Fulham’s American defender Carlos Bocanegra is keen to remain in the English Premiership after being let go by the London club which avoided relegation by a whisker.

Fulham, who only finished above third from bottom and relegated Reading on goal difference on the last day of the season earlier this month, released the 29-year-old who said he was hopeful of staying in the top flight.

Bocanegra, who is preparing for his nation’s Wembley friendly with England next week, said: “I got a call about the release earlier today (Friday) but we had both known it had been coming for a while.

Manchester United defender Gerard Pique is set to rejoin Barcelona after he claimed talks with the Catalonian club were “at an advanced stage.”

Pique, who never really made his mark in England since joining the Red Devils aged 17 in 2004.

“Negotiations with Barca are at a very advanced stage,” he told Barcelona’s website, www.fcbarcelona.cat.

“I like the idea of being able to play in a Barcelona shirt again. At the moment there’s nothing official. Now we just have to wait for more details.

Celtic clinched their third Scottish Premier League title in a row with a 1-0 victory at Dundee United in a dramatic finale on Thursday.

Dutch striker Jan Vennegoor of Hesselink was the Parkhead side’s hero, scoring the only goal of the game in the 72nd minute.

But Celtic would still have lifted the SPL trophy even if they had lost, after Aberdeen won 2-0 at home to Rangers.

The results meant the Parkhead club finished on 89 points, three ahead of Rangers.

Tottenham striker Robbie Keane and Manchester City defender Richard Dunne are set to figure in the Republic of Ireland’s friendly with Serbia here on Saturday - Giovanni Trapattoni’s first game as manager.

The Premier League duo trained with the rest of the squad at Malahide on Thursday after the return of the 22-strong squad from a six day trip to Portugal.

Keane and Dunne were excused the trip, along with Champions League winner John O’Shea and Celtic pair Aiden McGeady and Darren O’Dea - the latter trio are due to link up on Friday - as new boss Trapattoni ran the rule over some of his younger players.

The 66-year-old Scot endured as nerve-wracking a night as when he first landed the trophy in 1999 when two late goals from his side overturned Bayern Munich’s 1-0 lead.

However he was beaming from ear to ear after seeing Edwin van der Sar save Nicolas Anelka’s spotkick to secure victory. Cristiano Ronaldo had seen Petr Cech save one from him only for Chelsea skipper John Terry to see his potential match-winning penalty miss.

Chelsea boss Avram Grant insisted his side had done enough to lift the Champions League trophy after losing out to Manchester United in a final decided on penalties here on Wednesday.

“It is very hard to lose on penalties. I don’t know what to say, especially after - except for the first 30 minutes - we dominated the game,” said Grant.

“We hit the post, we hit the bar, we shot much more than them. Even in the penalties we came to the last one and it was in our hands - but we lost.”

Chinese hopes of making the AFC Champions League quarter-finals are on a knife-edge with Beijing Guoan needing to win on Wednesday and Changchun having to wait an extra day to discover their fate.

Four teams are already through to the knockout rounds of Asia’s premier club competition — Japan’s Gamba Osaka, Ubeki side Kuruvchi FC, Saipa of Iran, and Kuwait’s Al Qadsia.

With Japan’s Urawa Reds receiving a bye as defending champions, three berths remain undecided.