EPL

News literally hot off the press is that West Ham has agreed a fee of £15m with Liverpool for striker Andy Carroll. Carroll was originally part of the Fernando Torres deal, whereby Torres went to Chelsea from Liverpool for £50m and Carroll went from Newcastle United for £35m.

Since Brendan Rodgers has been manager of Liverpool, it has become clear that Carroll will not be part of his plans now or in the future, so his transfer has been rumbling on all season. Now it appears that with West Ham having preserved their Premier League status for another year, it will mean that they will benefit from the huge new television deals which will effectively double the television earning of every Premier League club next season.

West Ham has obviously decided that they can use some of that windfall in advance and have agreed the bid in the region of £15m. Carroll has not said yet whether he will accept the move, so it cannot be considered a done deal, but the fact that Liverpool has accepted a substantially reduced offer for the player makes clear their determination to move him on and reduce their wage bill ready for new players next season.

Latest news hot from my Italian friend is that Edison Cavani of Napoli is in talks with Manchester City via his agents. Whilst this has been roundly rumoured throught the last few weeks of the season, it was clouded a little by the introduction of Chelsea`s interest. However, we have now heard directly from Napoli President, Aurelio De Laurentiis, that he has held preliminary talks with Manchester City over the transfer of Cavani. He has also made it clear that the deal will be dependent on Dzeko going the other way. If that is the case, it is still possible that the deal will fall through, as Dzeko has made it clear that he will not be shunted around like a pawn in any transfer deals just to suit the owners at the Etihad.

In a side issue, the Napoli President also made it known that no approach has been made to Rafael Benitez with a view to him becoming the next manager of Napoli. De Laurentiis recently went to London on other business not particularly associated with football, so the UK media as usual put two and two together and made five!

Arsenal are reportedly close to completing the signing of Fiorentina forward Stevan Jovetic for £24.5 million. The deal would be a major signal of intent, to begin a summer where Arsenal are set to flex their financial muscle.

Reports in The Metro claim Jovetic's agent is in London to receive Arsenal's offer and work on the terms. A similar report from Football-italia.net, suggests Arsenal have bid €28 million for the classy Montenegro frontman.

Gunners boss Arsene Wenger has been eager to sign Jovetic for a while. Rumors of an imminent deal having been going strong for over a month.

For once Wenger is armed with the finances to make this kind of marquee signing happen. After sealing a 16th-straight top-four finish, Wenger is said to have a transfer war chest of up to £70 million, according to The Daily Mirror.

Republic Of Ireland manager Giovanni Trapattoni, suggested last week that the inclusion of Anthony Pilkington, in what seems like an excessive end of season cluster of matches, could see the utilization of the Norwich City wide man in a restructured midfield formation. 

The opportunity {or pressure} to try something different seems to have arisen and Trapattoni implied the type of midfielder Pilkington is would have allowed for a five man midfield with Wes Hoolahan sitting off a lone striker.  But then came today's news that Pilkington's ongoing knee issue meant that rest is to be the best medicine in close season. 

Trapattoni will have other options and the opportunity to tinker with the shape of his Irish team isn't lost by the withdrawal of a player who has yet to play for Ireland.  Whether his enthusiasm to wane from the norm though, ensues, remains to be seen. 

By the time you are reading this article, the press conference being set up by Real Madrid for 19.00 hours GMT will probably have started, so to save you the wait, I can tell you that it has already been agreed by the two parties that Mourinho can leave this summer. The stumbling block previously has been that he has another year left on his contract, so sacking him would cost Real Madrid about £5.5m. They obviously want to avoid that, but they also know that Mourinho is desperate to leave and go to Chelsea, so a compromise deal has been put in place, whereby he can leave on the 3rd June after the last two La Liga matches have been played, but there will not be any compensation paid.

Mourinho has been touted for a return to Chelsea for most of this year and results at Real Madrid have not been at the level expected. Indeed, the miserable performance in the Copa Del Rey against their Madrid rivals, Atletico, merely underlines the paucity of the performances Real have produced this season, having lost the league title by a landslide to Barcelona.