West Ham United are chasing Manchester City fullback Wayne Bridge.
The London Evening Standard says the Hammers have made a renewed offer to sign former England left-back Bridge on loan from Manchester City.
The Upton Park club, bottom of the Premier League, are in negotiations with City to take Bridge but must cover his wages of £90,000 a week at City.
West Ham were willing to pay £100,000 a week to another City star, Emmanuel Adebayor, but the striker decided against a loan move to stay at Eastlands and fight for his place.
Juventus plot audacious swoop for Manchester City left-back Aleksandar Kolarov
Kolarov Juventus FC Torino are said to be planning an audacious swoop for Manchester City left-back Aleksandar Kolarov .
According to tuttojuve.com the Turin club are eying loan move for the Serb with an option to buy him at the end of the season.
Juventus wanted the 25-year-old in the summer but he joined Manchester City from Lazio for some £16 million.
Kolarov has had a difficult start to his Manchester City career after an early injury restricted his appearances for the Eastlands outfit.
But he has recently returned to action, and it would be major surprise were Manchester City manager Roberto Mancini to sanction a move.
Manchester City negotiate with Bordeaux over midfielder Alou Diarra
Manchester City are in talks with Girondins Bordeaux over 29-year-old defensive midfielder Alou Diarra , according to French sources.
Diarra, is a tough and experienced midfielder who has won 29 caps for France and played over 100 times for Bordeaux.
Manchester City boss Roberto Mancini will reportedly be handed a £50-million January transfer kitty.
A striker is said to be top of Mancini's wish list, but he is also looking for reinforcements in various other positions to assist his title assault.
TOON FEAR MAN CITY BACKLASH
Newcastle boss Alan Pardew has warned his players to beware a Manchester City backlash tomorrow as they attempt to continue his winning start.
The Magpies head into the Boxing Day clash with Roberto Mancini’s expensively-assembled all-star side on the back of a creditable 3-1 Barclays Premier League victory over Liverpool in the new manager’s first game at the helm.
His hopes of building upon that last Saturday were dashed by the weather when their fixture at Birmingham was called off, and although their efforts to prepare for Sunday’s game have been disrupted by frozen training pitches on Tyneside, they will run out against City confident they can emerge with some reward.
However, Pardew believes City’s shock 2-1 home defeat by Everton on Monday evening, which denied them the chance to go top, has simply increased the degree of difficulty.
He said: “That hasn’t really done us any favours because they will be hurting in that dressing room and in that group, and they will bring that to Newcastle to try to put it right after what happened on Monday night.
“It’s perhaps a tougher game for us with that mentality, so we need to make sure we are just as strong.
“I don’t think they started well on Monday and I think they will focus on that for us, and I am sure they will start better.
“But they have got some very, very good players in all areas and they can affect it from the bench as well, so obviously, it is a really, really tough game, but one we are looking forward to.
“It’s one of the big four, five, six clubs in the country now coming to our place, and that’s where we want to be, so we will put ourselves up against them and see how we get on.
“But we are catching them on the back of a defeat, which makes them like a wounded animal, so I am sure it’s going to be a really, really tough game for us and we must do what Everton did, put our bodies on the line and give full, maximum effort to try to secure a win.”
City will arrive in the north-east with Mancini having left striker Mario Balotelli in little doubt as to what is required of him, but with Carlos Tevez back on board after his remarkable stand-off with the club was resolved.
Pardew knows the Argentinian well from their time together at West Ham, and he believes that can only be good news for his latest employers.
He said: “It will help them because Carlos is a player who you can’t help but like.
“As a player when I had him at West Ham, he gives everything for the team when he plays and players love that.
“He’s a good person around the dressing room. There was obviously an issue they needed to resolve and they have obviously resolved it, so that’s really good news for Manchester City.”
Victory over Liverpool left Newcastle in eighth place on 22 points with 17 games played, and a further six victories from their remaining 21 fixtures would take them to the 40-point mark which usually signifies top-flight safety.
However, Pardew is not yet looking towards the finishing line as he plots the way forward.
He said: “The focus for us has to be the next game because it’s so, so important that you can’t let it slip at this level.
“Our next game is Manchester City and we will look forward to giving them a really good resounding test.”
Tevez meets his match in Man City's owners
LONDON — And the prize for the climbdown of 2010 goes to . . . Carlos Tevez, who has been left eating so much humble pie he will need to diet.
The Manchester City captain slapped in a transfer request two weeks ago, citing irreconcilable differences with two executives, one of whom was chief executive Gary Cook. After a meeting with City chairman Kaldoon AlMubarek and Cook, Tevez withdrew his request and pledged his total commitment to the club.
Why the turnaround? How were Tevez's irreconcilable differences miraculously sorted out in an hour or so? Easy. The Argentina international was told he was going nowhere, and if he carried out his alleged threat to retire, City would sue him for the remainder of his contract.
It was a welcome and crushing blow to player power and while congratulating a club that so ruthlessly sacked Mark Hughes a year ago does not always come easily, on this occasion football should be united in giving a collective high-five to Mubarak.
Tevez, who finds new reasons to want to leave clubs, has met his match with the Abu Dhabi-based City owners even though, for reasons best known to himself, manager Roberto Mancini won the battle to keep the striker as captain.
