Sugar sweetens Ginola's move to Spurs

A chat with Alan Sugar on his yacht in the south of France has smoothed out any problems regarding David Ginola's personal requirements jumping ship at Newcastle United.

The 30-year-old French winger will join Tottenham for a fee of around pounds 2.6m and among his new team-mates could be the Crewe Alexandra midfielder Gareth Whalley.

Whalley has flown out to Norway with Tottenham for the pre-season trip and if he impresses, Crewe can expected to receive a cheque for pounds 1m.

Whalley is in dispute with Crewe and has been told he can leave. He was previously on trial at Liverpool last season.

Ironically, Whalley is getting his chance to join Spurs because his former team-mate, Danny Murphy, turned them down in favour of Liverpool.

Another young talent on the move yesterday was Grimsby's highly rated winger John Oster, who became the latest recruit of the new Everton manager, Howard Kendall. The Wales Under-21 international, a target of both Manchester United and Newcastle, will cost the Goodison club pounds 1.5m.

Kendall is continuing his more problematic pursuit of Middlesborough's pounds 7.5m-rated striker, Fabrizio Ravanelli. Apparently, convincing the Italian that Goodison is the place to enhance his international prospects is Kendall's chief concern. He said: "There is still a lot of work to do. We have to persuade him to come here in World Cup year and show this is the best club to get his Italian squad place back. Hopefully he will come over and talk."

The stripping of Crewe's young playing assets continued yesterday as Leicester City became the latest Premier League club to turn to the Gresty Road academy. The Welsh international midfielder, Robbie Savage, has signed a three-year contract with the club after snubbing the advances of Crystal Palace and Hearts. Leicester will try to avoid a tribunal by offering pounds 300,000 for the former Manchester United trainee.

The Brazilian centre-back Celio Silva will complete his pounds 3.5m move to Manchester United when he receives a work permit after agreeing personal terms with the Premiership champions.

The club solicitor, Maurice Watkins, confirmed: "We have concluded negotiations with both the club and the player. We can't complete the transfer until we get the work permit, which could take a few weeks."

Stoke City's new manager, Chic Bates, has lined up pounds 2m-rated Swindon striker Peter Thorne to replace Mike Sheron. Thorne met Stoke last night after rejecting terms at Swindon.

Birmingham will gamble on the fitness of the Coventry striker Peter Ndlovu after a medical last week revealed a knee problem. The 24-year-old, who joined Coventry for pounds 20,000 from Bulawayo Highlanders in Zimbabwe, has been signed on a pay-as-you-play plan following an initial down payment to Coventry of pounds 200,000. Birmingham had withdrawn its initial offer of pounds 1.6m.

One Italian import who will be staying at his club next season is Celtic's Paolo Di Canio. He has settled his dispute with the Glasgow club and plays in tonight's opening game of the Dublin Quadrangular Tournament against Derry City at Lansdowne Road at 6pm. Celtic also have reason to cheer following the signing of a multi-million pound deal for the next three seasons with Umbro.

Later in the evening Newcastle United and the Dutch champions, PSV Eindhoven, meet in the second game before an anticipated crowd of 25,000, with an 8.15pm kick-off.

Newcastle are likely to be without Darren Peacock, however, as the defender is to have an operation for a stomach injury.