Man City Pay For Their Excessive waste
Those Eastlands spendthrifts break the trend of a new realism as the Premier League transfer window closes.
More compelling than Manchester City’s lavish buys were the crashingly expensive errors they tried to correct in this transfer window: chiefly, that deadline-day thespian, Robinho, who has bounced between Real Madrid, City and now Milan inside two years, and left no pool of perspiration at Eastlands when he moved to Italy.
While the gaze was locked on David Silva, Jérôme Boateng, Yaya Touré, James Milner, Mario Balotelli and Aleksandar Kolarov as they pushed City’s new wage commitments to £488m, the purge of other recent acquisitions pointed to a problem only the sky blue half of Manchester could afford to solve without recourse to Valium. In the downturn other Premier League high-spenders focused their energies on shedding players whose inflated transfer fees felt onerous and whose high wages have rendered them hard to move on.
Liverpool’s Alberto Aquilani, bought for £20m to replace the superior Xabi Alonso, was dispatched on loan to Juventus to conceal the reality that he was the worst piece of business in the Rafa Benítez years. So frantic were Liverpool to correct that booboo that they rushed Aquilani off the wage bill for a year and will not know whether the £20m transfer fee is recoverable until the Old Lady of Turin has seen him play.
Across the league there is a platinum club of names who were big enough for long enough for agents to secure mega-deals that their clubs are still manacled to. Among those who might have been on the move at 6pm had their employers been able to persuade their rivals to assume the high salary costs were Newcastle’s Xisco (a dud, reportedly on £55,000 a week), Nigel Reo-Coker (Aston Villa) and David Bentley, Robbie Keane and Roman Pavlyuchenko of Spurs. Bentley was wanted by Fulham, but only as a loanee.
These beneficiaries of the boom years pre-date the new realism, in which only Manchester City still embrace the rampant expansionism that turned the Premier League into the banking system’s love child. But with each acquisition by the Abu Dhabi United Group comes the dumping of a player bought in previous years with the same ostentation that took Silva and Balotelli to the north-west, Robinho was Abu Dhabi’s crash course in football’s celebrity economics.
Hoping to sign for Chelsea in the final hours of 2008’s deadline dash, he was presented by City as a “signal of our very real intent”, which, if true, meant that Sheikh Mansour – who attended his first game at Eastlands only a week ago – was “intent” on doling out £34.2m for people who rather would have joined Chelsea and whose indolence in some matches must have tempted the coaching staff to check him for a pulse.
Emmanuel Adebayor remains at City by default, because Roberto Mancini failed in his reported mission to snatch Fernando Torres from Liverpool (City deny they pursued the striker) and needs him as back up to Carlos Tevez. But the Adebayor-City love affair was painfully brief. Cumulatively he and Robinho cost City £54m in transfer fees alone and Mancini would surely have ditched Adebayor had there been a suitor willing or able to match his “personal terms”, aka exorbitant demands, a phrase that surfaced when Charles N’Zogbia’s agreed move from Wigan to Birmingham fell through.
Fully driven out of City were Craig Bellamy, exiled to Cardiff City, a full division below, and Stephen Ireland, an academy boy who left complaining about the smashing of City’s greenhouse. The club have pushed out figures showing a £4.5m spend on the first team’s Carrington training ground, £3.7m invested at the Platt Lane academy and an 80-acre land purchase at Openshaw West, where the whole operation will end up. The party line is City will one day function like Arsenal or United, buying top young talent (Boateng is a prime example) and cultivating their own.
This summer, though, a trawler net was thrown over players one tier down from household name. City also hired a 16-year-old winger from Swindon Town (Alex Henshall) and an 18-year-old called Albert, who turns out not to be from Moss Side. Albert Rusnak is a Slovakian signed from MFK Kosice.
Acknowledging the futility of fighting a dollar-war with the boyish Sheikh Mansour, Chelsea, Arsenal and United turned inwards, to youth, to potential, and hoped that scattergun extravagance would be City’s downfall.
Each made one big-ish buy to soothe the nerves of their own players and fans. Arsenal took Marouane Chamakh, Chelsea went for Ramires and United may have landed a peach in Javier Hernández. Under Roy Hodgson, Liverpool picked up Joe Cole, Christian Poulsen and Raul Meireles (for £11.5m) in a quest for the kind of value-for-money that eluded them with Aquilani.
