Leicester's Piper moves to Sunderland in £3.5m deal
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Your support makes all the difference.Sunderland have signed Matthew Piper from Leicester City for £3.5m. The 20-year-old winger, who has signed a five-year deal, made 15 appearances for the Foxes, who are heavily in debt, last season and scored Filbert Street's last goal, against Tottenham in May.
"He has great pace to go past players and get crosses in," the Sunderland manager Peter Reid said. Piper, who could be thrown into the action when Sunderland take on Everton this weekend, is the fifth new face to join Sunderland this summer. Last week the full-back Stephen Wright arrived in a £3m deal from Liverpool, while the experienced defender Phil Babb and the goalkeeper Thomas Myhre have bolstered the staff along with Tranmere's out-of-contract teenage midfielder Sean Thornton.
Reid has failed to prise the Sweden striker Zlatan Ibrahimovic from Ajax, however. A report in a Swedish newspaper claimed the sides had agreed a fee of £6.2m but Ajax appear to have rejected the bid.
Blackburn Rovers' Turkish left-back Hakan Unsal is poised for a return to his homeland, with Galatasaray trying to push through a deal. The international defender has been approached by his former employers in Istanbul, whom he left only five months ago. The Rovers manager Graeme Souness may be prepared to sell. Unsal has been in the Blackburn squad since they won the Worthington Cup and he proved a strong competitor in their fight against relegation, but his fitness has been poor this season and he was left out of the first game.
Blackburn could also be selling John Curtis to Portsmouth for £1m to help finance pre-deadline purchases. Souness is keen on Coventry's David Thompson, but has been told to sell before he could buy.
Thompson is valued at £2.5m by Coventry and he may be bought quickly to cover for the winger Keith Gillespie, who begins a suspension this weekend for a pre-season red card.
Souness is also hoping to bring in the versatile Israeli defender Shimon Gershon from Maccabi Tel Aviv if he can free up funds for a £1.2m deal.
Terry Venables is going back to his old club Middlesbrough in a bid to make Jason Gavin his next signing for Leeds United. A fee of £500,000 has been fixed for the versatile Irish defender, 22, whom he used regularly at centre-half and full-back in his time at The Riverside.
Southampton's move to sign the Leeds goalkeeper Nigel Martyn for £2m has hit a snag over personal terms. The top wage at St Mary's is thought to be £15,000 a week, not enough for the England international, who was hoping for a bigger salary. While there is scope for haggling, Southampton are looking at other solutions. Saints' manager Gordon Strachan is considering a £2m offer for Hearts' Finland keeper Antti Niemi.
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