Frustrated Carlos Tevez is set to come in from the cold in Manchester City’s next match.
The Blues face Wigan at the Etihad Stadium on September 10 – and Tevez is pencilled in for his first start of the season.
He has been sidelined by both club and country, with Sergio Aguero replacing him in both teams, and the red-hot form of Edin Dzeko also squeezing him out at Eastlands.
But Tevez’s chop from the Argentina squad means he is now favourite to step back in for the Blues, unless someone launches a late bid before the transfer window closes tomorrow.
Of City’s first-team squad, only Tevez, Gael Clichy and the injured Nigel de Jong are not on international duty this week.
Aguero faces a long-haul trip to India and Bangladesh for Argentina’s exhibition matches against Venezuela and Nigeria – and that will be key in Roberto Mancini’s thinking, as the latter match takes place just three days before the Wigan clash.
That match begins a hectic period of seven games in the space of three weeks, including Champions League clashes with Napoli – just four days after Wigan – and Bayern Munich.
Mancini has also said Tevez, the last player to return to pre-season training, will be back to 100 per cent by next week.
Aguero has revealed that Tevez has found it tough being dropped by City and Argentina, but backed him to come back strongly.
“We have spent a lot of time together and we talk about everything, and I know he is a little bit frustrated,” said Aguero.
“As we all know, it’s up to the coach to decide who plays, and who doesn’t. I am sure we will both have our chances here at City and with Argentina. I hope he stays and we play many games together, but it’s up to Roberto Mancini to make that decision.”
Man City striker Roque Santa Cruz joins Real Betis on loan
Roque Santa Cruz has joined Spanish side Real Betis on a season-long loan. Santa Cruz has not scored a club goal since March 2010 Manchester City striker
The recently-promoted Primera Liga side announced the deal for the 30-year-old on their official website.
The Paraguay international spent the second half of last season on loan at his former club Blackburn after falling down the pecking order under the management of Roberto Mancini.
Santa Cruz joined City from Rovers in the summer of 2009.
He was signed for City by his former Rovers boss Mark Hughes, but struggled with injury early in his City career, and did not score his first league goals for the club until December 2009 in the 4-3 win over Sunderland, which proved to be Hughes's last game in charge.
His appearances under Mancini have been restricted and, in total, he has started only eight games for City in his two years at Etihad Stadium, scoring four goals.
He failed to rediscover his form when he returned to Ewood Park last season and did not score in 10 appearances for Rovers.
Santa Cruz, who has won 87 international caps, was part of the squad which reached the Copa America final this summer, but missed the defeat by Uruguay in the final because of injury.
Manchester City have also reached an agreement to loan Slovakian winger Vladimir Weiss to Spanish side Espanyol for the rest of the season.
Manchester City taken to a whole new level with Sheikh Mansour's £1 billion investment
Sheikh Mansour bin Zayed al Nahyan approaches his third anniversary as Manchester City owner on Thursday having become the first £1 billion fantasy football manager following the £23 million purchase of Samir Nasri from Arsenal.
Three years after the regime of previous owner Thaksin Shinawatra almost plunged City into financial meltdown, with the club desperately attempting to fund the £6.45 million signing of Argentine full-back Pablo Zabaleta before the 2008 summer transfer window closed, the transformation of Manchester City is now almost complete – at the cost of £915,000 a day.
Having spent £210 million to acquire Thaksin’s stake, plus a transfer outlay taken to £433 million with Nasri’s arrival last week and an aggregate wage bill of £360 million, Sheikh Mansour’s bank account has now had £1.003 billion of its funds directed towards his football team since Sept 1, 2008.
“It was a fantastic day,” recalls Bernard Halford, club secretary at the time of the takeover. “We signed Robinho at the last minute and I remember having to get the forms done at ten to midnight, with all the fans outside, driving around the stadium peeping their horns and singing.
“It was 1.30am before we got finished, but it was a fantastic day and a marker in the sand from the sheikh about what he was going to do with the club.
“It was as though it had been really cloudy and, just like that, the clouds are blown away and it’s a clear blue sky with something big coming up on the horizon.”
From celebrating qualification for the group stages of the Uefa Cup following a penalty shoot-out victory against FC Midtjylland just days before the sheikh’s arrival, City now stand joint top of the Premier League and are preparing for their debut season in the Champions League.
Roberto Mancini claimed following Sunday’s 5-1 victory at Tottenham that only Barcelona are producing more exhilarating football than his collection of superstars.
Across Manchester, United supporters attempting to dismiss the clear and present danger posed by City’s fearsome spending power have resorted to labelling Mancini’s team as the ‘Gorton galacticos’, a reference to the deprived area of east Manchester which lies in the shadow of the Etihad Stadium.
There have also been concerns expressed by Arsène Wenger about City’s spending, Liverpool owner John W Henry has spoken out against the controversial £400 million sponsorship deal with Etihad, while Bayern Munich chairman Karl-Heinz Rummenigge claims City will need a ‘trick up their sleeve’ to avoid falling foul of Uefa’s Financial Fair Play regulations.
City are becoming accustomed to anxious glances over the shoulder by rivals who once regarded the club as little more than a faded institution, distinguished only by a loyal band of long-suffering supporters and an ability only, in the words of Francis Lee, to win “cups for cock-ups”.
Three years of Abu Dhabi ownership have turned ridicule into resentment, with even Sir Alex Ferguson finally conceding this summer that City pose a threat to United’s ambitions.
The capture of Nasri has brought City’s emergence into sharp focus at Old Trafford. United had attempted to sign the player, lodging a £20 million bid with Arsenal in June, but whether Nasri wanted to wear Mancunian blue or red, he chose blue and his performance on his debut against Spurs suggested that United’s loss is very much City’s gain.
