England defender Micah Richards agreed on Monday to a season’s loan to Italian Serie A side Fiorentina from Premier League champions Manchester City.
Richards, 26, who has 13 caps, has gone from being City’s player of the year when they won their first Premier League title in 2012 to a handful of appearances in their title-winning campaign last term as Argentinian right-back Pablo Zabaleta was the clear first choice.
Fiorentina also signed Slovenian midfielder Jasmin Kurtic, 25, on loan from rivals Sassuolo.
AC Milan completed the loan signing of Marco van Ginkel but saw the deal for Jonathan Biabiany collapse at the last moment.
Van Ginkel, 21, was brought in on a one-year loan deal from Chelsea, joining former Stamford Bridge teammate Fernando Torres – who signed a two-year loan deal at the weekend.
“I am very happy. Milan is a great club where many Dutch players have played and some big names,” Van Ginkel said. “I know Nigel De Jong from my experiences with the national team, I spoke to him about Milan and he said excellent things about the club.”
Van Ginkel joined Chelsea last summer from Vitesse Arnhem but made just four appearances due to a cruciate ligament injury.
Biabiany had agreed to the move from Parma and already posed in a Milan shirt and scarf, but Milan later released a statement that said the move had fallen through after Cristian Zaccardo – who was part of the reported €4 million (Dh19.3m) deal – failed to agree personal terms with Parma.
In England, Liverpool’s Uruguayan centre-back Sebastian Coates joined Sunderland on a season-long loan. Coates, 23, struggled to earn playing time at Anfield and made six starts and 24 appearances in three years.
Sunderland also took Inter Milan midfielder Ricardo Alvarez on loan for the rest of the season while sending French defender Valentin Roberge on loan to Reims, who also signed former Liverpool striker David N’Gog from Swansea City.
Tottenham Hotspur signed France Under 21 midfielder Benjamin Stambouli from Ligue 1 side Montpellier for a reported fee of £4.7 million (Dh28.7m), beating out Swansea and Fiorentina. Stambouli is coach Mauricio Pochettino’s sixth signing of the summer.
Queens Park Rangers’ transfer deadline day business appeared set to run into the night as manager Harry Redknapp announced Tottenham midfielder Sandro was undergoing a medical on Monday evening.
The Hoops are looking to bring in both the Brazil international and Liverpool forward Fabio Borini, with the former now moving closer to a deal which would see him become Redknapp’s ninth summer arrival.
“Sandro I think is having a medical, so that is great,” Redknapp told Sky Sports News. “Sandro looks like we have agreed everything with Tottenham. I signed him and I love him, he was a fantastic player for me. Borini is a good player and a player with fantastic potential but that is all still going on.”
However, Lassana Diarra’s reported move to QPR from Lokomotiv Moscow collapsed, 48 hours after the Premier League club’s manager Harry Redknapp said he had agreed to the move.
On Saturday, Redknapp was quoted by British media saying that Diarra “has signed and I’m delighted to have him.” But the club declined to confirm the transfer had been completed on Monday, just hours before the end of the transfer window.
No explanation was given for the breakdown in the deal, but British media reports suggested it resulted from a problem between Diarra and the Russian Premier League club.
One division down, Championship side Cardiff City brought in Lorient centre-back and captain Bruno Ecuele Manga for €6 million. Ecuele Manga had made 118 Ligue 1 appearances for the Brittany side since joining in 2010 from second-tier club Angers.
Struggling German Bundesliga side Hamburg bolstered their attack with one-season loans for US international Julian Green and midfielder Lewis Holtby. Green joined from Bayern Munich while Holtby arrived from Tottenham.
Holtby, a former Germany international, has also played for German clubs Bochum and Mainz, scoring 16 goals in 99 Bundesliga games.
“Lewis is a highly skilled player with a great passing game who will do our game a lot of good,” Hamburg sports director Dietmar Beiersdorfer said. “With his 23 years, he has a lot of experience already having played in the Bundesliga, the Premier League and the national team.”
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