Everton secure pounds 5.75m Barmby

Middlesbrough's England international forward Nick Barmby last night joined Everton for pounds 5.75m. Liverpool and Leeds had also been linked with the 22-year-old when Bryan Robson, the Middlesbrough manager, announced last week he was prepared to listen to offers for the former Tottenham player.

Barmby made 49 appearances and scored 10 goals for the club, becoming Middlesbrough's leading scorer last season, although he has only one goal to his credit in the current campaign.

Irving Scholar, the former chairman of Tottenham Hotspur, has joined the race to take over Nottingham Forest. Scholar is part of a three-man consortium bidding to buy the struggling Premiership club.

He has joined the multi-millionaire Lawrie Lewis and businessman Phil Soar to table a pounds 30m bid. The consortium plans to invest at least pounds 10m into the club straight away and raise the other pounds 20m through a Stock Exchange flotation.

There are three other bidders - the video tycoon Grant Bovey, a local consortium and an Indonesian billionaire - and Forest's shareholders will discuss the bids at their AGM tomorrow.

Roy Keane has been recalled to the Republic of Ireland squad for their World Cup qualifying match against Iceland in Dublin on 10 November. The 25-year-old midfielder has missed the Republic's last nine internationals, and on his last appearance was sent off in the final minute of a 2-0 defeat by Russia in a friendly.

The Danish striker Dan Petersen, a target of Blackburn's former manager, Ray Harford, could still go to Ewood Park after being offered a trial at the Premier League's bottom club. Meanwhile, the Spanish side Seville have joined Rovers in the pursuit of Flamengo's Brazilian World Cup striker Bebeto.

Cyrille Regis, the 38-year-old Chester City striker, has taken the advice of a specialist and retired rather than risk aggravating a persistent calf injury.

The office of Arsene Wenger, the Arsenal manager, was burnt down in a blaze which wrecked part of the Premiership leaders' training-ground headquarters near St Albans in Hertfordshire. The fire is believed to have been caused by an electrical fault on a washing-machine. It was not the best day for Don Mackay, the former Fulham, Blackburn and Coventry City manager, to arrive as Arsenal's new northern area scout.

Meanwhile, midfielder David Hillier is still waiting to cut ties with Arsenal after a further delay in his proposed pounds 300,000 move to Portsmouth, who are believed to be haggling over Arsenal's valuation of the player.

More football, Ireland squad, page 27