Portsmouth Close on £10m Deal for Frustrated Crouch

Portsmouth are close to agreeing a £10m deal with Liverpool for Peter Crouch after the England forward indicated he would prefer a return to Fratton Park rather than join Tottenham Hotspur.

Liverpool had hoped to use Crouch as a make weight in a £20m offer for Tottenham's Robbie Keane but may now use the money from his sale towards that bid after the FA Cup winners improved their offer for the 27-year-old yesterday. Tottenham, Manchester City and Newcastle have all registered interest in Crouch, who was marginalized at Anfield by the manager, Rafael Benítez, last season, but only Portsmouth have lodged an official bid with Liverpool.

Harry Redknapp had a £9m package rejected by the club a fortnight ago but is now confident a straight offer of £10m will encourage Benítez to take the chance to increase his own transfer budget. Crouch played 37 games for Portsmouth from July 2001 until March 2002 but was sold to Aston Villa for £5m by Redknapp two days after he became Pompey manager in his first spell at the club.

Crouch had a loan spell at Norwich before Villa sold him to Southampton for what turned out to be their relegation season in 2004-05, most of it under Redknapp once again. The 6ft 7in striker wants regular Premier League football in order to bolster his chances of selection to Fabio Capello's England side and an opportunity to impress Redknapp for a third time could help him in this ambition.

Benítez, meanwhile, still hopes to sign the Aston Villa captain Gareth Barry and Keane but requires additional funds to make an offer for the Republic of Ireland international having budgeted his allocated £20m for Barry and the full-back Andrea Dossena, who joined yesterday.