SOCCER:KEVIN DOYLE may get a deadline day opportunity to kick-start his season at Everton with David Moyes apparently weighing up whether to make a concerted effort to sign the 28-year-old Irishman or Rangers striker Nikica Jelavic.
The Scot has already made a formal approach for Jelavic but is either reluctant or unable to meet SPL’s outfit’s valuation of €9.5 million for the Croatian.
Doyle, who once interested Arsene Wenger at €14 million and was reckoned to be worth about €12 million when Liverpool were rumoured to be considering an offer last August would, it is expected, now cost much the same as Wolves paid Reading for the striker in the summer of 2009, roughly €7.5 million, which might just place him within Everton’s price range.
Doyle is reportedly happy to stay at Molineux and Mick McCarthy yesterday insisted he would not be going anywhere when the issue arose at his scheduled pre-match press conference for the game against Liverpool tonight, but it is understood a deal is possible if the player can be persuaded he would benefit from the move and Wolves are offered what they consider a reasonable fee.
“I’d be crackers to even start thinking about it,” said an emphatic McCarthy yesterday. “It’s not happening. I can understand his frustration at not starting in the first team lately because he has been such a talisman for us but he is not going anywhere.”
But after what has been a difficult campaign for Doyle between injury and indifferent form, the former Ireland boss no longer considers the striker an automatic choice and has been linked with a move to buy or borrow Leon Best from Newcastle.
At his best, Doyle has been magnificent for Wolves with his performances against tonight’s opponents, Liverpool, as well as Manchester United, during his first season at the club particularly memorable but it has been his ability to hold up play and bring others into the game that has been widely admired. He has not, in reality, delivered in front of goal in quite the way McCarthy must have hoped and now appears, at least temporarily, to have been eclipsed by Steven Fletcher.
For all of that, McCarthy is not expected to push the striker or Stephen Hunt, who is reported to be attracting interest from Celtic, out the door but the manager could do with funds to strengthen and Doyle might be persuaded that a fresh start at Goodison Park would represent a fresh start at a time when the European Championships are looming and his place in Giovanni Trapattoni’s starting line-up is not as assured as it was.
“Every top player has dips in form and he’s got plenty of time to be right for Euro 2012,” insisted McCarthy, but with his side struggling again at the wrong end of the Premier League table, the Wolves boss might also end up seeing a decent offer as being in the best interests of everyone as long as the money can be spent before close of business.
Keith Andrews is reckoned to be one of those on McCarthy’s wish list and the 31-year-old midfielder sought yesterday to step up the pressure on current club Blackburn Rovers to let him leave Ewood Park by submitting a formal transfer request. Wigan and Ipswich are among the other clubs hopeful of signing the Dubliner.
Liam Lawrence and Stephen Henderson could move away from Portsmouth today if the financially-stricken club is forced to sell players keen to escape the financial crisis at Fratton Park.
Seán St Ledger looks like staying at Leicester City, with the player insisting he is happy now that he has recovered his first-team place and manager Nigel Pearson, with whom he was reported to have had a falling out over Christmas, insisting, he has a central part to play in the club’s future.
