Transfer talk: Tottenham swipe Ben Davies and Michael Vorm from Swansea; Aurier joins PSG

Tottenham sent Gylfi Sigurdsson to Wales and brought in the Swansea pair on Wednesday while Ivory Coast international Serge Aurier joined PSG on a season-long loan from Toulouse.

Michael Vorm made one appearance for the Netherlands at the 2014 World Cup. Matthew Lewis / Getty Images

Tottenham Hotspur

Tottenham made a double swoop on Premier League rivals Swansea on Wednesday when they signed left-back Ben Davies and Dutch international goalkeeper Michel Vorm.

Davies has signed a five-year contract and Vorm has agreed a four-year deal while Icelandic midfielder Gylfi Sigurdsson moves to the Welsh club where he spent time on loan in 2012.

Highly-rated Davies, 21, earned his first professional contract with Swansea in 2011 and has gone on to earn 10 caps for Wales.

He played 91 times for Swansea, including starting their League Cup Final win against Bradford City in 2013.

Dutch goalkeeper Vorm moved to the Liberty Stadium in August 2011 and firmly established himself as first choice in their debut season in the Premier League, which saw him pick up Supporters’ Player of the Year, Players’ Player and the Away Player accolades at their end of season awards.

In total, he made 97 appearances for Swansea and was also part of the Netherlands’ World Cup squad this summer in Brazil.

Paris Saint-Germain

Ivory Coast international defender Serge Aurier has joined Paris Saint-Germain on a season-long loan from fellow French top-flight side Toulouse, the Ligue 1 champions announced on Wednesday.

The deal, which includes an option for PSG to make the move permanent, will see Aurier, 21, compete for the right-back spot at the Parc des Princes along with Dutch international Gregory van der Wiel.

“We are particularly delighted to welcome this young player to our club,” said PSG president Nasser Al-Khelaifi, who called Aurier “one of the most promising young players in world football”.

Aurier was voted the best right-back in France last season and shone for Ivory Coast at the World Cup in Brazil despite his country’s elimination in the group stage.

“To play at PSG with these fantastic players is a childhood dream,” said Aurier. “I will give everything to help the team reach the top.”

Aurier, who will wear No 19, becomes the capital club’s second recruit of the transfer window following the arrival of Brazil defender David Luiz from Chelsea.

Earlier on Wednesday PSG allowed defender Christophe Jallet to join Lyon in a deal worth up to EU€1 million (Dh4.9m).

Sunderland

Striker Ignacio Scocco is returning to Argentina from English side Sunderland to sign a new deal with Newell’s Old Boys, the Argentine club said on Wednesday.

Scocco joined Sunderland in January from Internacional of Brazil where he moved after helping Newell’s win Argentina’s “Final” championship in June 2013, his second league title with the club from Rosario after the Apertura in 2004.

“After his spell at Sunderland AFC, Ignacio Scocco will play again at Newell’s and wear the colours close to his heart in what will be his third stage at the club,” Newell’s said on their website.

Newell’s said Scocco would arrive in Rosario on Friday to sign a five-year contract and would be presented to the media at their Marcelo Bielsa stadium on Saturday.

The club said they had made “an extraordinary economic commitment in the Argentine transfer market” but did not reveal the cost, although local media put it at US$3.6m (Dh13.2m) to be paid in six instalments.

“Thanks to God who gave me the chance to return home ... one of the happiest moments of my career,” the 29-year-old with one Argentina cap said on his Twitter account.

Scocco saw little action in Uruguayan manager Gus Poyet’s Sunderland team that staved off relegation to remain in the Premier League in May. One of his teammates at Sunderland was fellow Argentine goalkeeper Oscar Ustari, who is also now at Newell’s.

Scocco played in 19 league matches, scoring nine goals, for Al Ain during the 2011/12 season.

He has also played for UNAM Pumas and Toluca in Mexico, AEK Athens in Greece.

MLS

US defender DaMarcus Beasley, who last month became the first American to play in four World Cups, has signed with the Houston Dynamo, the Major League Soccer team announced Wednesday.

Dynamo traded midfielder Warren Creaville to Toronto on Wednesday in order to obtain rights to sign Beasley, who started all four matches in Brazil for Jurgen Klinsmann’s US World Cup squad.

“DaMarcus has had a great career, as we saw at the World Cup,” Dynamo coach Dom Kinnear said. “To bring in a player of his quality is a big plus for the team.”

Beasley has 120 caps and has made 11 World Cup match appearances.

“I am excited and ready to start this new chapter in my career,” Beasley said. “I feel fit and ready to go and hope Dom will see my work ethic and desire to play at a high level.”

Beasley, 32, spent the past three seasons with Puebla of the Mexican league but prior career stops have included Hannover, Rangers, Manchester City, PSV Eindhoven and Chicago.

“I am thrilled that DaMarcus will be joining our club,” Dynamo president Chris Canetti said. “It’s exciting to have a player with such decorated credentials here with us.”

Brazil

Former goalkeeper Claudio Taffarel joined the coaching staff of fellow 1994 World Cup winner Dunga at the helm of the new-look Brazil squad on Wednesday.

The 48-year-old Taffarel played in the same team as Dunga which won a fourth world title in the United States in 1994 and will be responsible for goalkeeper coaching.

Dunga, who was also in charge from 2006-2010, was named as the new national coach on Monday in succession to Luiz Felipe Scolari who stood down after this summer’s World Cup where Brazil were humiliated 7-1 by Germany in the semi-finals.

Another World Cup winner from 1994, Mauro Silva, will serve as assistant coach when Brazil face Colombia and Ecuador on September 5 and 8 in friendly internationals.

Real Madrid

Famed for his grace and elegance as a player, Zinedine Zidane apparently has other priorities as a coach, as on Wednesday he made brawny, bustling Finnish striker Eero Markkanen his first signing for Real Madrid’s B team.

Now boss of the Champions League winners’ ‘Castilla’ reserve side, Zidane sought out the relatively unknown Finn and bought him from Swedish club AIK Stockholm, where his six goals in 14 appearances were enough to convince one of the game’s greats that he was worth a gamble.

“Coming to AIK was a dream come true,” Markkanen said in a statement issued by AIK announcing the move. “Thanks to hard work, my teammates, (AIK coach) Mr Alm and his coaching staff, another dream is now coming true.”

No details of the transfer fee have been released.

Unheralded when he joined the Stockholm club from JJK Jyvaskyla in Finland, Markkanen was only six months into a three-year contract at AIK when the Spaniards came calling.

For the 23-year-old Finn, who has one cap for his country, the move marks the latest stage in a meteoric rise.

But given that Markkanen, who makes the most of his 197 centimetres to dominate in the air, is so different to his new mentor, it offers an intriguing insight into the mind of Zidane the coach.

Asked how Zidane became aware of Markkanen, an AIK staff member told Reuters: “No-one knows. Apparently Zidane went to the sporting director of Madrid with a DVD of Eero and said ‘I want this guy’.”

Having signed a four-year deal, Markkanen will now come under the watchful eye of the French World Cup winner, who played for Real Madrid from 2001 until his retirement in 2006, as he makes the transition from manager Carlo Ancelotti’s assistant to being the man calling the shots in the B team dugout.

And just as Zidane saw passes on the field that no-one else did, he may have noticed something in Markkanen that others missed.

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