• ‘We wanted Dan Gosling to stay … and we expected him to’
• Everton insist they had a ‘handshake agreement’ on a deal

Everton have dismissed as “ludicrous” claims they did not want to keep the midfielder Dan Gosling, who signed for Newcastle United this week after a technicality in his contract made him a free agent.

The club have been angered by suggestions from Gosling’s agent that they were complacent over contract negotiations with the 20-year-old and they assumed an injury would make him unattractive to other clubs.

Ordinarily clubs are entitled to a fee for any player under 24 but Everton’s failure to make Gosling a written offer of a new deal by a mid-May deadline meant Newcastle could sign him without paying compensation.

Everton thought they had a verbal agreement in place with Gosling and have expressed their disappointment at the way events have unfolded.

A club statement read: “In the wake of a report in a Sunday newspaper in which the agent of Dan Gosling made a series of allegations, Everton Football Club has decided to take the unprecedented step of setting straight a record of recent events which has, in its opinion, been deliberately distorted.

“In the article, Mr David Hodgson suggested that not only did this club not wish to extend Mr Gosling’s stay at Goodison Park but that it had been deliberately tardy with regard to the formal offer of a new contract, presuming that an injury sustained by the player during the course of last season was of such a serious nature it would prevent him from signing for another club. Both claims are ludicrous, totally without substance and grossly misleading.”

Gosling, who joined Everton from Plymouth two and a-half years ago, suffered a serious knee injury in March which is likely to rule him out for the first half of next season. Everton insist they had several conversations with Hodgson, the former Middlesbrough and Liverpool player, over a new deal and were told their “handshake agreement” was “fine”.

The statement added: “It was Everton’s understanding that this gentleman’s agreement would guarantee that the player would extend, by at least two years, the three-year deal he signed upon his arrival from Plymouth Argyle.”

Everton have now accused Hodgson of exploiting the rules to ensure Gosling became a free agent. The club’s chief executive, Robert Elstone, said: “We wanted Dan Gosling to stay with us – and, after what we had been told, we expected him to stay with us. However, in the first week in June, Mr Hodgson rang David Moyes seemingly content that he had manoeuvred a situation where Dan was a free agent.”

Moyes, the Everton manager, has also admitted he feels let down over the affair. “We feel aggrieved that they have contrived a situation to get the player out of the club when, if he had come and said that he wanted to leave, we could at least have done something about it – but at no point did Dan say he wished to leave.”

The Everton chairman, Bill Kenwright, added: “In the very long history of our club, our executive team have never once forgotten or neglected to deal properly and professionally with contractual matters. We place our trust in people; we always keep our side of any offered deal – and all we have ever asked is that others do the same.”

A Premier League tribunal acknowledged Gosling’s right to a free transfer. “Dan Gosling did not walk out on Everton, they chose not to keep him,” Hodgson was quoted as saying at the weekend. “Everton had an obligation to offer him a contract in writing by the third Saturday in May. They could have offered him one pound more than his old contract and could have kept him or got a fee for him at a tribunal. I rang Dan that day to ask if he had got the letter. It hadn’t arrived. He wasn’t jumping around the room in delight because he was a free agent. He was broken-hearted, in tears.”

But Moyes believes Gosling would have been well rewarded had he chosen to stay at Goodison Park. “I read at the weekend that he cried when he didn’t receive a formal, written offer,” he said. “Well, trust me, the money Everton were offering was certainly not a crying matter.”

EvertonNewcastle UnitedTransfer windowguardian.co.uk

Today’s fluff is a dormant volcano

The Mill made a brief stop at an airport yesterday, a strangely post-apocalyptic experience with shops abandoned, barely a person in sight and an eerie silence sitting like a duck-down duvet on the whole scene. It’s not dissimilar to the sight of this morning’s tabloids for anyone on the hunt for a decent bit of tittle-tattle, although fortunately the Mill’s European friends have come up trumps.

Italy’s Tuttosport, for example, reckons Juventus are preparing an audacious bid for Manchester United’s Nemanja Vidic. The Turin giants have forced Gianluigi Buffon into a spangly suit and told him to fan himself with £15m in used notes in an attempt to persuade United to part with their Serbian defender.

Meanwhile Spanish newspaper Sport reckon the Barcelona president, Joan Laporta, has met Arsenal’s Cesc Fábregas in Morocco to enjoy the sunshine, share a lamb tagine and thrash out a deal for the midfielder’s summer move to the Camp Nou. Arsenal will attempt to fill the diminutive-schemer-shaped hole by moving for Juve’s lanky roving midfield roadblock Felipe Melo.

The rest is as unlikely as it is scarce. Rafa Benítez will shore up his leaky Liverpool defence with the signing of West Ham’s Matthew Upson, while Manchester City are mulling over a double swoop for Benfica’s Oscar Cardozo and Angel Di María.

Steven Pienaar (lauded over the weekend by Paul Merson, by the way, who gushed: “This lad could play for Arsenal” as if that was the highest possible honour one could bestow on a player) is a £14m target for Harry Redknapp and Tottenham.

And in more mundane but at least vaguely realistic rumour news Sunderland want Sebastian Larsson from Birmingham and Ipswich fancy £1m-rated Scunthorpe striker Gary Hooper.

Manchester UnitedJuventusLiverpoolWest Ham UnitedArsenalBarcelonaTottenham HotspurEvertonJohn Ashdownguardian.co.uk

Everton manager David Moyes has urged his team to maintain their fight for European football to the death and they could not plump for more pugnacious opponents than Sam Allardyce’s Blackburn, beaten once at Ewood Park since the opening day of the season. Rovers do a fine line in spoiling, as Manchester United found to their cost last Sunday, and have kept three consecutive clean sheets. But Everton have good history in this fixture (unbeaten in five) and recent form (two losses in 20) as they attempt to erode the four-point deficit to Aston Villa, occupants of the final Europa League place. Richard Gibson

Venue Ewood Park, Saturday 3pm

Tickets £28-38 (0871 222 1444)

Last season Blackburn 0 Everton 0

Referee A Marriner

This season’s matches 24 Y90, R9, 4.12 cards per game

Odds Blackburn 7-4 Everton 17-10 Draw 23-10

Blackburn

Subs from Brown, Bunn, Andrews, Diouf, Olsson, Jacobsen, Chimbonda, Basturk, Hoilett, Roberts, Di Santo

Doubtful Basturk (groin), Emerton (hamstring), Olsson (dead leg), Samba (groin)

Injured None

Suspended None

Form guide DDWWDL

Disciplinary record Y52 R2

Leading scorer Dunn 8

Everton

Subs from Nash, Senderos, Yobo, Rodwell, Yakubu, Hibbert, Anichebe, Duffy, Agard, Baxter, Wallace, Mustafi

Doubtful Heitinga (ankle)

Injured Arteta (groin, 24 Apr), Fellaini (ankle, Aug), Gosling (knee, Jan)

Suspended None

Form guide DDDWWD

Disciplinary record Y56 R2

Leading scorer Saha 13

Match pointers

• Blackburn have scored one goal in their last five home league meetings with Everton and have not beaten them at Ewood Park since November 2003

• Tim Cahill’s last 11 league goals for Everton have been scored with his head

• 60% of Blackburn’s league goals this season have come from set pieces, the highest proportion in the division

• Steven Pienaar has won more free-kicks (82) than any other player in the top flight

• Blackburn have lost one of their last 16 games at home in the Premier League

Premier LeagueBlackburn RoversEvertonguardian.co.uk