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Chelsea have agreed a fee with Lyon for midfielder Florent Malouda, who will have a medical in London on Monday.
The French club were thought to want £13.5m for the France international.

"Chelsea are completely in agreement with the amount we're looking for," Lyon president Jean-Michel Aulas told the club's TV channel.

Chelsea chief executive Peter Kenyon said earlier this week that the club wanted to seal the signing before the Blues squad travel to LA on Tuesday.

"It's fantastic and great news for Florent," added Aulas.

"I've just phoned him and he's going to be able to leave on Sunday to undergo a medical in London on Monday."

The Stamford Bridge outfit will face David Beckham's new club LA Galaxy during their US pre-season tour.

Malouda has won four French titles with Lyon and was voted best Ligue 1 player last season.

He was a member of the France squad who reached last year's World Cup final, a match they lost to Italy.

Malouda is now set to again link up again with Chelsea striker Didier Drogba, with whom he enjoyed success at Guingamp in 2002-03, and Michael Essien.

The transfer is Chelsea's most prominent splash in the summer market after having signed Claudio Pizarro, Steve Sidwell and Tal Ben Haim on free tranfers.

BBC Sport

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Of because yes, he just proved it once again. Though, his reign is gradually coming to an end, no thanks to the more physically fit and tireless spaniard.

this rivalry is looking like Bjorg McEnroe rivalry years back. I hope it goes in the same trend .

davidylan:
That was the ultimate difference my brother! Spot on!

Not anymore, Rafa has shown that with a better serve he can compete favourably. All others na wa o. Tennis is now Federer, Nadal and everyone else.

but as you said, the hard court is going to be more competetive. Djokovic will be stronger there but I can still see Federer win. Remember the Aussie open, he started slowly then in the third round or fourth not sure which, he lost a set then bam!!! he upped his game and won the match and thrashed his remaining opponents to win the open. Made everyone else look like beginners, it was amazing.

So does anyone think Federer is the greatest on grass?

a good tournament, very sad Nadal lost but got nothing against Federer, there is nothing to hate about him. Congrats to Federer.

when is the us open anyways?

well Nadal gave it his best, he'll be back next year thats for sure hopefully with a better serve.

Federer holds

1-0 federer leads

final set begins, federer serves

men its bad, can tell by the way he is moving.

now he's being strapped.

Damn, Nadal has an injury

yeah, he breaks

break point for Nadal

set point for federer

here we go again tie break

5-5, this is the game, fantastic!!!

if its going to be decided in 5 sets Nadal will come out tops.

GDAY:
what does that mean?

Nadal for the title.

Nadal para el título. Yeah!!!!. C'mon Nadal.

Federer leads 4-2 in the tie break

here we go 6-6, tie break

yeah he would've been unstoppable, he can do it. Just needs to remain consistent.

Game Nadal , 5-5.

Nadal serves to stay in the set, Federer leads 5-4

if he can just get one more break, bingo!!

3-3, c'mon Nadal.

watch it free on the fifa website, LINK. Just click on the link at about 00:55.

Britain's Lewis Hamilton set the stage for a dream victory in Sunday's British Grand Prix by taking pole position with the very last lap of qualifying.

The 22-year-old star produced a superb lap of one minute 19.997 seconds to delight the home crowd and edge out Ferrari's Kimi Raikkonen by 0.102secs.

Hamilton's team-mate Fernando Alonso, who was fastest in the first two parts of qualifying, is third on the grid.

Ferrari's Felipe Massa is fourth, but less than 0.3secs behind Hamilton.

The McLaren and Ferrari drivers appear closely matched and the race promises to be closely-fought and tense.

But Hamilton is in the perfect position to win his first home Grand Prix, take his third victory in four races and extend his already substantial 14-point lead in the world championship.

Hamilton was thrilled to be starting his home race from the front.

"It was an extremely tense qualifying session," he said. "Ferrari were extremely quick, and so was Fernando.

"It was all down to the final lap. I thought, coming up to the first corner, 'try to do it flat'. I didn't, but I nearly did.

"I gained a couple of tenths and I was able to maintain that through the first sector. It was very tense, but I was able to pull it together."

Hamilton was quick to pay tribute to his legion of fans and said he had got a "big buzz" and "a lot of energy" from their support.

"You definitely get a confidence boost," he said.

"Usually there are pockets, but here it's the whole grandstand. I can't believe how many people are here today and it's been fantastic."

Raikkonen, who has looked very quick throughout the weekend, said he had lost pole with a mistake at the final corner, where he ran wide and put two wheels on the grass.

