GRANT HANLEY, the Scotland international, is reportedly set to sign for Newcastle United from Blackburn Rovers.
The two Sky Bet Championship clubs have been in negotiations for weeks, with Rovers initially seeking £6m for the 24-year-old defender.
However, a fee of £5.5m is believed to have been agreed and the player, who joined Blackburn Rovers' academy at the age of 16 and made 46 appearances last season, will now travel to Tyneside for a medical before becoming Rafa Benitez's sixth signing of the season.
Following Newcastle's relegation from the Barclays Premier League, the Spaniard has recruited Matz Sels, Jesus Gamez, Matt Ritchie, Issac Hayden and Dwight Gayle.
Middlesbrough, meanwhile, have signed Valencia striker Alvaro Negredo on a season-long loan but their move for Borussia Dortmund defender Neven Subotic is off.
Paperwork is still to be completed but 30-year-old former Manchester City forward Negredo has already linked up with Boro at their pre-season training camp in Marbella.
The promoted Teessiders were also poised to sign Serbian centre-back Subotic from Dortmund, until the Bundesliga club announced he had failed a medical.
"Bad news for Neven Subotic," a BVB statement read. "The investigation of a specialist in England has shown that the Borussia Dortmund player must undergo surgery in the rib area. It is expected that Subotic will be out for the rest of the year."
The former Serbia international won the league with Dortmund in both 2011 and 2012.
Negredo, meanwhile, was a member of the City side which won the Premier League title in 2014.
The Spain international impressed at the Etihad Stadium, scoring 23 goals in 49 appearances in what proved his only season at the club after a £16.4million move from Sevilla in 2013.
He returned to Spain with Valencia in the summer of 2014, initially on loan before a £19million permanent deal was agreed last year.
He boasts 112 goals from 264 appearances in LaLiga and was also a member of Spain's victorious Euro 2012 squad.
It has been a busy summer for Boro manager Aitor Karanka with Antonio Barragan, Victor Valdes, Viktor Fischer, Bernardo Espinosa, Marten de Roon and Jordan McGhee already on board at the Riverside Stadium.
Liverpool, meanwhile, are reported to have accepted a £13m bid for Joe Allen from Stoke.
The Wales midfielder, currently on leave after his exploits in getting Wales to the semi-finals of Euro 2016, is in the final year of his contract.
Allen is looking for more playing time, having been restricted to mainly Europa League appearances last season.
Stoke's bid is roughly in line with Liverpool's valuation of a player with less than 12 months remaining on his contract - and would recoup most of the £15m they paid Swansea four years ago - so the decision is now likely to rest with the player himself, who is not due back to pre-season training until July 26.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules here