West Bromwich Albion have sparked a scramble by putting Oly Whites goalscorer Chris Wood up for sale after signing Romelu Lukaku on a season-long loan from Chelsea.
Reports say the Baggies have told Wood he can leave either on loan or permanently. The former Waikato FC frontman bagged 13 goals out on loan in the Championship last term with Birmingham City and Bristol City.
Celtic head a queue of clubs chasing Wood, including Hull City and Nottingham Forest, but the latest word out of England has fellow Premier League outfit Norwich City leading the chase for his signature.
Wood’s Oly White teammate Tommy Smith and Ipswich Town open their Championship campaign with a home match against newly-relegated Blackburn Rovers, who will be looking to bounce back into the Premier League as soon as possible.
Smith slotted back into the Tractor Boys side for the recent friendly against Winston Reid’s West Ham United, playing the first hour of Town’s 3-1 win.
The Hammers bounced back from the defeat with a 1-1 draw in Portugal against Sporting Braga with Reid scoring the goal.
“I thought we put in a good performance,” Reid said.
“After last week’s game at Ipswich where we didn’t perform so well, the boys were determined to put a good shift in and I thought we thoroughly deserved our draw at the end there.
“Of course we don’t like to lose like we did at Ipswich. We’re professional footballers and we’re paid to win football games and that’s what we want to do. Nobody enjoyed what happened there and we were determined to put things right against a better team than Ipswich.”
West Ham open their Premier League season with a home match against Aston Villa on Sunday morning (NZ time) with QPR facing Swansea City at Loftus Road on the same day.
The R’s rounded out their pre-season campaign with a 2-2 draw against Bundesliga opponent FC Augsburg in Germany. All Whites captain Ryan Nelsen played the full 90 minutes in the draw and conceded a penalty in the match with saw former French international Djibril Cisse twice equalise for the London outfit.
Rory Fallon didn’t feature on the team card in Aberdeen’s second match of the Scottish Premier League season, a 0-0 draw with Ross County. Fallon was an unused sub in the season opening 1-0 loss to defending champions Celtic last weekend.
Greg Draper and The New Saints will be hoping to put the disappointment of not advancing in the UEFA Champions League behind them as they commence their defence of the Welsh Premier League title this week.
TNS fell 3-0 on aggregate to Sweden’s Helsingborg in the first round of qualification after drawing the home leg nil-all. Still in Sweden, Craig Henderson returned to first team duty for Mjallby, logging 90 minutes in the 4-2 loss to fellow mid-table side IFK Goteburg.
Elsewhere in Scandinavia, Kris Bright scored on debut for his new Finnish club FC Haka as they scored a 2-2 draw with sixth-placed Honka. The former All White striker equalised in the 16th minute before Haka fell behind again on the half-hour mark.
It took an 88th-minute equaliser to secure a crucial point as Haka hover precariously above the relegation zone equal on points with Kuopion Palloseura, the home of former All White Chris James, who was an unused substitute over the weekend.
Kosta Barbarouses resumed first team training at Greek club Panathinaikos this week after his Olympic sojourn.
Story courtesy of New Zealand Football.
For more on New Zealand Football visit www.nzfootball.co.nz

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