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According to AS this morning, rough translation, but it seems to me clear that Cook is frying bigger fish right now!:

http://www.as.com/futbol/articulo/city- ... ftb_13/Tes

Manchester City told Valencia yesterday that they had decided to postpone the meeting which their CE, Gary Cook, had requested with Valencia President Manuel Llorente, who confirmed that this papers report of yesterday was correct:"The report of AS is correct. City got in contact with us requesting a meeting, but have now told us they can't come and that they intend to do it later". At the same time the English club announced (to Valencia) that they were postponing the meeting until next week, and that the clear subject was David Silva.

City, who contacted Valencia only this very week, want to negotiate the transfer of Silva. Hence it was the man in charge of City deals, Cook, who said he was coming to Valencia for yesterday, confirmed Llorente. The fact that yesterday, in the end, he couldn't complete the planned visit doesn't mean that the English team have ended their interest in Silva, one of the key financial pieces in Valencia's economic survival, since his sale is clearly necessary toward settling Valencia's urgent debts (with other sales) as well as purchasing their desired striker targets Soldado and Aduriz.

So we are all waiting to see what movements City make in the next few days to know how far they are prepared to go to get Silva, a major player on their proposed list of reinforcements to raise the quality and place the English team among the Premier greats. Mancini's team finished last season 3 points off a CL place since they finished 5th.

Valencia still haven't heard from Madrid. Late last night the agency EFE published a report in which they said that the new Real manager, Morinho, had given the green light to get Silva and that the whites were already working on his signature. However contacts in Valencia hierarchy and the player's agents, 2 parties needed to produce a deal, dismissed the report printed.

El Manchester City anunció ayer al Valencia que decidía posponer la reunión que había solicitado su Director General, Garry Cook, con el presidente ché, Manuel Llorente, quien sí confirmó a este diario la información publicada ayer: "La noticia de AS era cierta, el City se puso en contacto con nosotros pidiendo un encuentro, pero nos han comunicado que no podían venir y que tienen intención de hacerlo más adelante". Al mismo tiempo, el club inglés anunció que pospone el viaje para la próxima semana, con un objetivo muy claro en el punto de mira: David Silva.

El City, que se puso en contacto con el Valencia esta misma semana, quiere negociar con la entidad ché el traspaso del de Arguineguín. De ahí que el máximo responsable en las gestiones del City, Cook, fuese el que anunciara su presencia en Valencia para la jornada de ayer, como confirmó Llorente. El hecho de que ayer, finalmente, no pudieran cumplir con el plan previsto no significa que el conjunto inglés haya desistido en su interés por llevarse a Silva, una de las piezas clave en la supervivencia económica del Valencia, pues su venta se antoja necesaria para que la entidad ché cuadre las cuentas antes del fin de ejercicio (unos ingresos de en torno a los 55 millones) y para que, además, se puedan acometer los fichajes de los dos delanteros deseados: Soldado y Aduriz.

Así, habrá que estar muy pendientes de los movimientos que haga el Manchester City en los próximos días para saber hasta qué punto está dispuesto a llevarse a un Silva, que es el mejor colocado en la lista de los refuerzos que se quieren incorporar para dar un salto de calidad y colocar al cuadro inglés entre los grandes de la Premier. No en vano, el conjunto que dirige Roberto Mancini se ha quedado en la última temporada a tres puntos de los puestos que dan pie a jugar la Champions, pues acabó quinto.

En el club ché siguen sin saber nada del Real Madrid
A última hora de la tarde de ayer, la agencia EFE publicó una información en la que se afirmaba que el nuevo técnico del Real Madrid, José Mourinho, había dado el visto bueno a la incorporación de Silva y que el club blanco ya trabajaba en su fichaje. Sin embargo, puestos en contacto con la cúpula del Valencia y los agentes del jugador, estas dos partes necesarias para que se produzca una negociación desmintieron la información aparecida.

Further to the AS story above Sport.es is now carrying a story:

http://www.sport.es/default.asp?idpubli ... cio_PK=803

to the effect that:

The 2 Manchester City representatives who on Weds were in Madrid discussing Higuain, Van der Vaart and Gago, are now travelling to meet Barca to discover their intentions/the situation regarding Ibrahimovic and Yaya Toure (meeting Txiki Begiristain), after which they will travel to Valencia, which links in with the story above.

