Hammer blow for Sam’s Jelavic bid
WEST HAM have failed with a £7million bid for Rangers' Nikica Jelavic.
SunSport revealed on Friday that they were tabling an offer for the Croatia striker.
Hammers co-chairman David Sullivan held talks with Rangers over the weekend but has been told to up his bid.
Sullivan knows West Ham manager Sam Allardyce is determined to get his man for a Premier League push.
Jelavic, 26, has scored 30 goals in 45 Scottish Premier games.
His goals record has also attracted interest from Liverpool and Fulham — with the SPL champions set to make a big profit on the £4m they paid Rapid Vienna.
the mirror
West Ham facing Rob Green contract dilemma
West Ham boss Sam Allardyce is facing an anxious wait over Rob Green's future at Upton Park.
The England keeper is out of contract at the end of the season, but the Hammers will not offer him a new deal until they know they have secured promotion back to the Premier League - and may not be able to afford to do so if they miss out.
It leaves the east Londoners knowing they may struggle to keep Green if an offer comes in over the next week.
He could also secure himself a lucrative free transfer in the summer.
i would be gutted to lose greeno sort it out west ham
the mirror
Rangers snub West Ham bid for striker Jelavic
Rangers have rejected a bid from West Ham for striker Nikica Jelavic.
The offer from the Championship leaders failed to meet the Scottish champions' valuation of the Croatian.
Jelavic is the club's top goalscorer with 17 goals this season and has also been linked with Liverpool, West Brom, Fulham and QPR.
Rangers manager Ally McCoist confirmed at the weekend that informal talks regarding Jelavic had taken place between chairman Craig Whyte and his West Ham counterpart David Sullivan.
The Hammers have now followed up their interest in the 26-year-old with a firm bid.
Although the figures involved are unconfirmed, it has been widely reported the east London club tabled £7million.
Rangers previously rejected an offer of £6.5million from Leicester for the striker in August.
Jelavic was quoted in a number of newspapers today expressing interest in a move to West Ham but also claiming he would be happy to remain with the Scottish champions.
He was quoted as saying: "West Ham are a great club; they are not a second division club.
"They are a famous Premier League club who happened to be relegated last season and will return to the Premier League next season.
"It would be nice to play there if the opportunity comes up and the club agrees.
"But I am also playing at a big club and it wouldn't bother me in the least if I had to stay here."
the mirror
West Ham are also due to renegotiate Carlton Cole's deal and may struggle to keep him if another club comes in - QPR have been watching developments.
the star
Rangers have rejected a £7m bid from West Ham for striker Nikica Jelavic
WEST HAM FAIL IN BID TO NIK JELAVIC
West Ham are a great club and it would be nice to play there if the opportunity comes up.
RANGERS have rejected a £7m bid from West Ham for striker Nikica Jelavic.
The offer from the Championship leaders failed to meet the Scottish champions’ valuation of the Croatian.
Jelavic, 26, is the club’s top goalscorer with 17 goals this season and has also been linked with Liverpool, West Brom, Fulham and QPR.
The hitman said: “West Ham are a great club and it would be nice to play there if the opportunity comes up.
“But I am also playing at a big club and it wouldn’t bother me in the least if I had to stay here.”
Rangers turned down a £6.5m offer for the player from Championship club Leicester last summer.
the daily express
Robert Green’s current West Ham deal runs out at the end of the season
WEST HAM risk losing England goalkeeper Robert Green on a free transfer after putting his contract talks on hold until the end of the season.
That could alert London rivals Tottenham if they cannot sign a new goalkeeper during the remainder of this transfer window.
Green’s current Hammers deal runs out at the end of the current campaign, but the Championship leaders want to know whether they will be playing in the Premier League before discussing new terms.
Spurs and Monaco have been alerted to the stand-off and will closely monitor developments.
london 24
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Tony Cottee Column; It’s a great feeling to see West Ham are top of the league
This season I have ended up repeating myself over and over again about West Ham’s style of play and the way that we are grinding out results.
The Hammers are learning how to win ugly and Saturday’s victory against Nottingham Forest was no different.
It wasn’t a game that was high on entertainment, but it was yet another case of job done.