"I lost all the traction, the sand was flying everywhere, it's a bit disappointing," said the Finn, who won the French Grand Prix at Magny-Cours last weekend.

"But hopefully we can get a good start and it is a long race, so we'll see what we can do."

Alonso said he was confident of competing for victory after taking third on the grid.

"I am quite happy with the car," said the world champion.

"Obviously we would want to be on pole position but third is the best we could today and hopefully tomorrow it will pay off and we can overtake people in the race.

"On Friday we tried to work a little bit with the set-up in terms of race pace to understand how the tyres perform in the long runs.

"I was not too happy with the car and our pace did not look too good, especially in the long runs.

"But overnight we did some changes and I found a completely different car. There's no reason why we cannot be competitive."

BMW Sauber's Robert Kubica took fifth place, ahead of the surprising Ralf Schumacher in sixth.

The German has struggled this season with his Toyota but has looked quick all weekend at Silverstone.

Rookie Heikki Kovalainen was the faster of the two Renaults in seventh place, just ahead of Giancarlo Fisichella.

Kubica's team-mate Nick Heidfeld and the second Toyota of Jarno Trulli completed the top 10.

Neither Red Bull made it past the second session, with Mark Webber and David Coulthard taking 11th and 12th places.

It has been a bad weekend for Honda. After being caught up in the F1 spy row, it got worse in qualifying when Jenson Button's factory car, and both the Super Aguris from their B team, were eliminated after the first session.

Button's team-mate Rubens Barrichello scraped through into the second session but could manage only 14th place.



--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

1 L Hamilton (GB) McLaren-Mercedes 1min 19.997secs
2 K Raikkonen (Fin) Ferrari 1:20.099
3 F Alonso (Spn) McLaren-Mercedes 1:20.147
4 F Massa (Brz) Ferrari 1:20.265
5 R Kubica (Pol) BMW Sauber 1:20.401
6 R Schumacher (Ger) Toyota 1:20.516
7 H Kovalainen (Fin) Renault 1:20.721
8 G Fisichella (It) Renault 1:20.775
9 N Heidfeld (Ger) BMW Sauber 1:20.894
10 J Trulli (It) Toyota 1:21.240
11 M Webber (Aut) Red Bull-Renault 1:20.235
12 D Coulthard (GB) Red Bull-Renault 1:20.329
13 A Wurz (Aut) Williams-Toyota 1:20.350
14 R Barrichello (Brz) Honda 1:20.364
15 S Speed (US) Toro Rosso-Ferrari 1:20.515
16 V Liuzzi (It) Toro Rosso-Ferrari 1:20.823
17 N Rosberg (Ger) Williams-Toyota 1:21.219
18 J Button (GB) Honda 1:21.335
19 A Davidson (GB) Super Aguri-Honda 1:21.448
20 A Sutil (Ger) Spyker-Ferrari 1:22.019
21 T Sato (Jpn) Super Aguri-Honda 1:22.045
22 C Albers (Ned) Spyker-Ferrari 1:22.589

BBC Sports

John Carew's agent has rejected reports linking the player with a move away from Aston Villa.

It has been suggested Carew could be on his way out of Villa Park just six months after arriving at the club.

Porto have been credited with an interest in the giant striker, but the player's agent Per A. Flod says the Norwegian international is going nowhere.

"Those rumours (of Porto) are not true," Flod told Portuguese radio station Antena 1.

"Carew has decided to stay at Aston Villa. I have spoken to the English directors and at no moment have they said they want to sell Carew.

"We have not received an offer and Carew will stay in the Premier League 100 per cent."

Sky Sports

Liverpool have announced the signing of Andrei Voronin on a free transfer.

The Reds had agreed a pre-contract with Voronin back in February and the player has now tied up the formalities of the move.

The Ukrainian international has signed a four-year deal at Anfield after seeing out his contract at Bayer Leverkusen.

Reds boss Rafa Benitez believes Voronin will prove a valuable addition to his squad as he can play in a variety of positions.

"He is a player with pace and good movement," Benitez told the club's official website.

"He plays between the lines, between defenders. He is a good worker also and he scores goals.

"He's not the kind of player you can talk about strengths because he has many things he can give to us."

Meanwhile, Liverpool have agreed a deal to sign Stockport County youngster Ryan Crowther.

Liverpool took Crowther to a recent youth tournament in Italy and the winger impressed the club's coaching staff.

Crowther is expected to undergo a medical next week with Liverpool paying an undisclosed fee for the 18-year-old.

Sky Sports