It says they are on a tour to ''search the Spanish market".

Things really have started to hot up, come City

Well it only took 14 minutes for someone to copy these stories, without any thanks, and post on BM as his own work.

No shame some people! How rude.

guardian says city have rubbished reports about gago and higuain. looks like something is happening but clearly no one knows what

This is getting pretty murderous now isn't it? Worse every window.

I heard we were after Zidane and Figo, true story.

Slim wrote:I heard we were after Zidane and Figo, true story.

What were you doing over on the Dark Side just now anyway??

john@staustell wrote:

Slim wrote:I heard we were after Zidane and Figo, true story.

What were you doing over on the Dark Side just now anyway??

You sent me there, MOURINHO, who the fuck is MORINHO?

Slim wrote:

john@staustell wrote:

Slim wrote:I heard we were after Zidane and Figo, true story.

What were you doing over on the Dark Side just now anyway??

You sent me there, MOURINHO, who the fuck is MORINHO?

Allowed 1 mistake per story! Only went there to see if I could steal a story being very bored at the end of a long night shift, only to find that cunt lifted mine lock, stock and barrel.

i wish i could beleive what papers said, silva and higuain are awesome

I don't understand that. If we really want to sign a player from Valencia, why can't someone meet them? I can only take it to mean that we've already tied up a deal with them for a player & Cook is just going to finalise it or we're not really that interested in their player & Cook was just going for a general chat.

Otherwise someone else could just stroll in & sign the player. Unless it's already a done deal, it doesn't give the Valencia player the impression we're desperately keen to sign him either.

Ted Hughes wrote:I don't understand that. If we really want to sign a player from Valencia, why can't someone meet them? I can only take it to mean that we've already tied up a deal with them for a player & Cook is just going to finalise it or we're not really that interested in their player & Cook was just going for a general chat.

Otherwise someone else could just stroll in & sign the player. Unless it's already a done deal, it doesn't give the Valencia player the impression we're desperately keen to sign him either.

strange way of doing business, id imagine most deals arent done face to face over chats, to be honest i dont think anyone knows whats going on, they know were in spain looking at a player so if they link us with all them one of them 1 is bound to stick and they can then claim to be ITK

None of the leaks about who we are meeting have come from City, hence why the ITKs are full of bull. It's Valencia who announced this and, according to the Guardian report, Wolfsburg who leaked that we'd been discussing Dzeko.

It's in the interest of the selling club to make sure that others know they need to make a move. If we're serious about someone, there's no point in letting anyone know what we're up to.

I'm not convinced that Silva would come to England, let alone to us and there are reports that Mourinho wants him, so this could be Valencia pushing the price up and hurrying Madrid, since Valencia are desperate for cash. The mystery is why we'd arrange to meet Valencia and then put it off? Complete guess, but maybe we're not really interested in Silva, as we don't believe he'd come. However, if Madrid and Valencia think we're interested, it's going to push the price up as we both bid for him. If we agreed to stay away from Silva, maybe Madrid would be more willing to listen to reason on Gago etc and not want the stupid prices they've been quoting. If they stick with the £10m over the top on Gago, we just push Silva's price up by £10m, so they're no better off and they strengthen a direct competitor more than they have to.

Could be conspiracy theory, but I think with all the meetings going on since last summer, we've learned a lot of lessons about how the top transfers happen. We can't compete with Madrid or Barca, as they are the few clubs who most players would want to go to - even the rags couldn't resist over tranny. What we can do is force them to pay really silly prices if they don't play ball. Let them have their top target, as long as they let us have the next one e.g. a Dzeko or one of their players e.g. Gago or Yaya. That drops us into a bracket of competition with the likes of Bayern or AC, and in that company, our financial muscle can really pay off, as they don't have the romantic lure or Real and Barca.

Ted Hughes wrote:I don't understand that. If we really want to sign a player from Valencia, why can't someone meet them? I can only take it to mean that we've already tied up a deal with them for a player & Cook is just going to finalise it or we're not really that interested in their player & Cook was just going for a general chat.