Fans need to keep perspective that we are not in the Premier League but we are trying to get there. If we have to sacrifice entertainment for three points and automatic promotion then that is fine by me.
It is fantastic feeling as a West Ham fan to look at the Championship table and see that we are top for the first time this season.
In fact, it is the first time that we have been top of any league since 2006, and we were only top back then after the second game – which we played before everybody else!
The icing on the cake came on Monday night though, when another one of my old clubs did the Hammers a favour.
I think that many of us were expecting Southampton to retake top spot, but Leicester City became only the second team to win at St Mary’s this season and that result gives the Hammers a nice three-point cushion at the Championship summit.
It is now crucial that West Ham kick-on and try to increase that gap as there are some sides such as Cardiff and Birmingham that are starting to hit some decent form and we need to stay ahead of them and not get dragged down.
For me, it doesn’t matter that we were awarded two dubious penalties on Saturday, all that matters to me is the final score of 2-1 and the three points.
Our home form hasn’t been brilliant this season but we are starting to get the results now.
One thing that does concern me though is the lack of creativity in the side at the moment and I hope that it is just a phase we are going through of not creating many opportunities but still managing to win games.
If a team is not scoring then it is easy to blame the strikers, but that is just not fair. I think that it is more of a team problem and I still expect us to sign another frontman before the end of the transfer window.
Along with another striker, I would like to see us sign a wide player too. We have desperately missed Matt Taylor and it will be good to see him back, hopefully in time for the Ipswich game.
I am sure that Sam Allardyce will be delighted to have a little break right now with the Hammers not playing in the FA Cup.
Of course, as a fan I would love to still be in the competition, but the weekend off will give Allardyce some time to take stock and hopefully add one if not two players to the squad.
West Ham’s next game is a midweek trip to Portman Road on Tuesday night to face an Ipswich side that have been very hit-and-miss throughout the season.
They have some good players and let’s not forget that they beat us at home, so we owe them one!
We’ve had some good games with Ipswich over the years and it is one of the more local away games so I hope that the atmosphere is fantastic and that we can continue our impressive away form.
Tony Cottee was talking to Nathaniel John
the mail
Di Canio reveals all on being a 'barbarian', why Swindon is cool and his life in England
'The first thing I had to do was to fight back the tears,' Paolo Di Canio admitted, 'even though it seemed that they would never stop. When I arrived at the stadium, I had a lump in my throat which I thought would choke me. I was overwhelmed. And so I wept. And I trembled.
'The pounding of my heart tormented me. I felt unable to control my thoughts or my actions. I lost the power of speech, I kept on crying like a baby. I am not a man accustomed to weeping. But here, everything was different.'
Strong words, perhaps, but who knows how a man will be affected when he first arrives at Swindon Town?
Actually those recollections come from Il Ritorno (The Return), Di Canio's wonderful but sadly untranslated 2005 memoir. They describe his homecoming, as a player, to his beloved Lazio; the team to which he has dedicated much of his life, both as a player and a member of the Irriducibili, the Roman club's notorious hardcore supporters.
No modern footballer - not even Eric Cantona - has polarised opinion quite so effectively as Paolo Di Canio. A prodigious talent as a player ('Paolo,' said Tottenham manager Harry Redknapp, 'did things with the ball that made you gasp. Other footballers would pay to watch him train'), he has been worshipped by supporters of the many clubs he's represented.
As well as the sky-blue of Lazio, he has worn the colours of AC Milan, Napoli, Celtic, Sheffield Wednesday and West Ham United. The length of that incomplete list is indicative of his often turbulent relationship with authority. His history has been punctuated by insurrection, verbal and physical, towards managers.
Fire in the belly: Italian Di Canio is famous for his passion and devotion to the game
And now, at 43, here at this modest League Two club in Wiltshire, he is in charge. In an age in which overpaid, badge-kissing footballers have found loyalty almost as easy to simulate as injury, Di Canio embodies the passion and commitment of another age.
In his playing days, he once kept a Lazio room-mate awake all night, on the eve of a derby against Roma, by playing the DVD of Braveheart over and over again.
Sir Alex Ferguson, I tell the Italian, once told me that he'd attempted to sign the headstrong striker on two occasions.
'I can't pretend that isn't flattering,' Di Canio replies. 'But there was no way I could ever have betrayed the fans at West Ham.'
