Transfer deadline day rages on at a relatively furious pace…

Nicky Shorey to Portsmouth
Sky Sports News are reporting that the Aston Villa left-back is on his way to Fratton Park for a medical. Shorey will avoid the prospect of Championship football by limiting his move to the South Coast to a season-long loan deal.

The Carlo Cudicini and David James switch-a-roo
Rumours that Jamo will jump ship to join ‘Arry at the Lane have been circulating for a few weeks, but The Daily Mail suggest Portsmouth have rejected a swap deal with Carlo Cudicini. Despite the rebuff, The Times say Mr Redknapp and Mr Levy are currently at Loggerheads over whether they should bring in the 39-year-old shot stopper.

Gennaro Gattuso to Arsenal
Ian Wright’s latest outpouring of wisdom in The Sun sees him arguing the merits of the AC Milan nutter. The pundit says Arsenal need a surrogate Patrick Vieira/ Tony Adams/ big mean person person to stop them getting bullied in the manner of Saturday’s defeat at Old Trafford. This may be true, but Gattuso ain’t going nowhere.

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Sadly there’s no room for player of the year Ryan Giggs here…

It’s another end of season list, but with a twist. To stop a roundup of the 08/09 Premier League team of the season descending into a top 4 love-in, we’ve tried to limit ourselves to only one player from each club. Sticklers for punishment that we are, we’re also rigidly sticking to a classic 4-4-2. It all ended up being a lot harder than we gave it credit for:

GK - Manuel Almunia (Arsenal)
Pulled off some super saves, stopped an inordinate amount of penalties, and has been good enough to have this ridiculous nonsense about him playing for England rise to the surface again. The Spanish keeper has come a long way from Jens Lehmann’s assessment he was to rubbish to play for Arsenal.

DR - Rory Delap (Stoke)
Rory Delap made a healthy contribution to securing Stoke’s top flight status, earning priceless league (and mental) victories against the big boys at a time when Stoke were looking the unfashionable new kids while Hull cakewalked it. He spent most of the season in midfield but his position is almost irrelevent for what he brings to the team.

DL - Luke Young (Aston Villa)
Playing completely out of position, covering for a crocked Wilfred Bouma and an absolutely dreadful Nicky Shorey, isn’t an ideal way to start your first season a new club, but Young has done the job manfully, without complaint and more often than not, impressively.

DC - Phil Jagielka (Everton)
One of the most reliable performers of the season until that heartbreaking injury, Jags has had a superb campaign, reaping benefits in the form of England

Today’s gossip, rumours and damned lies

Chelsea have confirmed making a bid for Brazilian man-o’-sex Robinho (rumoured to be worth £19.7 million) but find themselves frustrated with Real Madrid’s failure to find a replacement, which is currently holding up proceedings. With Cristiano Ronaldo staying put and Wesley Sneijder out injured, this saga could be far from completion.

Kevin Doyle to Sunderland
Things were going great for Doyle. He impressed during his first Premier League season then was even linked with a move to Chelsea. What followed? A run of 21 games without a goal! Fear not though, Roy Keane is ready to offer him a second chance.

The Spoiler Truth-o-meter: Sunderland and Doyle could prove a good match

Younes Kaboul to Aston Villa
Martin O’Neill has already signed

Today’s gossip, rumours and damned lies

The Mirror are reporting that Liverpool are finally prepared to pay Aston Villa £18 million. Further proof arrived this morning when a Kiss 100 DJ revealed that he saw Barry in a nightclub this weekend and the deal will go through on Wednesday. Concrete evidence, folks.

David Villa to Tottenham
While Liverpool lift up the couch cushions to count pennies, Spurs are ready to take their summer spending over the £50 million mark by bring in Villa for £32 million and attempting to snare Man City defender Vedran Corluka for £9.5 million. Berbatov may make way to raise the funds.

