Megson targets double boost (From Leigh Journal)

Megson targets double boost

8:10am Tuesday 7th July 2009

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GARY Megson remains hopeful that deadlocked deals involving Ferrie Bodde and Paul Robinson will be broken by the end of this week.

Wanderers have already begun to suss out alternate options with the pair’s respective clubs, Swansea City and West Brom, holding out for what the Whites feel are unrealistic transfer fees.

Swans chairman Huw Jenkins wants £5million for Bodde, some £1.5m above the current bid, and Baggies chief Jeremy Peace is believed to have upped his asking price for full-back Robinson above the £750,000 Wanderers are prepared to pay.

But with two solid offers still on the table, Megson is still optimistic that both players will join the first team squad when they travel for a pre-season fitness camp in Austria next week.

Bodde will return to the Liberty Stadium next Monday after working with his private physio in Holland, by which time Swansea hope to have cleared up both his future and the knee injury that has kept him out of action since November.

Jenkins and manager Paulo Sousa still hope to convince the Dutchman to spearhead the club’s drive for promotion next season, and are refusing to acknowledge any on-going negotiations.

“I did have a conversation with them but it didn’t go any further than that,” the chairman claimed in the Welsh press.

The Bolton News understands, however, that much could depend on whether a deal can be brokered with his former club, ADO Den Haag, who agreed a 50 per cent sell-on clause when they sold the midfielder two seasons ago for just £80,000.

Wanderers have started to investigate other options in the middle of the park, although it now looks unlikely that they will not enter the race to sign West Brom’s Jonathan Greening, who has been priced at £4m.

Aston Villa have also intimated that Zat Knight will not be put up for sale this summer, meaning a bid from the Reebok now looks doubtful.

A weekend report claimed West Brom had raised their valuation of 30-year-old full-back Robinson to a hefty £3m, just days after chairman Peace had conceded the player was likely to leave the club.

The player was due to hold high-level talks early this week to try and lever a move away from the Hawthorns, and with the Baggies heading for Slovenia on a pre-season training camp at the end of the week, it is expected the deal will be concluded one way or the other by then.

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