In his life, he says, 'football has never been a business. Football is a passion.'
Di Canio's ultimate allegiance has always been to Lazio; so much so that, one day in January 2005, while celebrating a goal in front of their right-wing fans, he was moved to raise his right arm to join them in their trademark Roman salute.
The gesture was an ancient practice, Di Canio claimed, even if, to the untrained eye, it was indistinguishable from a more recent, Germanic sign of allegiance. He repeated the salute twice more in Lazio colours, and as a result has been branded by some as a fully-fledged fascist.
When Swindon Town chairman Jeremy Wray showed the initiative (and, it has to be said, the courage) to appoint Di Canio, one of the club's sponsors, the GMB union, withdrew its support, reluctant to be associated with a man some still perceive, mistakenly, as a neo-Nazi.
I first met Paolo Di Canio five years ago at Cisco Roma (now Atletico Roma), a tiny lower league club where he was embarking on what promises to be a distinguished managerial career.
'When we first met,' I remind him, 'you were speaking about your dad in Italian; explaining how everything you ever learned, you owed to him. Then, suddenly, you said four words in English: "He was a brickie." You have a real bond with this country, don't you?'
'You remember how I told you then that my dream was to come back to Britain?' Di Canio asks. 'Swindon Town has given me my chance. I love England and I love the people. I just hope I can stay here for many years.'
'You get a sense of the atmosphere at a football club very quickly,' I say, 'from the people who work in the cafe and the souvenir shop; from the players and the office staff. Swindon Town has a very welcoming, yet highly professional feel about it. I'm sure a club acquires its character from the manager. And yet - with no disrespect to this town - there can't be many Italians who would have chosen it over the Eternal City.'
'I love Swindon. It's not a place where you can almost smell the history, like Rome or Florence. It's an industrial town. That may not seem "cool" to some people, but it only makes me love Swindon more.
'You know why? Because the people here are proper people; people who work hard, often for low wages. When Swindon people tell you something, you can trust them, because they mean it.
'They still have a lot of the values that we had in Italy back in the 1960s and 1970s. I still love my country. But I've cut the umbilical cord with Italy.'
England, in Di Canio's words, is 'the perfect place to play football. In Italy, you get a goal, then kill the game. In England, it's 90 minutes of battle'.He also believes that cheating, for instance with performance-enhancing drugs, is less prevalent here.
'Doping in English football,' he writes in Il Ritorno, 'is restricted to lager and baked beans with sausages.'
As a player, Di Canio scored arguably the best goal in the history of the Premier League: an exquisite volley for West Ham against Wimbledon in the 1999-2000 season.
In 2001 he won the FIFA Fair Play award following a game in which, seeing the Everton goalkeeper Paul Gerrard was badly injured, he caught the ball rather than put it into the unguarded net, so that his opponent could get immediate treatment.
He received slightly less praise for his decision, having just been shown a red card while playing for Sheffield Wednesday against Arsenal in 1998, to shove referee Paul Alcock in the chest. The official fell to the ground in a slow, spiralling movement.
'Even now, when I watch it, I can't believe the way he went down, like a drunken clown,' admits Di Canio.
'One moment,' Di Canio argues, 'can erase everything else you've accomplished in your career. I didn't kill anybody. I pushed a referee. We all know that's wrong. But it can happen. And if it happens, you take your punishment. I was banned for 11 games. But you remember the press. People said I was a barbarian...'
'And mad,' I remind him. 'And wretched. And "a man with a mind like a blast furnace". And a gypsy: your former manager David Pleat called you that.'
'I took "gypsy" as a compliment. Pleat made me laugh.'
It was the late Tony Banks, then Minister for Sport, who said 'Barbarian go home', according to Di Canio. 'Somebody wrote that what I'd done was worse than Hillsborough where 96 died. I still have the cutting.'
'Didn't that make you want to leave England?'
'No. Because there are people of low intelligence all over the world.'
As a manager, Di Canio appears to have harnessed a ferocious self-belief and rendered it contagious.
'I changed the coaching methods (at Swindon) completely,' says Di Canio, who introduced double training sessions and scrutinises every aspect of a player's welfare, including diet. Lager, sausages and beans are things of the past.
'I can't praise the players enough,' he adds, 'because at the beginning it was very tough for them. In my first seven weeks they had just one day off.'
Every player has his failings; in the case of Di Canio, exaggerated deference towards managers has not been among them. In Il Ritorno, he confesses to an inability to shut up when on the substitutes' bench.
'I wasn't trying to manage the team,' he says. 'I was just shouting encouragement.'
Il Ritorno also describes a contretemps with the Lazio chairman Claudio Lotito, over dinner.
'Inside the restaurant, I feel my anger rising. I start to scream like a madman. I turn the buffet table over. I start throwing things. The room is full of flying objects: plates, bottles and forks. Everything is flying; anything I can lay my hands on, I throw. I go up to the coach's table and I start kicking it. They look at me as if I am mad.'
Now that Di Canio is in the position of exerting, rather than defying, authority, he displays scant tolerance for insolence from players. Last August there was a scuffle with his striker Leon Clarke following a defeat by Southampton.
'I saw Leon insulting my colleagues. So, as his manager, I put my arm round his shoulder and told him to go down the tunnel.
'He kept on swearing. I had to grab his shirt and put him up against the wall. It wasn't violent. But he'd been saying "**** off" repeatedly to people older than him. Imagine Sir Alex Ferguson in that situation. Eventually I had to say, "OK. Now, you **** off."
'The chairman was wonderful. I said, "Either he goes, or I go." He said, "The club is with you." In that moment, we gelled. I think I have shown that I have matured. I didn't lose my temper.'
'But aren't you the man who, as a player, told Fabio Capello (then of AC Milan) to go **** himself, then pushed him over?'
'Not on the field. I pushed him and he lost his balance. He fell over a bag. I'd been challenging his decisions. Capello was saying things to me like "Vaffanculo" (**** you). I understand his point of view better now. I was young.
'The conversation we're having now is unusual because we're talking about everything, which I believe is good for me. I also hope it will allow people to understand the way I really think. I have a family.' (He has two daughters, one of whom is at Southampton University, with his wife Betta.)
'I pay my taxes. My life speaks for me. I am,' Di Canio concludes, 'an ordinary man.'
Paolo Di Canio grew up in a working-class area of Rome. He shared a bed with Antonio, his oldest brother.
'When I needed to go to the bathroom, I simply wouldn't. Bed-wetting is something I had to deal with till I was 10 or 11.'
Such candour illuminates his autobiography, a remarkable book which broaches subjects many in football fear to address, such as the panic attacks he suffered as a young player, his fear of flying, and the help he has had from psychoanalysts, one of whom was - in Di Canio's words - a 'specialist in nervous breakdowns'.
As a small boy, he was addicted to cola and similar drinks. He was called 'Palloca', a slang term, meaning lard-ball.
'I never hid. My response was to exercise; to try to become the kind of person I am.'
His father Ignazio, he says - struggling to control his emotion - got up at four in the morning and didn't come back till five in the afternoon.
'When I think of the sacrifices he made, I feel like crying.'
Even when recruited to Lazio's youth team, Di Canio was still hanging out with the Irriducibili.
'I've had bricks thrown at me by opposing fans. I've been tear-gassed and beaten by police.'
Scissor kick: The forward scored one of the greatest goals in Premier League history against Wimbledon in 2000
Scissor kick: The forward's strike against Wimbledon in 2000 was one of the Premier League's greatest goals
He'd been at Lazio for five years when they sold him to Juventus, at which point he first began to experience panic attacks.
'It was terrible. You feel that something goes dark. It's as if your eyes can't see any more.'
While Di Canio has previously declared his sympathy with the historical tradition of fascism, such pronouncements don't represent an area of his life he wishes to relive.
There is no denying the DVX tattoo on his shoulder (the Latin appellation for Benito Mussolini). It's the symbolic expression of an opinion expressed in his autobiography, in a passage which has frequently been misquoted so as to appear more incendiary than it actually is.
'I am fascinated by Mussolini,' Di Canio wrote. 'I think he was a deeply misunderstood individual. He was basically a very principled individual. Yet he turned against his sense of right and wrong. He compromised his ethics.'
