues, it appears that Indian officials and the ICC are working to accommodate the ICL in some form and bring the curtains down on a controversy that split the cricketing world over the last year.The ICC is now expected to discuss the draft regulations and the ICL issue at its board meeting in Perth on January 31. Incidentally, Pakistan and Sri Lanka have already softened their stance on ICL and Sri Lanka cleared six ICL cricketers to play in a domestic tournament.However, there are still some knots to be untangled before a resolution is reached on both the ICL and the new draft regulations. For instance, the Federation of International Cricketers (FICA) has raised queries regarding player welfare under the new draft regulations. Tim May, the FICA chief executive, told Cricinfo the organisation had received the draft regulations and discussed them during its recent meeting in Kuala Lumpur. “We do have some queries, though I would not describe them as major,” May said. “They are basically a few clarifications we have sought.”The ICL was launched in 2007 as a private venture and officials associated with the Twenty20 league have subsequently applied for recognition from the ICC under rules that allow the world body to sanction exhibition/testimonial matches. But the request is pending with the ICC, which has pointed out it does not have the home board’s endorsement.

Jamie Siddons has witnessed plenty of disappointing days in his three years as Bangladesh coach, so he was in a phlegmatic mood as he assessed the damage done to their prospects on the first day of the Lord’s Test

Andrew Miller at Lord's27-May-2010Jamie Siddons has witnessed plenty of disappointing days in his three years as Bangladesh coach, so he was in a phlegmatic mood as he assessed the damage done to their prospects on the first day of the Lord’s Test. A close score of 362 for 4 was not as grim as it had threatened to be at one stage when Andrew Strauss and Jonathan Trott were in full flow, but once again, he was left to rue the inexperience of his young attack.”We wanted to bowl in good areas, put some pressure on the batsmen, and make them make some mistakes. But I don’t think they had to take any risks today,” said Siddons. “We didn’t put enough balls in the right spot. We probably bowled eight maidens for the day and in Test cricket that’s nowhere near good enough. I think our fast bowlers really let the side down today.”Bangladesh’s hopes of competing had been given an early boost when Shakib Al Hasan won the toss under heavy cloud cover, and chose to bowl – a decision that not only gave his team a chance to push for early breakthroughs but also spared his batsmen the prospect of facing James Anderson and Steven Finn on a zippy surface. But by mid-afternoon, all such help from the heavens had gone, and all that remained was a long hot day of toil.”I guess looking out at the ground half an hour into the game, the sun was shining and it was a beautiful day for batting,” said Siddons. “The ball didn’t swing as much as we thought, or maybe the bowlers didn’t stand the ball up on the seam as much as they should have, and it went downhill from there pretty much.”The skill to put the ball in the right areas often enough, under the pressure of a Test match at Lord’s or just a Test match against England over here, it was very difficult for them. A couple of their batsmen made mistakes and gave us a few wickets, and you end with four for a lot of runs at the end of the day.”Of the three-man pace attack, only Shadahat Hossain had played at Lord’s before, having toured as a rookie back in 2005, while Robiul Islam was making his Test debut. “I’m sure they weren’t trying to bowl half-volleys and short balls outside off-stump but they certainly bowled a lot of them,” said Siddons. “Look, two wickets in a hurry tomorrow, work hard for the rest, bat well in the first innings, and you never know. But we are a long way back.”Siddons was impressed, however, with the discipline shown by Trott, who had endured a tough tour of Bangladesh, where accidents and anxieties curtailed most of his innings before they had been fully formed. “He was really patient, but the bowling was quite poor today,” he said. “He didn’t try to step up the pace at all but he’s still ended up with 175 at the end of the day.”Good on him for persevering, sticking at it and making sure he was still there at the end of the day. I thought he batted really well.”Bangladesh’s main threat, once again, came from their captain, Shakib Al Hasan, who has been suffering from chicken pox and only resumed full training earlier this week. “He’s a bit tired, he’s still recovering and trying to get his energy back from his illness,” said Siddons. “But he’ll be right tomorrow to go again.”

Former Leeds United player David Norris believes that Lewis O’Brien would be a good signing for the club. 

The Huddersfield Town player has been linked with a move across Yorkshire this summer and Football Insider reported the other day that Leeds were going to hold fresh talks over a possible deal for O’Brien.

The Yorkshire Evening Post reported that both clubs weren’t a million miles apart in their valuation for the player this week (August 10), and so with this news it’s possible a deal maybe edging closer.

O’Brien was a key player for Huddersfield last season, featuring 82 appearances, scoring five goals and providing seven assists.

Former Leeds player Norris believes that O’Brien would be a good signing for the club, telling Transfer Tavern: “Yeah, another good one. Whether it inspires Leeds fans, like I say I do think they’re looking for one big signing but someone like that who’s doing well, got potential, looks like he could suit the Leeds way, I think on paper it would still be a good signing.”

If the Whites do sign O’Brien, then he would be Leeds’ fifth summer signing after Junior Firpo, Jack Harrison, Lewis Bate, and Kristoffer Klaesson have all arrived at Elland Road during this transfer window.