OFFICIAL SITE BOLLOX
Even before a ball has been kicked in the new Premier League season, media predicitons struggle to see past Manchester as the destination for this season’s trophy.
Roberto Mancini and Sir Alex Ferguson have kick-started the inevitable mind games by installing each other’s team as favourites for the title.
The City manager has been speaking about the challenge the Blues face this season after United bolstered their forward line with Robin Van Persie, telling The BBC,
"We won the league in the last three minutes, but we won because we deserved to.
"We have a stronger mentality, but we will have to work harder because United have signed Kagawa and Van Persie. United have played for the title every year for the last 20 years. I said this [about United being favourites] seriously."
Alex thinks that City are the main threat to United's bid to regain the league title as he told The Guardian,
"Chelsea have won the European Cup, a trophy [Roman] Abramovich has been after.
"He's excited, loosening the purse strings and [he's] signed a few players. I'm certain they'll be challenging, but I look at Manchester City as our biggest threat. If you ask me who I think will be our biggest threat I would say City, without question."
Daniel Taylor in The Guardian agrees that United are in a stronger position than last year but reminds us that City have more than a few striking options saying,
"Mancini has some prolific forwards of his own, particularly now Carlos Tevez appears to have realised that being a £250,000-a-week footballer is not such a bad life.
"Sergio Agüero, with 30 goals in his first season, should be even better and Mario Balotelli has encouraged the sense that we might finally see a serious, grown-up footballer after staying out of trouble this summer."
The Mirror’s Simon Mullock argues that City have the stronger squad for the new season saying, “City are better than they were this time last year despite having virtually the same squad of players.”
Mullock goes on to say,
"There was something ominous about City when they beat Chelsea at Villa Park last week that should worry Sir Alex Ferguson, Roberto Di Matteo and the rest.
"They played with a strut and a swagger that only comes when you know you are the best team in the country.
"They had the arrogance of champions.
"Their 3-2 victory flattered Chelsea. Even before Branislav Ivanovic's red card, the European champions were chasing shadows."
The Guardian reports that Micah Richards and Gareth Barry will be unavailable for Sunday’s opener against Southampton and that Joe Hart is due to face a late fitness test.
Mark Ogden in The Telegraph predicts a comfortable win for the Blues on Sunday against the Premier League new boys, perhaps forgetting how well previous newly promoted sides have risen to the challenge.
Roberto Mancini: Manchester United favourites for title
Manchester City manager Roberto Mancini says neighbours United are favourites to win the Premier League - because they have two of the best strikers.
The Red Devils have bought Robin van Persie from Arsenal for £24m and will pair him up front with Wayne Rooney.
"Van Persie was the best striker last year," Mancini said. "With Rooney they will have one of the best couple of strikers in the Premier League.
"I was serious last week when I said Manchester United were the favourites."
City won the title in thrilling fashion on the final day of last season - scoring twice in stoppage time against QPR to beat United to the trophy on goal difference.
It was the first time they had won the league title for 44 years, in contrast to the 11 times United have won the trophy since the Premier League's inception in 1992.
And Mancini believes that history and experience gives Sir Alex Ferguson's side the edge.
"They have been playing for the title every year for 20 years," he said. "We can't change this situation in one year.
"Any team that bought Van Persie would be better. I felt he was going to stay at Arsenal or sign for another team, but not us.
"We already have four strikers. It was impossible for us to sign another one."
Play mediaBosses ready for Premier League return
City will open their defence against newly promoted Southampton at the Etihad on Sunday, but they will be missing Micah Richards, who is expected to be sidelined for another month with an ankle injury sustained while on Olympic duty.
Gareth Barry remains troubled by an abdominal problem, but goalkeeper Joe Hart could be fit after missing both the Community Shield and England's midweek win over Italy with a back problem.
Off the pitch, the Blues have appointed former Barcelona general manager Ferran Soriano as their new chief executive.
Soriano fills the vacancy created by the departure of Garry Cook last season and takes up his position on 1 September.
"The process of finding a chief executive officer has been deliberate, far-reaching and exhaustive," said City chairman Khaldoon Al Mubarak
"His experience in football and in the wider commercial world make him exceptionally well equipped to lead Manchester City through its continued evolution."