The truth is that - today at least - Di Canio is not a demented fascista. While he was in Italy, his column in the national sport newspaper Corriere dello Sport routinely ranted against racism. He is a less volatile man now, Di Canio explains, partly through his study of Samurai culture.
'I have read a lot. I like the code they lived by. The loyalty. The honour,' he explains. 'When I see young people showing disrespect to their elders, I go mad. You must respect old people, because they teach you about the true meaning of life.'
Through studying ancient practices, Di Canio says: 'I am more peaceful these days.
'I believe in nature. I believe in earth, sun, fire and water. I believe in the circle of life. When a tree loses its leaves, you think it's dead. But the tree is only resting. It's born again, in the spring. I believe in energy. Positive energy.'
'Has the loss of your father (in October) helped you to bond with the club?'
'Definitely. I got the news after we'd played at Accrington. I was in Rome for the funeral; I came back straight away. I wanted to do something special in the next game, for his sake.
'We played Plymouth. We won, and the lads were just amazing. They led me up to our fans. What really touched me was that I knew they were doing it not because they felt obliged to, but because they felt my pain. And that's when I realised that, in this squad at Swindon, I don't just have skill and professionalism; I have decency and humanity.
'Because of that, they are very close to me. It was the same with the chairman and everybody else here. I felt I was in a family. They became close to me as a man. That was, and is, very important to me.'
'Some people have expressed a concern that - given your history - you're bound to lose your head sooner or later and punch a referee, or another manager.'
'People who talk that way don't know me. I am calm, and more mature and I am really happy. The board, the players and the fans are fantastic. They all have enthusiasm, commitment and a real bond with the town. I say again, we're like a family. Our ambition may take years to achieve, but I honestly believe that this club is capable, eventually, of promotion to the Premier League.'
Wigan Athletic have completed the signing of Chile midfielder Jean Beausejour from Birmingham City for an undisclosed fee.
the Sun
West Ham United are set to end their pursuit of Nikica Jelavic after Rangers reject a £5million bid, plus add-ons, for the Croatian striker.
Daily Mail
Giovani Dos Santos could leave Tottenham Hotspur, with both Villarreal and Granada looking to sign the Mexican.
the Sun
QPR manager Mark Hughes is ready to bid £4million for Wigan's Colombian striker Hugo Rodallega.
: Daily Mirror
Wigan Athletic have made an offer for £700,000-rated Dutch striker John Verhoek, on loan at ADO Den Haag from Rennes.
Daily Star
Wigan also stress that they have only made an "informal enquiry" about Bristol City's Nicky Maynard and not an official bid.
Daily Express
Newcastle chase a loan deal for Juventus winger Elia after missing out on him last summer.
Daily Mail
Chelsea say Alex can go to Paris Saint-Germain but they will not pay the £83m asking price for Porto's Hulk.
Daily Express
Everton, Blackburn, Sunderland and Swansea are all after Sporting Lisbon's Adrien Silva.
talkSPORT
Manchester United and Liverpool are targeting Danish international defender Jores Okore, after FC Nordsjaelland admit that they will not stand in the 19-year-old's way if a bid does come.
Inside Futbol
Israeli Premier League side MS Ashdod have confirmed that talks are taking place with Manchester City over a deal for 20-year-old midfielder Nir Biton after he impressed on trial.
Metro
Liverpool and Queens Park Rangers may move for former Arsenal midfielder Alexander Hleb, with Barcelona ready to make the Belarusian a free agent.
Metro
Charlton vow to slap racist supporters with life-time bans after raids by police.
Full story: Daily Mail
Manchester City are keen on appointing former Barcelona director of football Txiki Begiristain and vice-president Ferran Soriano.
Inside Futbol
Manchester City are considering suing striker Carlos Tevez over his plummeting transfer value.
Daily Mirror
Arsenal manager Arsene Wenger wants a ban on Premier League clubs loaning players aged over 21 to each other.
Daily Mirror
Manchester United are looking at Vasco da Gama's 23-year-old central defender Dede. Full story: CaughtOffside.com
Manchester United are plotting a £20m player plus cash bid for Tottenham's Rafael Van der Vaart in the summer.
CaughtOffside.com
It seems Manchester United striker Wayne Rooney has a new passion for music and is prepared to roll with it by purchasing a classic Oasis drum kit.
Metro
babe of the day
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