Jude Bellingham agrees personal terms with Real Madrid on a six-year contract. The club must now negotiate a transfer fee with Borussia Dortmund, who learned of Bellingham's desire to move to Spain earlier this month.

Barcelona are confident they will be in a position to announce Lionel Messi's return soon. Sergio Busquets announced he will leave the club earlier this week which will free up space on the wage bill, with others set to follow.

Arsenal will be without William Saliba and Oleksandr Zinchenko for the rest of the season because of injury. Mikel Arteta is expected to continue fielding Jakub Kiwior and Kieran Tierney in their absence as they bid to topple Manchester City.

An hour before kick-off in their league showdown with play-off rivals Middlesbrough, Luton Town’s club shop is teeming. The little building perched outside Kenilworth Road is like a temporary prefab classroom and inside it’s cosy: once you’ve bought a shirt or a mug or a woolly hat then you best be on your way to make room for someone else. It is a different world to the extravagance of the Premier League. Tottenham, for example, boast the largest club shop in Europe: half an acre of sheer Spursy-ness, selling everything from Spurs-encrusted party bowls to the Spurs Monopoly board game, complete with a 100-seat auditorium to consume even more Spurs from the comfort of a soft chair. These two clubs seem to exist on different planets, and yet they could well be rivals in the same league next season. Luton have climbed here by consistently punching above their weight. The club’s entire wage budget, around £6m, would afford one Manchester City sub. They are always swimming against the tide and the small but mighty Kenilworth Road is a monument to that – intimate and intense, like a particularly atmospheric cow shed, with 10,000 seats that sound like 50,000 when the linesman fails to spot a foul throw. Luton’s long-awaited move to a new venue at Power Court is still a couple of years away. So should they win promotion, what on earth will the Premier League giants make of a ground where away fans file through an alleyway and up a metal staircase that hangs over neighbouring gardens? “They will think it’s a tip,” smiles Alex, a Luton season-ticket holder in the club shop. He has been coming here since 2005, sitting in the same seat since he was three years old. “But it’s our tip.” *** Despite his reputation as one of the brightest managers in the Football League, Rob Edwards was expecting some hate from Luton fans when he took charge in November. He had only recently left Watford, their bitter rivals, and so when he sat down for his first press conference as the new man in charge of Luton Town, all he could do was try to defuse a potentially volatile situation. “It’s not as if I left Watford a club legend,” he joked. Edwards was referring to the way he was spat back out by Watford after only 11 games, a familiar story for managers who dare work for the trigger-happy Pozzo family. But far from holding a grudge, Luton fans seemed to get a kick out of sticking one to their rivals. “Welcome Rob,” read a banner at his first game away at Middlesbrough, which soothed some anxiety. His first home game at Kenilworth Road, a Boxing Day win over Norwich City, finished with the entire ground singing his name. It would prove to be the first win of many with only two league defeats since, to leave Luton third in the Championship and into the play-offs for the second successive season. A club with a tight-knit staff and limited funds have improved their league position every year for eight in a row, climbing from the Conference in 2014 to the upper echelons of the Championship, and now they are within touching distance of the top tier for the first time in 30 years. At the heart of their rise is continuity – midfielder Pelly Ruddock Mpanzu has been with the club from non-league – and careful planning. Losing manager Nathan Jones to Southampton was a sudden bruise, but Edwards was already on the radar. Luton had analysed his League Two-winning year in charge of Forest Green Rovers and found it was no fluke – the underlying numbers showed a manager deploying the kind of fast, aggressive football that Luton themselves used to dominate Leagues One and Two. They analysed his 11 games at Watford too, and discovered some good things in the team Edwards was building, despite the quick sacking. Preparation has been key in the transfer market too. Led by club legend Mick Harford, chief scout Phil Chapple and analyst Jay Socik, Luton have made a habit of identifying smart signings from across the Football League and some inspired loans from the Premier League too. Right-back James Bree left the club in January but Luton seamlessly replaced him with Cody Drameh on loan from Leeds, and the addition of Aston Villa’s Marvelous Nakamba has brought solidity in midfield. Buying Carlton Morris from Barnsley last summer was crucial, and he has racked up a career-best 20 league goals. They recruit a specific Luton type: as well as being technically sound and a good character, they have to be athletic, able to withstand a high tempo for 90 minutes and out-run their opposition. After all, this is what Luton are: a club who extract every last drop from whatever they have. No Championship side have won more tackles in the final third than Luton this season, and the result is a team that are often hard and horrible to play against. Edwards has found a balance between a pragmatic approach and a team who can play football too. A direct route to goal is always an option with the power and strength of Morris and the imposing Elijah Adebayo up front, and Luton have found they don’t need to dominate possession to win games. That might be a useful