Further down Aston Villa lost Milner, 12 months after Gareth Barry, Stoke City raised their game with Kenwyne Jones (£8m), Everton maintained their faith in lower-league talent (Jermaine Beckford) and Sunderland successfully chased Ghana’s Asamoah Gyan all the way to the chimes. This was the most exciting and exotic of the last-day moves.
Abroad, Zlatan Ibrahimovic’s move to Milan was another attempt to correct a blunder, by Barcelona, who bought more scientifically this time, with David Villa and Liverpool’s Javier Mascherano, while José Mourinho displayed a new taste for creativity when enticing Mesut Ozil to Real Madrid. Here in England consolidation beat conspicuous consumption, except at City, who bought into the myth of Robinho one summer, then bought their way out again two years later, not caring if anyone thought them decadent.
Tevez: It’s Hard To Carry On Playing
Carlos Tevez: Despondent
Argentina’s shock elimination from the World Cup still has Carlos Tevez in a flat spin.
The Manchester City and Argentina striker says he could quit soccer for good, if his passion for the game doesn’t return. Argentina were among the favourites to win the World Cup in South Africa, but were shocked 4-0 by Germany in the quarterfinals last month. The 26-year-old enjoyed a successful career with Boca Juniors and Corinthians, before making a lucrative move to Manchester City, but is now eager to retire and plans to return to Argentina within three years.
“It’s the hardest thing I’ve experienced in football,” Tevez told the Estudio Futbol programme on TyC Sports on Thursday. “And now, telling my family I want to give up football, is not easy.
“I have less and less will to carry on in Europe. I’ll be here two or three more years and then I’ll go back (home),” the Manchester City striker added. “I’ve got to see if I carry on playing… it’s difficult to quit now but if football doesn’t make me happy and doesn’t fulfil me as it used to, it’s hard to carry on playing.”
Tevez was speaking a day after Argentina beat Ireland 1-0 in a friendly in Dublin. It was their first game under interim coach Sergio Batista, but Tevez missed the match with flu.
“I find it hard to get that 4-0 out of my head,” Tevez added. “I was convinced (we would win)… I dreamt about the cup, getting back to Argentina with it, it’s all I thought about… (losing) hit me really badly.”
REUTERS
Top 10 Premiership Transfer Flops
Diego Forlan found life difficult at Old Trafford.
With the Premier League kicking off this weekend let’s take a look at the top 10 transfer flops – as voted by the football tranfer tavern website.
10. Marco Materazzi (Everton)
Serie A winner, Champions League winner, World Cup winner, Everton yard-dog. Materazzi signed for Everton from Perugia in 1998 and played just twenty-seven games, managing to get sent off four times.
9. Mario Jardel (Bolton Wanderers)
He came to Bolton Wanderers in 2003 at the age of thirty with an absolutely staggering goal scoring record behind him. For Vasco da Gama, Gremio, Porto, Galatasaray and Sporting Lisbon he scored two-hundred-and-sixty-two goals in two-hundred-and-ninety games. He played seven games for Bolton, looking like he’d never seen a football in his life.
8. Afonso Alves (Middlesbrough)
Having a goal scoring record in the Dutch league that betters those of Van Nistelrooy and Ronaldo meant Alves was expected to light up the Premiership. He didn’t, and also caused massive problems for national newspapers, who couldn’t contemplate that his name wasn’t ALfonso.
7. Massimo Taibi (Manchester United)
The first of three United flops on our list (there could have been plenty more). Signed for only £4.4m, it was the spectacularly hilarious that gets Taibi the number seven slot. Letting in that weak-as-piss shot from Le Tissier and blaming his studs for the gaffe. Then having five put past him as Chelsea beat United 5-0. Four games played then shipped back to Italy.
6. Tomas Brolin (Leeds United)
Having helped Parma win the Coppa Italia and qualify for Europe for the first time in their history, Brolin joined Leeds in 1995 with a good reputation. A number of injuries meant he arrived at Leeds unfit (i.e. a porker). He played just twenty games, scoring four goals before he was loaned out for the next two seasons then finally given the boot.
5. Diego Forlan (Manchester United)
Having come from South America with an exceptional record, no-one could have imagined the hilarity that Forlan would cause over the next two years. It took him eight months and twenty-seven games to score his first goal, and even that was a penalty. Seventeen goals in ninety five games was all Forlan could muster before being sold to Villarreal.
