Rumour Mill: City To Swoop For Long Term United Target?

Right! It is time to move on from Carlos Tevez, lets just see what happens there and move onto newer more exciting things...some hot transfer rumours!


It is pretty clear by this point that the man Roberto Mancini wanted to bring in this January was Roma midfielder Daniele De Rossi, however convincing him to leave his boyhood club was always going to be difficult.  It would now appear that the Italian international will see out the rest of his career in the capital after he signed a new contract, effectively ending our interest.  Clearly this suggests that Bobby has identified a new midfielder as being crucial to the sides ongoing development and according to reports in recent days the club are now ready to put plan b into action.

The man they are apparently looking to is Spanish international and incredibly highly regarded Javi Martinez.  The Spaniard began his career at Osasuna but never appeared for their first team, he was snapped up by Athletic Bilbao for €6million in the Summer of 2006 at the age of just 17.  The defensive midfielder became a regular in the team from his debut season and has been more or less an ever present.  


The Sun (as well as numerous other media outlets) are claiming that we are ready to offer £25million for his services, now that might sound steep but when you consider that the 23 year old already has a World Cup winners medal and that he has been courted by the likes of Real Madrid, Liverpool and Manchester United it begins to look a little more realistic.  


There are however a couple of stumbling blocks, there is the competition from other clubs, but it is thought that the presence of David Silva (an international colleague) could help persuade him to move to the blue side of Manchester.  The other issue is the price, it is said that the money men at Eastlands are unwilling to offer more than £25million despite Bilbao expecting a figure closer to £34million which is stated as the release clause in his contract, it remains to be seen whether there is any chance of meeting in the middle.

In footballing terms, Martinez would be a great addition, the box to box player would be able to take some of the strain off the shoulders of Yaya Toure and clearly he is of the very highest quality and for that reason, he would be a superb acquisition.  It is always interesting to note that this season the Spanish international has been deployed as a central defender on a fairly regular basis and that is another quality that should make him an attraction proposition.


In many ways I would prefer to have Martinez than De Rossi, he might not be as good as the Italian yet, but at 23 he has the vast majority of his career ahead of him and I believe he would have a better understanding of our style of play and for that reason I think he could be the ideal man to supplement our midfield.

January Preview

Firstly I would like to wish you all a Happy New Year, and I hope you had a good Christmas.  Things have been quiet on here, mostly because the run up to the festive period was ridiculously busy for me, and then I returned to my parents for the holiday season so didn't really have much opportunity to update the blog, now that things are back to normal, it will be a lot more regular again.


I think the best place to start is by previewing the coming month.  The importance of January can not be underestimated, we are essentially playing every 3 days for the foreseeable future.  In comparison our title rivals have a much easier month, their schedule has been freed up massively after they were knocked out of the Carling Cup by Crystal Palace, they play 4 games between now and February, compared to our 5, it may only be one game, but it could make the world of difference.  The title is often won and lost in this month and I think this year could be the same.  As we all know United still have to play many of the bigger teams away from home, whereas we only have a trip to the Emirates left, if we can end this month on top or trailing by no more than 4 points, I think we can and probably will take the title.

In terms of league competition we will meet Wigan away, where you would expect us to take 3 points with a weakened team, and then old rivals Tottenham visit Eastlands, Spurs will be a really difficult challenge as always and should they provide an upset they will be even more embroiled in the title race than they already are!


Off the field January is also highly important as well, the transfer window opened on the early hours of New Years Day and will remain that way until the end of the month, this time however things are a bit different, with FFP looming larger than ever we have to be even more responsible than windows gone by.  On that very subject there seems to be an element of tension between Roberto Mancini and the powers that be in Abu Dhabi.  The suggestions in the newspapers in the last few days seem to indicate that the Italian wanted to bring in a midfielder and a winger over the Summer but was not authorised to do so.  It wouldn't take a genius to work out that those 2 targets were probably Daniele De Rossi and Italian winger Alessio Cerci, one of those is seemingly a target for this January.