trait in the Premier League. But what really stands out is how Luton are run off the pitch. There is no billionaire benefactor here: the club were saved by their own fans and now they are supporter-owned, and the people in charge – chief executive Gary Sweet, chairman David Wilkinson and majority stakeholder Paul Ballantyne – are deeply invested in its future. As one member of staff told The Independent this week: “Our owners give a s**t, and that isn’t always the case in football.” *** One staff member, Bill Cole, has worked for Luton for five years and has been visiting Kenilworth Road for 76. He will miss it, but he won’t shed a tear when it’s gone. He reels off more than half a century’s worth of new stadium plans that ended in disappointment, and says Power Court is exactly what the club has been crying out for, for far too long. “I hope they build a metal pillar in front of the press box to remind us of The Kenny,” he smiles. Behind the pillar an entertaining game plays out between two teams equipped to compete with the lower rungs of the top flight. Luton are caught on the counter and Middlesbrough go ahead, but the second half is different. Tom Lockyer heads home an equaliser and the stadium comes alive. Morris goes down under what looks like light contact from a rash goalkeeper’s challenge, and slides home the penalty to win the game 2-1. At full-time, buoyant Luton fans pour out into the narrow streets that run down the hill to town. Luton will almost certainly finish third now, and Boro fourth, and if these two sides are to contest the play-off final – the so-called richest game in football – then perhaps this win has set the tone. Cole has seen it all before, though, and he has a warning. “In 1959 we played Nottingham Forest in the FA Cup final,” he remembers. “Two weeks earlier we’d played them here at Kenilworth Road and we stuffed them 4-0. But at Wembley, we never showed up.” But win or lose the play-offs, Luton are unlikely to change too much. They are going in the right direction and their progress is a result not of vast investment but of sound stewardship. Amid the game’s financial bonanza benefiting a few elite clubs, Luton are showing that there is still a place for a little meritocracy in football. 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The Premier League and the Professional Footballers’ Association have signed off on a new five-year partnership agreement starting next season which is understood to be worth around £125million. The bodies agreed a one-year deal last summer for the 2022-23 campaign which was worth £24.94m, an increase of £1.9m on the annual value of the previous three-year deal which ran from 2019 to 2022. The new deal is understood to be broadly similar to the one-year agreement covering the current Premier League season. Both sides were keen to seal a longer-term agreement on funding which was why an interim deal was put in place last year. Some of the money under the agreement will be put towards projects the Premier League and the PFA co-fund and some of it will be spent at the discretion of the PFA. Premier League chief executive Richard Masters said: “We are delighted to renew our partnership with the PFA and extend our long-term commitment of support for a further five years. “The PFA carries out vital work to support players in the Premier League and throughout the game. We share the ambition of ensuring that they have the support they need to successfully navigate the highs and lows of professional football and are prepared for life after their playing career. “We look forward to our continued work with the PFA on player welfare, as well as a range of other important programmes within communities and those which help improve diversity among coaches.” His PFA counterpart Maheta Molango said: “This new long-term agreement recognises the crucial role the PFA continues to perform as the players’ union. “The new deal will support the wide range of services that the PFA provides to its members. It will also ensure the continuation of the successful projects across the game that are co-funded by the Premier League and the PFA. “The length of this new agreement reflects the positive and collaborative relationship that has been established between the Premier League and the PFA. It ensures that we will be able to work as partners on shared priorities. “Crucially, it also means that when there are issues that do need to be addressed on behalf of players, we will work constructively to achieve solutions.” The partnership will help to support programmes such as the Professional Player to Coach Scheme, which aims to increase the number of black, Asian and mixed heritage players who transition into full-time coaching roles in the professional game. As well as campaigning and lobbying on behalf of its members, the union works to support former players and their families after a dementia diagnosis, supports current and former players experiencing mental health and well-being issues and offers advice and support to young players after their release from the academy system. The union also supports players reaching the end of their professional playing careers by providing counselling where needed, education and training services. It also represents players’ interests on other matters which directly affect them, such as cost control measures across the domestic and European game and how player data is used. Read More Charity boss speaks out over ‘traumatic’ encounter with royal aide Ukraine war’s heaviest fight rages in east - follow live ‘Nobody really knows what I can do’ says fit-again Aspinall Henrik Stenson resigns from DP World Tour after fines for LIV rebels Sam Allardyce hoping fear of relegation helps drive Leeds to safety

