PARMA SIGN JOEL OBI ON LOAN

Parma have announced in an official statement that Inter Milan's young midfielder Joel Obi has joined them on a season-long loan, without any permanent clause included in the deal. The 22-year-old broke into the nerazzurri first team two seasons ago, though fell out of favour and made just two appearances last season.

With Saphir Taïder recently arriving at Inter from Bologna to beef up an already crowded central midfield zone, it's unsurprising that he's been shipped off in search of regular football.

However, he joins a Parma team already boasting several central midfielders, including his former Inter teammate Walter Gargano, who arrived at the gialloblù yesterday. That means that he is far from guaranteed a starting berth in Roberto Donadoni's team, though he'll have a bigger chance if the strong rumours linking playmaker Jaime Valdés with a move to Torino materialise in the next few hours.