Manchester City 'accidentally tried to sign Lionel Messi'
As they prepare to join battle with their arch foes once again, we learn this weekend that Manchester City's roller-coaster ride of the past few years has been even dippier than previously realised. The evidence emerges in the story, told in a new history of the club on sale from today, of how, four years ago, City tried to sign Lionel Messi from Barcelona by mistake.
Garry Cook – the chief executive who was integral to the club's extraordinary new ascent – has related to the book's author, Gary James, how, in the febrile period in 2008 when Abu Dhabi was scrambling to pull in a big, keynote signing to mark its takeover, someone said: "It's all getting messy?" Yes, you've guessed it. Someone really did interpret this as "Get Messi," prompting a £30m offer to Barcelona which was summarily rejected.
Yet it is a different kind of madness which provides the most significant theme to James's exhaustive and timely study of the club: that obsessive and ultimately destructive desire to drive Manchester United into the dust, which has possessed City for so long. James believes last May's stunning title denouement has put that fixation to bed and that the club he has chronicled so meticulously wants to beat the best now, whoever that may be.
The two were back at it again yesterday, though – Sir Alex Ferguson tanned and beaming as he took his first Premier League press conference seat of the season, with Robin van Persie settled into the one to his right at Old Trafford.
As ripostes to a title dethroning go, this was a ceremony Danny Boyle could not have fixed. It left Roberto Mancini, a frustrated soul this summer until £15m Jack Rodwell arrived, stuck with the same one-liner that he trotted out precisely a year ago: that United with Van Persie are "five yards ahead" of City. The Italian managed not to grit his teeth when declaring that Ferguson is now in possession of the best strike force in the world. Ferguson, invoking the memory of Eric Cantona and clearly seeing Van Persie as a player who will help more junior players to grow, was the one with all the zip.
The evidence of a summer of fine writing on City – James's exhaustive history Manchester –the City Years was preceded by David Conn's part-study/part-memoir Richer than God – is that City are the ones who have been driven down by their obsession with United. The one season of purgatory Denis Law inflicted on his old club with the back-heel which helped relegate them in 1974 was nothing compared with what Peter Swales, chairman and comb-over king, caused by lavishing a fortune on his hopeless desire to destroy the neighbours.
The calamity was compounded by the fact that City were reigning European Cup Winners' Cup holders, no less, when the fateful takeover led by a double glazing tycoon from Oldham and a soap manufacturing magnate in November 1970 paved the way for Swales acquiring power. "Premature End" is James's chapter heading for this period.
"I dimly remember Scales promising that Maine Road would become as grand an arena as Old Trafford? and City would be the top club in Manchester," writes Conn. "For 30 years fans have cursed what he did next to achieve that destiny."
Cook features substantially in James's narrative, which reveals how City's attempts to keep his appointment below the radar meant that he actually watched United before witnessing the side he had arrived in Britain to work for. Ferguson's title-winning victory at Wigan Athletic in May 2008 provided his initiation, rather than City's 8-1 defeat at Middlesbrough under Sven Goran Eriksson on the same day. "I said, 'I guess it can't get any worse than this'," Cook told James. Well it did, actually.
When Cook walked into his new club with Mark Hughes, the newly appointed manager, the two were greeted with a "Save Sven" petition, pinned to the wall. "Mark Hughes said: 'This is what we've got! What a welcome!'" Cook related to James.
Cook, the former Nike Brand Jordan president, who left the club last September, became synonymous with the old Swalesian manic desire to surpass United. But James correctly jettisons that assumption in a book which is full of the madness of recent years – Thaksin Shinawatra being jetted in to buy the club in a Harrods helicopter, which everyone seemed to miss; Hughes and academy head Jim Cassell blithely playing golf at the Worsley Marriott while the Abu Dhabis tried to gazump Ferguson for Dimitar Berbatov – yet which also charts Cook's pivotal role in persuading the Abu Dhabis to buy the club and change the course of its history.
Cook's presentation to the Arabs before a home game with West Ham United was significant. "The final thing we talked about is where we could go," Cook related. "Nobody had taken their football club and turned it into a brand, other than Man United, but that's a bit different?" United. It's always about United.
It is a story about the two of them once again, today, as we embark on another of these crazy nine-month journeys – even though Chelsea, with Eden Hazard and Oscar, have invested vastly to shatter the duopoly and equip Roberto Di Matteo to make a better fight of it.
