Middlesbrough agree loan for Negredo

Middlesbrough have announced that they will sign Valencia striker Alvaro Negredo on an initial one-year loan deal. 

The former Manchester City striker returns to England after two years at the Mestalla, where he scored five league goals in each of his last two LaLiga campaigns.

Negredo netted on nine occasions in the Premier League in 2013/14 as he won the title in his only season at the Etihad Stadium.

The 30-year-old, who has joined up with his new team-mates at their summer training camp in Marbella ahead of all the necessary paperwork being completed, and is Aitor Karanka’s seventh summer signing, after Viktor Fischer, Bernardo Espinosa, Marten de Roon, Jordan McGhee, Victor Valdes and Antonio Barragan.

Middlesbrough lost 2-1 to Gus Poyet's Real Betis in their third pre-season friendly on Monday, Jordan Rhodes getting on the scoresheet.

Their first match of the new Premier League campaign is against Stoke City at the Riverside Stadium on Saturday 13 August.