Football: Villa will sell Collymore for pounds 1m

STAN COLLYMORE'S price has been slashed to pounds 1m by Aston Villa to give Fulham the chance to sign him.

Collymore is joining Paul Bracewell's promotion seekers on loan for three months and reports for training with his new team-mates today. However, Villa are so keen to move out Collymore that they have agreed a knockdown price if Fulham are impressed with him during his extended career-saving trial.

Collymore's value has dropped dramatically over the past few turbulent years. He joined Liverpool for pounds 8.5m and left for pounds 7m. But the dip in the past fortnight is the most remarkable. Villa cut the price from the pounds 3m he would have cost Greek side Panathinaikos a fortnight ago before he rejected the deal.

Their manager, John Gregory, has shunned Collymore at pre-season training and left him virtually worthless. Now Villa are almost giving him away although they will save on his wages. The reduced price also lets Fulham accommodate Collymore's wages which are close to pounds 1m a year. The Villa chairman, Doug Ellis, who is on holiday in the West Indies, also agreed to the massive financial loss of the potential sale.

Villa's Dion Dublin is battling to be fit for the start of the new season after Gregory revealed that the England striker has still not fully recovered from a knee operation. Villa's pounds 5.75m capture from Coventry has already been ruled out of next week's four team Gotham Cup competition in New York. And it will be a race against time for Dublin to be firing on all cylinders for the big kick-off on 7 August.

Dublin was handicapped by hernia and knee problems in the second half of last season, but he battled on until the end of the season via a softly softly approach to training. The hernia has completely healed after surgery, but it is the knee which is giving Villa cause for concern.

The former England Under-21 skipper Riccardo Scimeca could be on his way out of Villa in a pounds 3m move to Nottingham Forest. The new Forest manager, David Platt, is understood to have agreed a fee with Villa and now Scimeca is thinking over whether to drop down into the First Division. He signed a new long-term contract with Villa last summer, but then went on the transfer list as first-team opportunities became very limited. Scimeca, who has also been the subject of interest from Blackburn, withdrew the transfer request at the end of the season.

Villa have completed the signing of left-back Naguan Garayeb from Hapoel Haifa in Israel for pounds 1.5m. The 25-year-old Israeli international's move to Tottenham fell through last week because of a knee problem.