STEVE FINNAN was last night in talks with Blackburn Rovers and Tottenham Hotspur about returning to the Premier League just five months after making an ill-fated moved Espanyol.

The 32-year-old right back was sold by Liverpool to the Spaniards for around €2 million at the end of the summer but has been hit by a succession of injuries since.

He has featured in just four games for his new club and there has been speculation for several weeks now that he would return to England.

Just before Christmas Espanyol’s director of sport Paco Herrera was one of several senior club officials to insist the player would remain in Barcelona.

“Finnan stays because he is a main man for the second half of the season,” he said, but the Spaniards are now believed to be willing to cut their losses with a €1.5 million fee deemed acceptable.

Finnan’s fitness problems may prove to be a factor in the negotiations but the defender returned to training last week and might yet be named in Giovanni Trapattoni’s squad for the World Cup qualifier against Georgia on February 11th.

The Republic of Ireland manager is expected to name his panel for the game in Dublin next Monday.

Trapattoni, meanwhile, is said to have prompted QPR’s interest in Republic of Ireland international Liam Miller with the manager reported to have recommended the Corkman to the London club’s owners, Bernie Ecclestone and Flavio Briatore.

Miller looks set to move to the Loftus Road outfit over the next couple of days. Sunderland have apparently expressed a willingness to cover a sizeable portion of his wages until the end of the season at which point he would be allowed to make the move permanent without any fee.

The move would provide an opportunity for Miller to play regular first-team football again but would nevertheless be a setback in terms of dropping out of the Premier League.

Miller originally made his name at Celtic before joining Manchester United where he failed to make an impact.

He has made 60 appearances for Sunderland since Roy Keane brought him there in August 2006 but he subsequently fell out with the then manager after allegations of poor time keeping.

He has barely featured for the first team this year and looks to be the latest victim of new manager Ricky Sbragia’s attempt to cut back the squad of more than 40 players he inherited from his predecessor.

Hull City manager Phil Brown, meanwhile, has said that he hopes to have taken Kevin Kilbane back to England’s north east by the end of the week.

The 31 year-old has found first-team opportunities hard to come by at Wigan of late but Brown, who has also been chasing West Ham’s Luis Boa Morte, sees him as a having a great deal to contribute to Hull’s attempt to survive their first season in the Premier League.

In acknowledging that he is lacking natural left-sided players at the club Brown said: “We have made progress, things are ongoing. The clubs have agreed terms on Luis Boa Morte and we are trying to agree terms on Kevin Kilbane, on a personal front as well. Hopefully by Thursday or Friday they (the talks) will bear some fruit.

“We said at the start of the season we wanted to flood the place with Premier League quality,” he added, “and both those players have it in abundance. To get that quality of player in to Hull City would be great for the football club.”

Reading and Republic of Ireland midfielder Stephen Hunt has won the Championship Player of the Month award for December, a timely reminder to top-flight English clubs, the midfielder might feel, of the quality he possesses.

Hunt was in outstanding form for the club at the end of last year, helping them to five straight wins and second in the table with a string of characteristically energetic displays one of which, in the defeat of Norwich, also included his eighth goal of campaign.

He was strongly linked with a move to Everton last August and has made no secret of his desire to be back playing at the highest level but his manager, Steve Coppell, has repeatedly insisted that he wants him to stay and that, in any case, there have been no firm offers for him.