ANNAN LOOKING FOR WIGAN SWITCH

Rosenborg midfielder Anthony Annan has claimed that is on the verge of signing for Wigan in the summer.

The Ghanaian has revealed that a host of Premiership clubs are tracking him including Everton and Blackburn, but its Wigan that he will join at the end of the season.

"This is something fresh that has come up and I am quite confident it will end well," he told Ghana newspaper 90 Minutes.

"They have shown a keen interest so I hope finally my desire to play in England will come true next season.

"Wigan is not so big but to me it is all about starting well from one of these clubs where you can enjoy a lot of playing time to prepare you well when the top clubs come calling.

"There has been interest from some other clubs across Europe but I think I will go ahead with the Wigan offer because if it works out it will improve my game considerably. They have played well this season and have ambitious plans for the next season which I want to be part of."

JOHNSON ON COME BACK TRAIL

Manchester City's Michael Johnson makes his comeback for the reserves tonight(Tuesday) at Middlesbrough after nearly seven months out.

The midfielder has been in the treatment room since September suffering from a long-standing groin injury.

The 21-year-old has only made a handful of appearances for City this season and the news will be a timely boost for manager Mark Hughes.

He said: "He has got to the point now where he is comfortable with the pain he will work with.

"He's had a frustrating kind of injury that young players sometimes find difficult to cope with - they just want to play."

BLATTER PLEASED WITH MP INQUIRY

FIFA president Sepp Blatter has expressed his satisfaction at the All-Party Parliamentary Football Group for recommending that the Football Association and the respective Football Leagues adopt the FIFA proposed 6+5 rule.

The proposed 6+5 rule means that a team must only have five foreign player's in any starting eleven.

In Blatter's statement on FIFA's official website he states that they would like the rule to be implemented over several years so to ensure that clubs can adjust the composition of their teams.

The main argument for this ruling is for the clubs to invest in domestic talent and restore the competitiveness of competitions and to reach an harmonious development of football worldwide.

FIFA have obvoiusly watching the Premier League for some years now and all the millions that foreign investers are spending, maybe there wouldn't of been a problem if they had been spending the money on English players but with alot of money up for grabs in European competitions now, it would be hard not to bring in the world best player's with their high wages and when you bring them in, that's when you HAVE to qualify for Europe and if you don't the bubble bursts.

EVERTON TARGET JOAO MOUTINHO EXTENDS SPORTING DEAL

Sporting Lisbon have confirmed that Joao Moutinho has signed a new contract to stay at the club until 2014.

The news will come as a bitter blow for Everton's David Moyes and a host of Premiership clubs who were keeping constant tabs on his situation at the club.

The Portuguese club have officially confirmed the one year extension to the midfielder's current contract and the new deal also has a buy-out clause of 22.5 million euros.

BELLAMY TO MISS REST OF THE SEASON

Mark Hughes has revealed that striker Craig Bellamy looks certain to miss the rest of the season.

The Welshman is still struggling with a knee injury that he picked up while he was on international duty last month and it was thought that he had recovered but unfortunately he suffered a re-occurrance of the injury in City's defeat to Hamburg in the UEFA cup.

Manager Hughes has vitually resigned himself to losing the striker for the rest of the campaign.

"Craig has got to have complete rest for two weeks then he comes back for strength work. Hopefully he might get the last couple of games, but the probability is that he won't." Hughes explains to the clubs official website.

City fans will be keeping their fingers crossed that Bellamy recovers before the end of the season because if there's one thing that's needed at the Eastlands, its European football and if they haven't got the lure of European football then they won't have the stars.

BALLACK: WE ARE FOCUSED ON THE LEAGUE TILL THE END

Michael Ballack has revealed that Chelsea now has the focus to go on and win all their remaining Premiership games and push Manchester United and Liverpool all the way to the title.

The German feels that after victories against Liverpool and Arsenal in the Champions League and the FA Cup respectively, has proved that Chelsea are now back on track and ready to claim back the league title that Manchester United took from them last season.

Chelsea's win against Arsenal on Saturday in the FA Cup once again showed how they can dig deep and turn the game around after falling behind, but as the Chelsea midfielder tells the clubs official website, its about staying focused and maintaining the mental attitude that continues to win them matches.

'In the last two games we have come back from 1-0 and 2-0, we have shown great character and that is what we have to keep doing.

'We have to be really focused like we showed against Arsenal in the FA Cup and against Liverpool in the Champions League last week.

'We are focused on the league until the end, we know it will be difficult to go top, because in the last two games the other teams were a little bit lucky, but that's what you need to stay on top.'

Gus Hiddink's half-time team talk must of been something but was it the same for the Arsenal game?

'The Champions League game it was a little bit more difficult because we were 2-0 down and we weren't looking too good, but against Arsenal it was a draw, so at the break things were a bit more quiet,' explained Ballack

Didier Drogba is playing out of his skin at the moment with nine goals in twelve appearances and the German knows that he has the ability to keep producing the critical goals in the most important games.

'He is a player who can decide big games, he is a strong player mentally and physically and that is what he showed against Arsenal.'

Ballack explains why Arsenal was such a tough game.

'Everybody knows they [Arsenal] can play football, they can hold the ball and it is difficult to get the ball off them. You have to run a lot, you have to fight a lot and that's what we did. But they had the same problems because we played well.'

Next stop Everton but will they be seeing the fixture as a dress rehearsal for the FA Cup final.

'They are doing well at the moment, for us on Wednesday is another big game, another difficult game, but we play at home and we will want to win it as usual.

If you see the last games we really played good football, we came back from difficult situations and now we can go further and maybe win more titles.'

HESKEY OFF THE MARK

Aston Villa's Emile Heskey bagged his first goal for Aston Villa on Saturday and couldn't of be more delighted.

The England forward finally broke his duck against West Ham in 1-1 draw and as Emile tells AVTV, it was nice to get his first goal in front of the home fans at Villa Park.

"It was very nice to get the first goal at Villa Park and hopefully I'll get many more.

"It was just nice getting the goal and going 1-0 up. In recent weeks we've been going behind and having to come back, but it was nice to go ahead."

"I just anticipated him (Noble) playing it back to the goalkeeper so I got there and it was disappointing that it hit the inside of the post.

"The lads have taken to me really well so hopefully we can carry on in that same vein. It's been really good."

SHUT IT!!!

Manchester United manager Sir Alex Ferguson and Liverpool manager Rafa Benitez have been warned to end their war of words right now.

The ultimatum has come from League Managers Association chief Richard Bevan who stepped in yesterday to try and defuse the situation.

Fergie's battle with Benitez has been on going all season and has the title race hots up then so does their feud. Fergie's latest rant came on Friday when he called his Liverpool counterpart rude and arrogant for calling Everton a small club and for a gesture he made during Liverpool's win against Blackburn a few weeks ago.

Yesterday Fergie continued his rant by saying: “I made my point about it. I don’t understand why he did it.

“I don’t want to go on about it any more. I made my point. There is no point carrying it on. It’s plain for everybody to see now. I have made my issue about it.”

Fergie seems to watching Benitez's movements very carefully looking for any opportunity to have a swipe at him.

United's chief is still smarting from January when Rafa Benitez pulled out a piece of paper during a press conference and starting tearing strips out of Sir Alex's previous rants for him to only reply that Rafa was 'disturbed'.

If the war-of-words continues then i think the only way that it will ever be resolved would be to for Nanny Bevan to put Fergie on the naughty step and Benitez in the corner, both need to take a leaf out of Chelsea's Gus Hiddink book and just get on with it.