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Coventry have been preparing for their Premier League assault as popular Sky Blues kitman Chris Marsh fights sepsis. The former Walsall defender was admitted to University Hospital Coventry this week with the infection which stemmed from a problem in his neck. He missed Monday’s final day 1-1 draw at Middlesbrough but will be in the dressing room for Sunday’s Championship play-off semi-final first leg against the same opponents at the CBS Arena on Sunday, although cannot work as he recovers. The effervescent Marsh credits club doctor Ganeshan Ramsamy for acting quickly and knows there could have been a very different outcome. He told the PA news agency: “I thought it was a wasp sting but I had a really bad night’s sleep so when I came into the training ground the next day (Sunday), I saw the club doctor and he said ‘we need to rush you to A&E’. “He was worried it was Mastoiditis (a serious infection that affects the mastoid bone behind the ear). “I was in overnight and they released me so I watched the Boro game on TV before the doc asked me to send him a picture of my neck. “He told me I was still in trouble – my neck was blistering – and I needed to go back to hospital. I went back and they’d given me the wrong medication so kept me in and it was sepsis. “They got to it quickly. If I had left it which I probably would have done, it would have been serious. The club doctor was outstanding. He is top-drawer. He cares and I’ve got a lot of time for him, he’s brilliant. “I’m back home and feeling better. My appetite returned on Wednesday so that tells you you’re on the mend. I can’t work for the next week but they want me in the dressing room on Sunday which is great.” It is not the first time Marsh has survived a traumatic experience having suffered a slow bleed on the brain on Christmas Day in 2016. Three days later wife Sabina took him to a walk-in centre where – after she demanded treatment – his blood pressure was found to be dangerously high and he was rushed to hospital. It was a decision which saved his life. “I was in hospital for a week and on the fifth or sixth day when I was better the consultant sat on my bed,” said Marsh. “He said ‘I’ve heard all the stories, heard off your wife that she kicked up a fuss at the walk-in clinic and you wanted to go home. Categorically, had you gone home that night and slept like you wanted to do, you weren’t waking up’. “The bleed was that bad, I would have been gone. “I’ve always said my wife saved me then. They always know, right? She sensed there was something wrong and she acted upon it right away.” Soon after his recovery, and unable to do his day job as a driver, the ex-Northampton man joined the Sky Blues as kit man having played with manager Mark Robins and assistant Adi Viveash at Walsall. There, he was a key part of promotion squads, including the Saddlers’ famous 1998-99 season when they finished runners-up behind Fulham and ahead of Manchester City in the old Second Division. Coventry are now seeking to end their 22-year exile from the Premier League. They have never been closer since their 2001 relegation, despite playing seven of their opening nine games away because the Commonwealth Games’ Rugby Sevens wrecked the CBS Arena pitch. “One thing with this management team, not just Robbo, it’s Adi, Dennis Lawrence, everyone, they don’t take anyone for granted,” said Marsh, who has been a restaurateur and sandwich shop owner since retiring from playing. “The players are not allowed to take the foot off the gas. Especially with the start we had, we were bottom, the pitch, we had to play so many away games at the start. “To climb the table and be consistent, every single member of that team has played a part, every single one. “Talk about David v Goliath or whatever analogy you want. We haven’t just swum The Channel, we’ve swum the Atlantic already – there and back.” Read More Charity boss speaks out over ‘traumatic’ encounter with royal aide Ukraine war’s heaviest fight rages in east - follow live Man Utd boss Marc Skinner taking business-like approach to Women’s FA Cup final Premier League and PFA announce new five-year partnership ‘Nobody really knows what I can do’ says fit-again Aspinall

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