Football : Dalglish and Liverpool compete to sign Murphy

Kenny Dalglish is set to take on his old club Liverpool in the pounds 1.5m struggle to sign Crewe Alexandra's promising 19-year-old, Danny Murphy.

Dalglish is ready to offer more cash than Liverpool for Murphy, an outstanding attacking midfielder in the David Platt mould. But Liverpool have first option on the youngster and Roy Evans wants to wait until the end of the season.

Dalglish and his assistant, Terry McDermott, watched Murphy on Tuesday night and want to sign him quickly. Talks between Dalglish and Crewe's manager, Dario Gradi, went on yesterday and Murphy said last night: "I don't know if they have agreed a fee, but I understand something is going on."

Colin Todd, the Bolton Wanderers manager, has made a record pounds 1.5m bid for Denmark's highly-rated striker, Per Pedersen. Todd has talks with Pedersen's club, Odense, this week and hopes to sign him by the weekend. Pedersen, 27, recently scored all four goals against the United States in a friendly and the winner against France.

Bradford City's manager, Chris Kamara, is hoping to sign a second Portuguese striker to solve his problems up front. Kamara is bringing the Vitoria Guimaraes forward Armando over today on loan for the rest of the season to cover for Gordon Watson, who has a double leg fracture.

A group of Plymouth Argyle supporters who want Neil Warnock back as the Pilgrims' manager have launched a bid to buy out the club's chairman, Dan McCauley.

The fans are in the process of forming a consortium which they hope will raise the pounds 3m they feel is necessary to purchase McCauley's controlling interest in the Second Division club. If they are successful, when they take control, they intend immediately to reappoint Warnock, who was sacked by McCauley on Monday.

News that the Brighton board and their angry fans have agreed a partial truce was welcomed by the Football Association yesterday. A fans' spokesman, Paul Samrah, was banned from the Goldstone Ground by the chairman, Bill Archer, after his forceful protests on behalf of the takeover consortium put together by a local businessman, Dick Knight.

The official mediators brought in at the request of the FA in a quest to find a solution to Brighton's problems announced yesterday that the club and supporters had reached a compromise which will see the ban on Samrah lifted, the west side of the Goldstone being opened in stages from this week, and Archer maintaining a low profile.

n England gathered yesterday at their training camp for Wednesday's World Cup qualifier against Italy with several minor injury worries. David Seaman, Ian Wright, Dominic Matteo, Paul Gascoigne, Paul Ince and Rob Lee are all under treatment, with Lee, who has a groin muscle injury, the most doubtful for the Wembley date.

Last night's football, results, page 26