England international striker Peter Crouch was reunited with Harry Redknapp at English Premier League side Tottenham Hotspur on Monday after completing his much-anticipated move there from Portsmouth.
The 28-year-old former Liverpool star — who played for Redknapp at Portsmouth and will also team up with former Pompey strike partner Jermain Defoe — signed for an undisclosed fee, though Spurs had been looking to sign him for around £10 million while Portsmouth had wanted £15 million.
Crouch agreed personal terms — believed to be a five-year contract worth £70,000 a week — and passed a medical with Spurs on Monday. He will be playing for 62-year-old Redknapp for the third time, having also played for him at Southampton.
Crouch began his career at Spurs as a trainee but didn’t make any first team appearances before joining QPR in 2000. He has also played for Aston Villa and for Norwich City on loan.
Portsmouth’s Web site said Crouch’s departure was purely down to financial necessity.
“His [Crouch’s] sale was necessitated by the club’s commitment to repay scheduled debts while we are in a transitional period of completing the takeover,” said a spokesman on the club’s Web site.
Portsmouth announced on July 21 that they have agreed in principle to a takeover by United Arab Emirates tycoon Sulaiman al-Fahim — the brainchild behind last year’s takeover of Manchester City — after the 32-year-old passed the Premier League’s fit and proper person test.
The statement also states that the club will now look to “add fresh faces to the first-team squad as soon as possible.”
Crouch, scorer of 16 goals in his 34 international appearances for England, had preferred to go to Spurs rather than another Premier League club Sunderland, who made a £12 million approach for him last week.
Crouch’s arrival at Spurs is likely to see Darren Bent leave for Sunderland.
ADDITIONAL REPORTING BY STAFF WRITER
Bayer 04 Leverkusen go into today’s match at TSG 1899 Hoffenheim stung from their first league defeat in 16 months. Leverkusen were beaten 3-2 at home by RB Leipzig before the international break, the first loss since May last year for the reigning league and cup champions. While any defeat, particularly against a likely title rival, would have disappointed coach Xabi Alonso, the way in which it happened would be most concerning. Just as they did in the Supercup against VfB Stuttgart and in the league opener to Borussia Moenchengladbach, Leverkusen scored first, but were pegged back. However, while Leverkusen rallied late to
If all goes well when the biggest marathon field ever gathered in Australia races 42km through the streets of Sydney on Sunday, World Marathon Majors (WMM) will soon add a seventh race to the elite series. The Sydney Marathon is to become the first race since Tokyo in 2013 to join long-established majors in New York, London, Boston, Berlin and Chicago if it passes the WMM assessment criteria for the second straight year. “We’re really excited for Sunday to arrive,” race director Wayne Larden told a news conference in Sydney yesterday. “We’re prepared, we’re ready. All of our plans look good on
The lights dimmed and the crowd hushed as Karoline Kristensen entered for her performance. However, this was no ordinary Dutch theater: The temperature was 80°C and the audience naked apart from a towel. Dressed in a swimsuit and to the tune of emotional music, the 21-year-old Kristensen started her routine, performed inside a large sauna, with a bed of hot rocks in the middle. For a week this month, a group of wellness practitioners, called “sauna masters,” are gathering at a picturesque health resort in the Netherlands to compete in this year’s Aufguss world sauna championships. The practice takes its name from a
When details from a scientific experiment that could have helped clear Russian figure skater Kamila Valieva landed at the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA), the leader of the organization’s reaction was unequivocal: “We have to stop that urgently,” he wrote. No mention of the test ever became public and Valieva’s defense at the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) went on without it. What effect the information could have had on Valieva’s case is unclear, but without it, the skater, then 15 years old, was eventually disqualified from the 2022 Winter Olympics after testing positive for a banned heart medication that would later
RSS