McClaren secures deals for Boateng and Geremi

The Middlesbrough manager, Steve McClaren, unveiled his new signings George Boateng and Geremi yesterday – and announced that Juninho would be paraded today.

Boateng, the Dutch midfielder, has joined on a four-year deal from Aston Villa costing £4.5m, while the Cameroon defender Geremi has signed a season-long loan deal from Real Madrid.

"We've worked very hard in the summer – the chairman [Steve Gibson] and chief executive [Keith Lamb] have worked tirelessly to provide the club with the resources to go forward," McClaren said. "It's fantastic we can sign players of the quality of George and Geremi. We've already signed Franck Queudrue and Massimo Maccarone and are close to tying up Juninho."

Boateng cited the England assistant manager as the main reason behind his move. "To know the manager is the assistant coach of the national team speaks for itself, and with his experience working at Manchester United it is handy for me to help get to the level I want to."

For his part, Geremi said: "I was not playing at Real as much as I would have liked and it was important for me to know I can be playing on a regular basis again."

Having lost Boateng, Graham Taylor, the Villa manager, said he will pull out all the stops to keep the England forward Darius Vassell at the club.

Vassell has been linked with Manchester United in recent days, but Taylor said: "Everything this club can do to keep him will be done. We're in negotiations with Darius and that needs to be kept in-house."

Manchester City's new midfielder Marc Vivien Foé has been cleared to play at the start of the season. The club said their appeal against his four-game ban, imposed when he was at West Ham, had been successful.

Foé, on a season-long loan deal from Lyon, was sent off in his final game for the Hammers against Leeds in May 2000. The ban should have run last season, but by then he was in France and City appealed.

Fulham are in talks with West Bromwich and Preston to offload Barry Hayles and Eddie Lewis to create funds for their final transfer moves of the summer. The Baggies are keen on £2m-rated Hayles, while Lewis is set to sign for North End.

The players replacing Hayles and Lewis will be a left-back and a striker, both recruited from abroad. Fulham want a new defender due to fitness doubts over the 32-year-old Rufus Brevett, who made his comeback from a summer groin injury in last Wednesday's Intertoto Cup victory against Sochaux at Loftus Road.

Bolton are still interested in Real Madrid's out-of-favour defender Ivan Campo. The 28-year-old has a year to run on his contract but was left out of a pre-season tournament at the weekend.

Tottenham's new Slovenian, Milenko Acimovic, may make a surprisingly quick recovery from his hamstring problem to play against Celtic tomorrow. The midfielder sustained the injury in last week's 4-0 victory at Crystal Palace, giving rise to worries that he would join Gustavo Poyet onSpurs' long-term injury list. The Uruguayan is out until November with a knee injury.

The Birmingham City manager, Steve Bruce, is set to sign the United States international striker Jovan Kirovski, who is available on a free transfer from Crystal Palace.

Bruce has already signed Robbie Savage, Aliou Cissé, Kenny Cunningham and Morrison during the close season as he looks to build a squad capable of surviving in the Premiership.