A year ago, City had 32 points after 18 games which wasn't good enough to save Hughes from a coldblooded sacking. After 18 matches this season City also has 32 points having spent £120 million on new recruits but Mancini is safe (as safe as any manager can be in these mad times on planet football) because the Italian is the owners' appointment. City is only two points behind leader Manchester United and the title is still a reality.
Mancini's problems are as much off the pitch. He has a dressing room overflowing with millionaire egos and must heave a sigh of relief when a day goes by without some sort of intersquad row or training spat.
How do you handle a player like Mario Balotelli who, when accepting the Golden Boy trophy for players under 21, claimed only Lionel Messi is a better player. Yes, the same Balotelli who was shown the door by Inter Milan and who has two goals in seven Premier League games? The sad thing is Balotelli, who presumably rates Xavi and Andres Iniesta plus Cristiano Ronaldo below him, means it.
WAG BOLLOX
The year 2010 has been a great one in world football.
It has been the year of Spain finally achieving World Cup glory in South Africa. It has been the year of perhaps the biggest USA goal since 1950. It has been the year of Messi, of Ronaldo, of Iniesta. It has been the year of Inter Milan once again capturing Champions League glory.
But, perhaps, most of all, 2010 has been the year of the WAG.
From British cheating scandals involving some of the nation's top players to Sara Carbonero to Larissa Riquelme, soccer players' wives and girlfriends have been the topics of stories from all walks of media, from the tabloids to Sports Illustrated.
OTHER BOLLOX
Liverpool offer Inter Milan Ryan Babel and Dirk Kuyt for Davide Santo
Davide Santon Related LinksCompetitionsPremier LeagueSerie A TeamsArsenal FCChelsea FCLiverpool FCTottenham HotspurInter Liverpool are in talks with Inter Milan over young right back Davide Santon .
And according to itasportpress, after an initial €10 million bid was rejected by Inter, Liverpool have now offered to throw in Ryan Babel and Dirk Kuyt as part of the deal.
19-year-old Santon is a multi-skilled full-back, who can also play on both flanks or in central midfield. Santon, who has also been linked with Tottenham, Arsenal and Chelsea, is contracted to Inter Milan until 2014.
West Ham manager Avram Grant insists there is no way he would allow Scott Parker to leave the relegation-threatened club in the January transfer window.
Grant admits the rock-bottom Hammers are likely to be busy in the transfer market as he fights to save his job and West Ham attempt to claw their way to Premier League safety.
But while he is looking to bring in several reinforcements, Parker, who has been linked with a possible move to Tottenham, will be going nowhere.
Tottenham boss Harry Redknapp admits Robbie Keane would like a transfer.
Keane's future now looks certain to be away from Spurs after Redknapp admitted the Republic of Ireland hitman is growing tired of his lack of first-team football.
Keane, who was loaned to Celtic last year, has been linked with a move to West Ham, Aston Villa or Birmingham, but Redknapp denies there has been any interest in the 30-year-old yet.
In Addition to the EPL Moving to a Summer Schedule, More Changes Await
Following the approval of Arsène Wenger's request to move the English Premier League to a summer schedule, the Football Association saw this as an excellent opportunity to look at any possible flaws with the EPL.
Instead of a 2011-12 EPL season next August, the season will not begin until the third week of February and will continue until early November. Even though the regular season is expected to end, the top eight clubs will make it to the 2012 EPL playoffs, a new, exciting way to boost television contracts and determine who the true league champion is.
"We've seen how successful it has been in the MLS," FA Chairmen David Bernstein said. "Not only in terms of crowds of nearly 12-14,000 in the Cup Finals [like last year], but also the television ratings are astounding, unprecedented figures".
Last year's MLS Cup Final between FC Dallas and Colorado Rapids drew a network rating of 0.4, with nearly one million Americans.
Another issue that the FA discussed is trying to emphasize their rivalries better, and trying to create rivalries between teams, something that has been lagging in the EPL for many years. According to Bernstein, the FA decided that the solution would be to install conferences into the Premiership, which is thought to be a "slam dunk" for fans eager to cut down other fans.
"The only way to truly emphasize rivalries is to have these conferences, and it's something our fellow friends across the pond have used and prided themselves on," Bernstein said. "I mean, doesn't it sound more like a rivalry if Everton and Liverpool play each other six, maybe seven, times a season rather than twice? I think not!"
Clubs for the 2012 season will be divided equally into two conferences, 10 clubs in the Northern Conference and 10 in the Southern Conference. To ignite playoff madness, the top two clubs in each conference will earn automatic playoff spots, while the remaining spots will be given via "wild-cards."
In order to not confuse the casual British fans, the Premier League will likely use a best-two-out-of-three system, rather than aggregate, as well as make the semifinal fixtures only one match. These semifinal fixtures will not be referenced as the semifinals, though; rather the "Northern" and "Southern" Conference Finals, where the winner will be given a shiny trophy for their efforts.
The EPL Cup will likely be played at a neutral venue, with sites such as Wembley under consideration.
This doesn't mean that the regular season winners will not receive any incentive.
"Absolutely not," Bernstein added. "They will win the EPL Shield. With it, we can keep the handful of hardcore fans satisfied."
The FA is likely to give the EPL Shield winners a direct Group Stage spot in the UEFA Champions League.
Additionally, amidst all the excitement already emanating from the regular season overhaul, the FA will look into adding a draft for 2013, simulating closed-franchises, and moving away from the FIFA calendar.
More Bollox later ...