4. Fernando Morientes (Liverpool)
A quality striker who had never been given a real chance at Madrid, always being behind the superstars. Despite that, he scored seventy-two goals for Real, then helped Monaco reach the Champions League final whilst on loan there for the 2003/2004 season. Morientes, being first choice, was expected to finally prove himself a top-class forward at Liverpool. The form that saw him take Monaco to the European final had seemed to have disappeared over the summer. He scored an average of one goal every five games and was sold to Valencia after one season.
3. Robinho (Manchester City)
The Premiership’s most expensive man, £32.5m to be precise. Despite a good start to his City career, the second season was horrendous for him. Missing three months through injury and falling down the pecking order seemed to irk him. Anonymous for most the game, uninterested in tracking back and never going to get involved in a physical battle he ushered a move away from the club in January 2010. He is currently at Santos, where he’s made it clear he wishes to stay and be a big fish in a small pond.
2. Juan Sebastian Veron (Mancheter United)
£28m was paid by United to sign an exciting, classy, technically brilliant midfielder form Lazio in 2001. Sadly they got nothing of the sort. There’s no doubt Veron was a gifted footballer, but he didn’t suit the Premiership at all. Less time and space on the ball and a much more physical game meant Veron never really showed what he was all about. He was flogged to Chelsea in 2003, a year later they wanted rid of him.
1. Andriy Shevchenko (Chelsea)
Not quite as expensive as Robinho to City, but Shevchenko was probably the best out-and-out goalscorer on the planet at the time. Having won everything there was to win at AC Milan, he came to Chelsea for a new challenge (and plenty £££). While some foreign stars have always been questionable for their size or willingness to get stuck in, Shevchenko was as tough and mean as he was potent. Why it never worked for him is anyone’s guess. He scored just nine goals in forty-eight games over three years. Has there ever been such an exceptional player to disappoint the Premiership as much?
Courtesy of FootballTransferTavern.com
Hodgson Admits Torres Transfer Possibility
Liverpool manager Roy Hodgson's admission that Fernando Torres is unsettles at Liverpool could spark a bidding war between Chelsea and Manchester City.
Roy Hodgson says he has done all he can to keep Fernando Torres at Liverpool, admitting the Spaniard is in dispute with the club.
Hodgson replaced Rafa Benitez as Anfield manager last month, and believes if Torres leaves the damage will have been done before he arrived.
“Unfortunately, I cannot do much more,” Hodgson said. “His beef is with the club and not me.
“Fernando’s situation has nothing to do with me, he made that perfectly clear over the phone during the World Cup and when I met him face-to-face.
“He knows what I would like to do with the club. He knows how much I value him.
“But his issues are with what has gone on in the past rather than the future.
“If he has problems with the club for things in the past, it is difficult for me to dismiss that.”
Torres was part of Spain’s victorious World Cup squad, although he failed to score in South Africa and was dropped from the team.
He has scored 72 goals in 116 games over three injury-hit seasons for Liverpool.
Courtesy of Eurosport
Balotelli Set For City Switch
Inter Milan wunderkind Mario Balotelli is on the verge of a luctrative move to Manchester City.
Manchester City manager Roberto Mancini has reiterated his desire to sign Mario Balotelli, but does not expect a quick conclusion to the saga.
Balotelli, 19, appears certain to move to Eastlands ahead of reported interest from Manchester United for a reported fee of £24 million, rising to £29 million with add-ons. He will pen a five-year contract on wages of £65,000-a-week.
Gazzetta dello Sport has claimed that Balotelli held a goodbye party in Milan over the weekend before flying out to the United States with Inter for their pre-season tour on Sunday – where they will play Manchester City in Baltimore, which could be the striker’s debut in City colours.
Mancini confirmed that Balotelli is very much on his wanted list, but suggested that talk of a deal being concluded in the next couple of days was wide of the mark.
“There is money to sign everyone, but not to pay them a lot, as some people are saying,” he told La Stampa. “He (Balotelli) is one of the four or five strikers that interest us. I was the first to believe in him and I’m convinced about what he can do.
“Mario has two qualities that suit us, his talent and his age, because I want people able to build a cycle at Manchester City. But we come back to the problem of the valuation, which must be resolved. I think in about ten days certain situations will be clearer.”
Courtesy of soccernet
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