:format(webp)/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/36516678/452389704.0.jpg)
Following news last week that Gus Poyet believed he could still get a deal done to bring Fabio Borini to Sunderland on a permanent deal, The Northern Echo now believe the club and manager expect to know if he will be joining them by Thursday at the latest. For Liverpool, too, it would seem to set a hard deadline by which they will know Borini's future.
Sunderland are so far the only side to have matched Liverpool's £14M valuation of the player, and though Brendan Rodgers values the 23-year-old attacker, for that kind of a fee Liverpool would be content to sell. For his part, Poyet has confirmed that he expects activity on the transfer market—perhaps including Borini—before Thursday's friendly against Real Betis.
"We'll know in two or three days," he said yesterday when asked point blank about what was happening on the Borini front. "There are plenty of things going on and I'm looking forward to things happening in the next few days, so it's all positive. I think we have a great chance, a great chance. People are going to be surprised, which is great. It's all positive."
It isn't certain that Borini is going to be one of those positive things Poyet is insistent will happen very soon. One way or the other, though, his future should be known within the next day or two, and if Sunderland face Real Betis on Thursday without the Borini deal having been done it will likely be safe to say that it won't be getting done this summer.
Borini is currently in Liverpool recovering from a shoulder strain suffered against AS Roma.
