Fury-Joshua this summer
ANTHONY JOSHUA’S £200million dust-up with Tyson Fury is set to take place on June 26 or July 3.
Co-promoter Bob Arum claims terms have been agreed between the two fighters and they are now finalising a date in Saudi Arabia.
Joshua and Fury have agreed to a 50-50 purse split for the first of two planned bouts and Arum insists the fight contract should be signed “very shortly”.
ANDREW BUTCHART is eyeing up his first major medal at the European Indoor Championships as the ideal sharpener for his tilt at the OlympicS.
The Dunblane dynamo begins his bid in this morning’s 3000metres heats in Torun with a real shot at finally breaking his duck and setting himself up for a perfect summer.
He said: “After being injured and watching people race in 2020, I’m going to run every race.
“Going into an Olympic year, the last thing I wanted was to have my previous championship being Doha in 2019.”
GRAEME SOUNESS admitted “nearly crashing” his car in a furious radio rant at Martin Keown.
Keown had been discussing the impact of rule changes after recent amendments to the handball law.
He raised the back-pass law, introduced in 1992 to prevent keepers from handling the ball.
And the ex-Arsenal defender namechecked Souness’ former
Liverpool colleagues Alan Hansen and Mark Lawrenson.
Keown, on talkSport, said: “The backpass rule changed the game massively. Think about Liverpool, Hansen and Lawrenson just rolling it back to the keeper. He just kept picking it up, [Bruce] Grobbelaar.”
But Souness was so incensed he rang in and said: “I nearly crashed my car, Martin. I totally disagree with you in terms of Hansen and Lawrenson. You could’ve picked any other partnership playing at that time and called them out on what they’d do by going back to the keeper when put under pressure.”
Keown said: “I wasn’t saying it in a demeaning way, they were the best ball-playing defenders of our time.”
And Souness added: “Well, you should’ve said that.”
JORDAN MARSHALL admits Dundee’s players used their Tynecastle tanking as fuel to fire them to victory when reunited with Hearts in January.
The Dark Blues were thrashed 6-2 on the opening day of the Championship season in October as the Jambos ran riot on their home turf.
James McPake’s men gained revenge at Dens Park at the start of this year, winning 3-1.
Now Marshall aims to finally exorcise the Tynecastle demons when Dee face the league leaders in Edinburgh today.
The Dark Blues are looking to build on Tuesday’s win over Inverness, their first in five.
The 24-year-old left-back said: “It is obviously a difficult place to go to, as we discovered on the first day of the season.
“Hearts started quickly and blew us away but we didn’t really turn up that night.
“We responded with a win the following week but when we played them in January we used it as a bit of fuel, just saying that can’t happen again.
“That’s why we started that game so well.
“That Tynecastle game was part of the reason why we got the performance and result.
“All the teams that have done well in this league have put a string of results together.
“That’s what we should do. We obviously have Tuesday night to build on.”
Robbie Neilson’s side will face a much-changed Dee outfit from the one they thrashed in October. The Dark Blues recruited in the window, with Paul McMullan and former Hibs striker Jason Cummings making an immediate impact.
Cummings hit the winner in midweek and Marshall said: “We have a great squad now with some real quality and depth. If you don’t perform, people will come in and take your place.
“Jason and Paul have come in and hit the ground running.”