Liverpool signed a 4-year contract with Portugal and Porto midfielder Raul Meireles.

The Reds have paid 14m euros (£11.5m) for the 27-year-old who has 38 caps for Portugal.

The Portuguese is a combative player and is seen as a natural replacement for Javier Mascherano, who is poised to complete a move to Barcelona.

“Liverpool are a historic club and I am happy for the move. Roy Hodgson was key because he worked so hard to get me,” Meireles told the Liverpool website.

“It has been a long time coming but finally I have achieved my dream of playing in England.”

Meireles has joined Milan Jovanovic, Joe Cole, Christian Poulsen, Jonjo Shelvey and Danny Wilson in moving to Anfield this summer.

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The troubled English club Aston Villa’s woes continued as they were dumped out of the Europa League with Scottish hopes also suffering a triple wipeout.

Villa, who saw Martin O’Neill quit as coach on the eve of the Premier League kick-off and James Milner sold to Manchester City, were beaten 3-2 by Rapid Vienna in their play-off second leg.

That gave the Austrians a 4-3 aggregate win to follow up their victory over the Midlanders in last season’s tournament.

Villa twice led on Thursday and also missed a penalty as they joined the Scottish trio of Celtic, Dundee United and Motherwell in being forced to write off their European hopes for another season.

Liverpool and Manchester City were left as Britain’s only representatives in Friday’s draw for the group stages of Europe’s second tier tournament.

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Peter Crouch scored a hat-trick for Tottenham Hotspur in a 4-0 win over Young Boys in the second leg of their qualifier to see them through to the Champions League group stages.

Crouch gave Spurs the perfect start when he headed home Gareth Bale’s cross with just five minutes on the clock to level on aggregate.

And it got even better for Harry Redknapp’s men just after the half-hour mark when Jermain Defoe latched on to Bale’s cross and superbly fired in off the post to put Spurs ahead on aggregate.

Defoe should have stretched the lead further when Aaron Lennon slipped him through, but he put his shot wide, while Crouch was denied from close range after the break.

Crouch did not have to wait much longer for his second, though, when he powered home a header from a corner just after the hour mark.

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