Disappointment for Birmingham and other transfer gossip

Birmingham’s hopes of strengthening their squad before the close of the transfer window were dealt a blow on Friday when Liverpool and Tottenham revealed that they would not sell Ryan Babel and Roman Pavlyuchenko respectively to the ambitious club. Liverpool are determined to hang on to Babel because they still believe he has the potential to shine at Anfield, while Spurs want Birmingham to up their £9m for Pavlyuchenko. Elsewhere, Manchester City have made a £7m move for Parma midfielder McDonald Mariga; David Dunn has urged Blackburn to bring in James Beattie from Stoke as Benni McCarthy's replacemen; and Arsenal have made a fresh offer for Marouane Chamakh in a bid to snap up the Bordeaux striker on a pre-contract.