The Spoiler Truth-o-meter: A deceptively shrewd summer for Spurs, with their net spend currently about £10 million, despite the big signings

Robinho latest
With no sign of progress, it was decided that Chelsea

An entire team of gentlemen looking for a new employer

The transfer window is now wide open, and there are countless players itching to increase their fortunes by kissing the crest of a new club. Here’s eleven of the greediest best…

Scott Carson
Liverpool are so fed up with Carson that they would rather bring in a shiny new reserve keeper like Antti Niemi. Aston Villa chucked him too, so Scott is simply begging for someone to pick him up.

Potential suitors: Middlesbrough, West Brom

Nicky Shorey
This time last year, Shorey was strutting his stuff in the England squad and was supposedly the apple of West Ham’s eye. He stayed aboard the Good Ship Reading and watched it capsize in May, and now wants another taste of the Premier League.

Potential suitors: West Ham, Portsmouth, Aston Villa, Newcastle

Anton Ferdinand
The younger Ferdinand has gone from being charged with assault to becoming one of the most sought-after defenders in the Premier League. It’s hard to see Joey Barton’s transformation going that smoothly.

Potential suitors: Tottenham, Aston Villa, Newcastle

Richard Dunne
They don’t bother voting for Man City’s player of the year any more because this guy wins all the time. Dunne was upset with Sven’s sacking and eager to leave, though rumours suggest Mark Hughes may have talked him round.

Potential suitors: Portsmouth, Tottenham, West Ham, Aston Villa, Newcastle

Pascal Chimbonda
Juande Ramos employed subtle techniques to let the Frenchman know he isn’t wanted, like signing two new players in his position months after taking over. But if you cast aside his idiotic tendencies, Chimbonda is a talented

The Spoiler considers the footballing talent you rather see warm someone else’s bench next season

Much like when a hot girl comes for an interview at your place of work, the feeling of knowing a quality player could be joining your club is pretty uplifting. However, unless you support Manchester Utd, Chelsea or Arsenal, occasionally a player who provokes a combined feeling of fear, disappointment and mild anger will crop up on the rumour radar. Even Liverpool suffer a little from ropeytransferitis, with names like Stewart Downing and James Milner not exactly living up to last summer’s star signing Fernando Torres.

With this in mind, we decided to compile a list of the ten names most likely to make you choke on your Corn Flakes when the back pages associate them with your side. Let’s get things started with a couple of Frenchmen…

Djibril Cisse
The French striker flopped during his spell at Liverpool but that doesn’t stop him believing that we all love him, judging by his determination to return to the Premier League. We don’t Djibril, we don’t.

Lillian Thuram
Even Lil realises that he’s not that popular after being dumped by Barcelona and failing with France. “I would like to continue to play but I don’t know if a club wants me,” he said last week. Celtic and Rangers have been linked but Scots can rest easy as he now appears to be PSG-bound.

Justin Hoyte
Perfect proof that playing with some really good players once or twice a season doesn’t make you a really good player. Maybe Martin O’Neill thinks he could do a Bentley and flourish away from the Emirates, but his loan spell at Sunderland suggested that simply won’t happen.

Harry Kewell
The Socceroo was one of the most exciting players in the Premier League…five years ago. After a few years rotting in hospital beds and in Liverpool’s reserve team he is damaged goods. Thankfully it’s looking like he will take WAG Sheree Murphy off to Italy.

Stephen Carr
Kevin Keegan is happy playing

While everyone else is out topless sunbathing, The Spoiler has been zooming about the undergrowth hunting for transfer rumours. Today this is what they’re saying:

Michael Owen to Everton
After Keegan’s inspirational speech about never becoming a top four team, it seems that Michael Owen is frantically searching for the Newcastle exit. So desperately that he’s been linked with the old enemy. Nice one Keegs.

Daniel Alves to Manchester United
United’s burly shaved gorillas in suits will be seething after Chelsea nabbed Boswinga while they were outside bumping chests and celebrating the contract. Their revenge will be creeping into Sevilla and bundling Alves onto the back of Sir Alex’s motorbike.