Johnson move to Fulham gives Moyes the funds to chase Tottenham's £16.5m-man Bent

Johnson was at Fulham’s training ground on Monday for his medical and to put the finishing touches to a deal which will earn him £45,000 a week.

The total fee could rise to as much as £13m — breaking Fulham’s club record of £11.5m paid for Steve Marlet from Lyon in 2001 — after Everton chairman Bill Kenwright refused to lower his demands.

Heading to the exit: Andrew Johnson (right) is set to leave Everton for Fulham

Johnson scored 22 goals in 74 appearances following an £8.6m move from Crystal Palace two years ago, but it became clear he would be leaving Goodison Park when he did not join the rest of the Everton squad for a pre-season trip to America.

Manager David Moyes will now use the money to improve his offer for Sporting Lisbon’s creative midfielder Joao Moutinho after seeing an £11.8m bid rejected.

But Moyes is also determined to replace 27-year-old Johnson with another hard-working striker to work in tandem with the less energetic Yakubu.

Bent, 24, fits the bill despite failing to impress at Spurs following last summer’s £16.5m switch from Charlton.

Any club offering something close to a money-back deal on Bent would certainly have been granted an enthusiastic audience by the Tottenham board were it not for the fact that Juande Ramos is suddenly short of strikers, with Robbie Keane’s move to Liverpool and Dimitar Berbatov soon to leave for Manchester United.

Bent has featured more regularly in pre-season games but Everton’s interest is unlikely to be encouraged, at least until manager Ramos has reinforcements on board.

Tottenham’s negotiating stance in the transfer market can only be weakened if they are seen to be desperate.

Russian pair Roman Pavlyuchenko and Andrei Arshavin have been earmarked as the ideal replacements for Keane and Berbatov but Spurs have a problem with Arshavin’s excessive wage demands.

Ramos is also considering Real Zaragoza’s Brazilian striker Ricardo Oliveira, who had a loan spell last season from Milan but was unable to prevent his team being relegated from La Liga. Zaragoza signed him for £7.8m but Oliveira is likely to be moved straight on for a profit.

At Fulham, the decision to pay Everton’s asking price for Johnson and top the £2m salary he was paid at Goodison Park is a statement of their ambition to avoid another season scrapping for survival. But the club are aware of the potential for a spiral of wage demands.

West Ham had a similar problem when they started paying lavish salaries to new signings and triggered dressing-room discontent.