Tuesday's gossip column

TRANSFER GOSSIP

Manchester United full-back Patrice Evra is trying to persuade Bayern Munich midfielder Franck Ribery to come to Old Trafford.(The Sun) 
Manchester City and Tottenham are battling it out for Aston Villa midfielder Gareth Barry.(Daily Star) 
West Brom defender Paul Robinson says he will leave the relegated club as he wants to play in the Premier League.(Daily Mirror) 
Arsenal have made an £8m bid for Fulham centre-back Brede Hangeland.(Daily Mirror) 
Tottenham are ready to make another bid for Bulgarian winger Martin Petrov, who is currently playing for Manchester City.(The Sun) 
Chelsea are confident they have beaten Inter Milan in the race to sign FC Twente striker Marko Arnautovic.(Daily Mail) 
Defender Michael Turner has disappointed Liverpool by pledging his future to Hull. (Various)
Wolves have abandoned plans to sign Spurs midfielder Tom Huddlestone after being quoted £8m for the 22-year-old.(Daily Mail) 
Rangers manager Walter Smith is set to offload midfielder Barry Ferguson this summer rather than risk him going on a free next year.(Daily Record) 
Tottenham are ready to listen to offers for Darren Bent and Roman Pavlyuchenko and are set to step up their chase for Djibril Cisse.(The Guardian) 

OTHER GOSSIP 

Newcastle are ready to offer Alan Shearer a four-year contract as they look to bounce back into the Premier League.(Daily Mirror) 
Shearer has been told that £30m must be slashed from Newcastle's wage budget following their relegation to the Championship.(Daily Star) 
West Brom manager Tony Mowbray is the favourite to succeed Gordon Strachan at Celtic.(The Sun) 
Wigan boss Steve Bruce has been strongly linked with the vacant manager's position at Sunderland. (Daily Mirror) 
However, Strachan is not a target for Sunderland.(The Independent) 
Strachan told family and friends last week that he would be standing down as Celtic manager.(Daily Record) 
Manchester United striker Dimitar Berbatov says following his FA Cup semi-final miss, he will not want to step up should the Champions League final go to a penalty shoot-out.(The Sun) 
Middlesbrough boss Gareth Southgate says the club needs to be in the Championship promotion hunt by Christmas if he is to remain in his job.(The Sun) 
Former Watford boss Aidy Boothroyd is hoping to beat Jim Magilton to the QPR manager's job. (Daily Star)

AND FINALLY 

One person that is revelling in Burnley's promotion to the Premier League is former Labour press chief Alastair Campbell. He says Burnley's achievement was "even better than playing football in a charity match with Diego Maradona in front of 72,000 people".(The Sun)
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