Maccarone set to return home

13 April 2012

Middlesbrough's record signing Massimo Maccarone could be heading for home after the arrivals of Mark Viduka and Jimmy Floyd Hasselbaink.

The 24-year-old striker, an £8.15million capture from Empoli in the summer of 2002, is being linked with a loan move to Fiorentina with his agent Paolo Fabbri suggesting that things could be tied up within a week.

"We have a few more details to sort out with Middlesbrough," Fabbri told the Evening Gazette. "Then we need to talk with Fiorentina, but we hope to have the deal done within the week.

"Massimo knows this is a financial issue rather than a technical one. He wants to come back to England and I think that will be what happens."

Boro were not commenting on the claims today, but Maccarone's future has been the topic of intense speculation for some time after he struggled to make his mark in English football.

He arrived in the Barclaycard Premiership as a 22-year-old with a blossoming reputation after becoming the first Serie B player to be capped at senior level by Italy since Franco Baresi some 20 years earlier.

Maccarone finished his first season on Teesside as top scorer, although with only nine goals, and his progress during the last campaign was hampered by a nasty ankle injury picked up in pre-season.

Manager Steve McClaren has repeatedly backed the Italian to prove himself in English football, but in recent weeks has recruited Viduka and Hasselbaink, men with proven track records, in a bid to add firepower to his squad.

That has seen Maccarone, along with Szilard Nemeth and Malcolm Christie, slip further down the pecking order, while Michael Ricketts has been allowed to leave the Riverside Stadium after a disastrous 18 months in the north east.

Christie has impressed when fit and it has seemed likely for some time that at least one other member of the strikers' union would leave the club this summer, although having invested so heavily in the former AC Milan and Modena player in the first place, the opportunity for him to prove himself once again and regain his confidence on loan could prove an attractive one.

Meanwhile, Boro are edging ever closer to securing a permanent deal for Dutch winger Bolo Zenden.

There have been encouraging noises from both sides in recent days, and although no deal was expected to be reached today, the signs are that agreement is not too far away.

Zenden would become the fifth player to join the club this summer after Viduka, Hasselbaink, Michael Reiziger and Ray Parlour, the latter two of whom are expected to make their debuts in a friendly at Nottingham Forest tonight.

Midfielder Juninho did his best to offset speculation over his future on Teesside when he plundered a hat-trick in a behind-closed-doors friendly against Bradford earlier today.

The Brazilian struck on 32, 46 and 80 minutes after Szilard Nemeth had fired the Premiership side in front before Jonathan Greening added a fifth for a largely inexperienced Boro side in the game at the club's Rockliffe Park training headquarters.

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