The impending departure of Yaya Toure is going to make what is already a challenging month even more difficult, and De Rossi could really make it a lot more straight forward.  The belief was originally that the club had to sell some players to buy, and it is thought that whilst not all of the incoming money would be made available for new players, some of it would be.  As far as I can see if we do manage to finally move on a certain moody Argentine striker, we will have an extra £250,000 a week in the wage budget and around £20million in the transfer pot.  Not enough to bring in rafts of new players but potentially enough for De Rossi.


It is not just big names that will be on the way, it would appear that Nedum Onuoha will finally move on for around £2.5million, Wayne Bridge could be removed from the wage bill as well, these departures would also free up some important finances.

It would be a dream to end January in both domestic cup competitions, still 3 or more points clear on top of the table, and it would be even more special if we had secured De Rossi and offloaded Tevez.  If that dream is going to become reality we will need to work incredibly hard and obviously some players will have to step up to the plate, Edin Dzeko needs to re find his form and confidence, and Samir Nasri, who personally I think has performed pretty well overall, needs to continue to develop his game and find his exact role in the team.


Things are undeniably going swimmingly, but this month could really make or break the rest of our season, so lets all get behind the team and try to make sure that the dream becomes reality!

Rumour Mill: More Chance Of Us Resigning Jo Than This Italian Enforcer...

When it comes to football websites, there are those that only deliver fact or close to it (BBC Sport), there are websites that just make up nonsense (Tribal Football, Caught Offside) and then there are some in the middle that pretend they have sources in high up places, and sometimes break a credible story but mostly just publish tosh.  This rumour is from goal.com a website that fits firmly in that final category.


The widely ridiculed footballing website has today published a story stating that Roma enforcer Daniele De Rossi is ready to make a sensational switch to England and possibly to City, they have however not just made these claims and left them hanging, they also have direct quotes from a 'source' supposedly within the club...now clearly these 'sources' are always just the work experience kid, but for some reason they think we are all fools and that we will fall for it!


The tough tackling Italian currently has a contract that runs up until 2012, and talks over a renewal have been ongoing.  According to the report he wants not only a bumper pay rise but also assurances from the clubs owners that they will be spending big money to take the team in the right direction.  If these talks don't go well, clearly the club wouldn't want to lose him for nothing next year and that is why it is claimed that an offer €23million from City would tempt them to sell.


The 'source' has 'revealed':

"Manchester City are ready to offer Roma €23m for De Rossi and can give him €9m per annum over four to five years....De Rossi is aware of Mancini's interest and his attempts to bring him to City....He wants economic and technical guarantees from Roma for him to stay. If these guarantees are not met he will not sign the new contract. At the moment, he is very uncertain as Roma have been lukewarm with him in terms of this new deal. The new owners do not want to take on heavy financial commitments before looking into all the club's accounts.".

Let's just for a minute go along with this whole story and pretend we don't think it's utter tosh.  Manchester United have courted the player for years and there is also supposedly interest from Chelsea so if he were to move on there would definitely be competition from other big clubs, whether these sides would compete with the financial package on offer from City seems unlikely so it could possibly put Roberto Mancini in pole position.

Now for the negative (realistic) viewpoint.  De Rossi is Roma through and through and it seems highly unlikely to me that he would play for another club any time soon, he has had the opportunity to move on several occasions before, with that lot from Salford generally thought to be the side closest to sealing his signature.  After all this time though he has stayed put and I don't see him going anywhere else in the near future.  It is highly likely that there could be complicated negotiations over a renewal of his contract, but the bottom line in my opinion is that this is just a ploy from the player and agent to secure more money, we are being used.

It should be pointed out that he is a top quality player and would obviously bring a lot to City, albeit in a position that we are hardly short, but I just don't see anything in this one.  Nothing about the story seems particularly convincing, the website, the 'source', and the comments, for me, nothing really adds up...