Otherwise someone else could just stroll in & sign the player. Unless it's already a done deal, it doesn't give the Valencia player the impression we're desperately keen to sign him either.

Obviously we want our best man on the job and right now he is tied up with Real Madrid. Positive news out of this is we can expect the Real Madrid signings to be successful or not by next week.

Dubciteh wrote:

Ted Hughes wrote:I don't understand that. If we really want to sign a player from Valencia, why can't someone meet them? I can only take it to mean that we've already tied up a deal with them for a player & Cook is just going to finalise it or we're not really that interested in their player & Cook was just going for a general chat.

Otherwise someone else could just stroll in & sign the player. Unless it's already a done deal, it doesn't give the Valencia player the impression we're desperately keen to sign him either.

strange way of doing business, id imagine most deals arent done face to face over chats, to be honest i dont think anyone knows whats going on, they know were in spain looking at a player so if they link us with all them one of them 1 is bound to stick and they can then claim to be ITK

Cookie's bottled it! Cookie out.

cheers

if cook gets silva, higuain and toure i'll never say a bad word about the bloke again.

I'd be over the moon if we signed Silva. While we're in Valencia, why not take Mata as well?

Blue Since 76 wrote:None of the leaks about who we are meeting have come from City, hence why the ITKs are full of bull. It's Valencia who announced this and, according to the Guardian report, Wolfsburg who leaked that we'd been discussing Dzeko.

It's in the interest of the selling club to make sure that others know they need to make a move. If we're serious about someone, there's no point in letting anyone know what we're up to.

I'm not convinced that Silva would come to England, let alone to us and there are reports that Mourinho wants him, so this could be Valencia pushing the price up and hurrying Madrid, since Valencia are desperate for cash. The mystery is why we'd arrange to meet Valencia and then put it off? Complete guess, but maybe we're not really interested in Silva, as we don't believe he'd come. However, if Madrid and Valencia think we're interested, it's going to push the price up as we both bid for him. If we agreed to stay away from Silva, maybe Madrid would be more willing to listen to reason on Gago etc and not want the stupid prices they've been quoting. If they stick with the £10m over the top on Gago, we just push Silva's price up by £10m, so they're no better off and they strengthen a direct competitor more than they have to.

Could be conspiracy theory, but I think with all the meetings going on since last summer, we've learned a lot of lessons about how the top transfers happen. We can't compete with Madrid or Barca, as they are the few clubs who most players would want to go to - even the rags couldn't resist over tranny. What we can do is force them to pay really silly prices if they don't play ball. Let them have their top target, as long as they let us have the next one e.g. a Dzeko or one of their players e.g. Gago or Yaya. That drops us into a bracket of competition with the likes of Bayern or AC, and in that company, our financial muscle can really pay off, as they don't have the romantic lure or Real and Barca.

reading between the lines on all the shenanegins, i think since76 has some good points here.
The fact is that while certainly not exclusive, City are one of the key players in the transfer market.. partly becuase like a mortgage chain, we are more akin to buyer who are currently renting and can therefore move straight away without waiting on their own sale.. that together with the level of cash we are talking about makes us one of the clubs who start the whole merry-go-round in motion. In addition you have this pecking order thing, which as since76 points out is likely to be headed up by Madrid ( this season ). So it makes a lot of sense that Cook goes to Madrid first and finds out first hand what their thinking is, and relates ours.. then to the next important buyers and shakers Barca and so on. The whole thing is a kind of complicated game from City's point of view.. but one where other big players who need to sell to buy, need City to spark it all off. Our play i imagine is to get what we want out of that whilst being the catalyst for all the action to happen.
Madrid and what they want may be one plan to pursue. Barca and what they want may be another separate plan we identified to follow.
I can imagine some serious fun and games yet to develop though, but when it all starts it will be fairly hectic i rekon.

i'm going with us following the Madrid thread.. but that is mainly cos i dont want city to go anywhere near Ibra or Yaya.

BS76 and BBS, you make some good points, but could it simply be that Madrid got word of our impending meeting (Valencia hoping to push the price up) and requested us to visit them first so they and we didn't get into a bidding war? They offer us players that we need, they don't pay massively for Silva. Eveyones happy, apart from Valencia.