TRANSFER WINDOW:AS THOUSANDS of Irish people based in Britain try desperately today to make it back home for Christmas, a small number of their more wealthy fellow ex-pats have been more focused on their whereabouts come January.

Robbie Keane, Shay Given and Stephen Ireland are among the international footballers hoping to take flight as soon as the holiday period is out of the way.

West Ham have been hoping for some time that they might provide Keane with the route out of Tottenham the Dubliner is anxious to secure, but the club appears to have cooled its interest in the striker yesterday amid reports that making any initial loan deal permanent in the summer would cost in excess of €9.4 million, assuming he had helped to keep them up.

Keane’s wages at Spurs are about €75,000 a week and the 30-year-old is apparently reluctant to take a pay cut even if, as expected, West Ham offered a three-year deal, all of which would make him a rather expensive acquisition.

West Ham’s owners are expect to provide significant funds to strengthen the club’s squad in a bid to avoid the drop, but if they do prove unwilling to return to the table for Keane then his future looks likely to lie either at Aston Villa. Previous manager Martin O’Neill was linked with him during the summer and it seems Keane is keen to go there.

Harry Redknapp has to offload players in order to bring new ones in, not least because he can not register any more with the Premier League.

The Londoners have been repeatedly linked in recent weeks with a bid for Newcastle’s rising star Andy Carroll, so if Redknapp does show some solid interest and Alan Pardew feels in the need to cash in on the young striker’s marketability to strengthen his squad then Keane could well find himself offered as part of the deal.

Pardew, meanwhile, has said that he will be on the lookout for any player who would strengthen his squad and who would come within the club’s budget, and that could lead to his club making a bid for Richard Dunne, the increasingly unsettled Aston Villa defender who has lost his place of late under Gerard Houllier. Dunne would be further put out if, as expected, the Frenchman seeks to bring in another centre back during the transfer window.

West Ham and Bolton Wanderers are two other possible destinations for the big Dubliner, although the latter would require one-time potential Republic of Ireland international Gary Cahill to be sold, which is a serious possibility given the number of interested parties.

The East London outfit, meanwhile, are also said to be interested in Stephen Ireland, who has been told he can leave Villa Park following an unsuccessful switch from Manchester City but only if the club can recoup a healthy proportion of the €8 million or so he was valued at when moving in the opposite direction to James Milner.

The Corkman, who is reported to have contemplated an approach to Giovanni Trapattoni regarding an international return on the basis that it might spark an improvement in his club fortunes, is also said to be interesting Mark Hughes, now at Fulham, who seemed to get the best out of the somewhat temperamental midfielder when the pair worked together at Eastlands.

Craven Cottage also remains a possible destination for Shay Given, who current City boss Roberto Mancini has reluctantly agreed to allow leave the club in order to secure regular first-team football elsewhere.

The City manager, though, is reluctant to allow Given go to a top-four rival and Arsenal look no closer to match Fulham’s valuation of Mark Schwarzer, the transfer that would have to take place in order for the Donegalman to head for west London.

Roma’s interest in the goalkeeper remains active, however, and former Chelsea manager Claudio Ranieri is reported to be on the verge of making another bid to sign Given for the Italians as soon as the window opens in the new year.

With money increasingly tight at this time of the year, however, and spending by Premier League clubs in January of 2010 only a fifth of what it was a year before, many of the moves over the course of the month are expected to be on a loan basis, potentially leaving several of Trapattoni’s key players to sort out their futures all over again come the summer.