There is more uncertainty about the season ahead than there has been for years because no fewer than six new managers – seven if you count Di Matteo's elevation from caretaker coach to the hotseat – are scattered among the 20 Premier League clubs. Andre Villas-Boas, trying to manage change in north London in a way which alienates fewer players than he did at Chelsea, represents a substantive gamble on Tottenham chairman Daniel Levy's part that will require time to pay a dividend. It is hard to move beyond the realms of a predictably pessimistic assessment of how Arsenal, with Jack Wilshere sidelined and Alex Song probably moving on, will advance, despite the new talents of Lukas Podolski, Santi Cazorla and Olivier Giroud.
Liverpool offer the most fascinating and unpredictable story of all, based on whether Brendan Rodgers, incredibly impressive to observe, really can rebuild a new club based on its old principals – though even he has acknowledged this summer that it may be a three-year job. It will perhaps be a long game. Beyond that, there is a more positive feel about Aston Villa at long last, under Paul Lambert, and Sunderland may be the season's story waiting to explode with Martin O'Neill.
But it all really comes back to Manchester, a city entranced yesterday by Van Persie, whose arrival suggests that Ferguson is now an old man in a hurry, knowing he cannot wait for his prophecies about youth to win back Mancunian supremacy. Since Henning Berg and Teddy Sheringham's arrival in 1997, United have counted only Dimitar Berbatov among outfield players over the age of 27 for whom they had paid more than £3m. Though Rodwell, presented by City three hours before United paraded Van Persie, provides the creativity from the centre of midfield that was especially missing in a poor Champions League campaign – and which United lack – Ferguson has Nemanja Vidic back from injury, Tom Cleverley ready to fulfil his promise and Shinji Kagawa, a player with the range to set the league alight if he can make the transition from the Bundesliga that others have struggled with.
"I feel that by achieving what City achieved last season, this season starts with more of a level playing field than for years," James said. "City had never quite delivered until the title was claimed. Now the obsessions about United can be forgotten." But no one will be forgetting Ferguson. Before a ball has been kicked he, the new noisy neighbour, is making sure of that.
OTHER BOLLOX
Zenit St Petersburg have launched a bid for Manchester United winger Nani, 25. Daily Mail
West Ham are ready to try to steal in ahead of Liverpool and Arsenal to sign Fulham striker Clint Dempsey, 29. Metro
Meanwhile, the Craven Cottage club have rejected a "very low" bid from Manchester United for midfielder Moussa Dembele, 25 talkShit
Toulouse defender Cheikh M'Bengue, 24, has revealed he is wanted by Arsenal. Daily Star
Stoke have joined Everton in the hunt for Liverpool midfielder Charlie Adam, 26. Daily Mail
Everton will loan midfielder Ross Barkley, 18, to Championship side Sheffield Wednesday so he can gain first-team experience. Daily Mirror
Blackburn have increased their offer for Huddersfield striker Jordan Rhodes, 22. Lancashire Telegraph
Striker Kevin Mirallas, 24, will have a medical at Everton this weekend before completing a £5.3m move from Olympiacos. Liverpool Echo
Theo Walcott has still not signed a new Arsenal contract, sparking fears he could follow Robin van Persie out of the door. the Sun
West Ham manager Sam Allardyce is considering making a fourth bid for Wolves winger Matt Jarvis. Daily Telegraph
Wigan striker Conor Sammon is on his way to Derby for £1.2m. Daily Mirror
Stoke manager Tony Pulis says he may have to sell two strikers in order to clinch the signing of Michael Owen on a free. Daily Express
Bologna have ruled out winger Gaston Ramirez moving to Southampton for £11.8m, saying it will take £16m to prise him away. the Times
New Chelsea signing Oscar insists he feels no pressure at Stamford Bridge - because he has already worn the Brazil number 10 shirt. the Sun
Alex Ferguson admits he has become exasperated by his Manchester United players' use of Twitter after Rio Ferdinand was fined £45,000 by the FA. Daily Telegraph
Retired Bolton midfielder Fabrice Muamba will make a success of his future career - whatever direction he takes - according to captain Kevin Davies. Bolton News
Celtic keeper Fraser Forster aims to force his way into the England squad by impressing in the Champions League. Daily Record
Former Newcastle player and manager Kevin Keegan has hailed the man he believes is the Magpies' best signing of the summer - chief scout Graham Carr. Newcastle Chronicle
Former trainee chef Ben Foster reckons he has found the recipe for success at West Brom - by designing the kitchen in his purpose-built new home. Express and Star
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