Mancini, courtesy of Sheikh Mansour’s money, has assembled an attacking force comparable to any team in Europe, even the magical Barcelona.
In the final game of the Thaksin regime, City faced Sunderland at the Stadium of Light with Shaun Wright-Phillips and Stephen Ireland attempting to provide goalscoring chances for the wayward Brazilian, Jo. At White Hart Lane, Edin Dzeko helped himself to four goals thanks to brilliance of Nasri and David Silva – the Ferraris have replaced the Ford Fiestas.
Dzeko, a £27 million buy from Wolfsburg, insists the time has come to look beyond the club’s outlay on players.
“People only speak about how much Manchester City spend.” Dzeko said. “Of course, we have spent, but other teams have as well. We showed against Spurs how we can play and when you play football like that, it is amazing.”
During the first year of the sheikh’s ownership, his investment in the club, both on the pitch and off it in terms of infrastructure improvements and an upgrade to a training ground dismissed as “unfit for purpose” by former manager Mark Hughes, amounted to more than £10 million a week.
The City project was described as a “personal equity play” by the sheikh’s associates, his own passion rather than the PR vehicle of the oil-rich emirate.
To date, he has attended just one fixture – the 3-0 home victory against Liverpool last August – but he and the executives he has hand-picked to run the club regularly convene in Abu Dhabi for live screenings of City games.
The hand of Abu Dhabi has touched more than Mancini’s stellar squad. A previously dysfunctional stadium is now a luxurious arena, with open-space offices replacing the windowless boxes – and Thaksin’s feng shui expert – to encourage more blue-sky thinking.
Chauffeur-driven limousines now ferry new signings from hotel to training ground, with the club’s attention to detail such that City’s player liaison department identified and secured a home for Sergio Aguero, the £35 million buy from Atletico Madrid last month, within 10 days of his arrival in Manchester.
When chief executive Garry Cook pulled aside a senior official following the victory in Denmark against Midtjylland to whisper that “some seriously wealthy people” were close to buying the club, hope of a brighter future extended to possibly beating United to the signing of Dimitar Berbatov.
United won that particular battle, but the sense within Manchester and the Premier League is that City are now fully equipped to win more battles than they lose.
It is not only the team who have been transformed at Manchester City since Sheikh Mansour bin Zayed al Nahyan’s arrival as owner on Sept 1, 2008.
SPONSORS
Prior to the 2008 takeover, City might have been a Premier League team, but they were floundering in the lower leagues when it came to commercial revenue. In 2008, City were into the fifth year of a shirt sponsorship deal with Thomas Cook which earned the club a mere £1.5 million a year.
Three years on, the club has just struck a 10-year partnership deal with Etihad Airways which could be worth as much as £400 million. The deal covers stadium-naming rights, shirt sponsorship and the area surrounding the ground which is now known as Etihad Campus.
TRAINING GROUND
More than £10 million has been pumped into the training base at Carrington since 2008, transforming it into one of the best in the league.
Yet plans are in place for a £50 million facility close to the Etihad Stadium which will house the training ground, Academy and a state-of-the-art medical centre. Despite the improvements to Carrington, its location next to a public footpath continues to cause problems for the club, with photographers free to catch images of training ground confrontations between players that led to ‘Fight In an effort to connect with supporters and improve the match-day experience, the club opened the City Street fanzone last season. The area, which consists of covered, open-air bars, big screens and football-related games for children dominates Joe Mercer Way, the approach to the stadium.
In another move to meet the needs of supporters, a sheltered queuing area was introduced two years ago after chief executive Garry Cook witnessed fans standing in the rain while waiting for tickets.
Mike Summerbee shouldered the club’s ambassadorial duties prior to the Abu Dhabi takeover.
But as well as importing the best players from around the world, City are now capitalising on the iconic status of Patrick Vieira, whose presence at the club has been highlighted as a key factor in Samir Nasri’s decision to leave Arsenal for City. Despite making his name with Arsenal and France, City have appointed Vieira as an ambassador following his retirement as a player this summer after 31 appearances for the club.
Bellamy set for Man City stay as Wales forward refuses to drop contract demands
Craig Bellamy is poised to stay at Manchester City after the club refused to offer him a package to cover the last 12 months of his contract.
Liverpool, Tottenham and Everton had been among the clubs trying to sign the Wales international but their hopes have been all but dashed.
Bellamy, 32, will now only move on if City resurrect talks to settle the final year of his £90,000 per week deal.
Contract dispute: Craig Bellamy is set to stay at Manchester City
Meanwhile, Roque Santa Cruz and Vladimir Weiss have left Manchester City. Santa Cruz has joined Real Betis on a one-year loan while Weiss has joined Espanyol also for a season loan.
Young City goalkeeper Loris Karius, 18, is joining Mainz on loan until December.
Nasri reveals PSG talks before making City move
Samir Nasri has claimed he held talks with Paris Saint-Germain before signing for Manchester City.
Nasri completed his £24 million move from Arsenal to City last week after the France international entered the final year of his contract at Emirates Stadium.
Former Inter Milan boss Leonardo, now PSG's sporting director, was also keen on Nasri - who shone on his debut for City on Sunday, laying on three assists as his new club won 5-1 at Tottenham - but a switch failed to materialise.
"I talked to Leonardo because he wanted me at Internazionale," Nasri told Telefoot. "(At PSG) the situation was a bit more complex because I told him about my choice for Manchester City.
"He had already signed (Javier) Pastore (from Palermo) and it was a little difficult (for them) to find funds to invest and be able to sign me."
Nasri, currently away on international duty with France, made an impressive debut for his new club on Saturday - providing Edin Dzeko's opening two goals as City romped to a 5-1 victory over Spurs at White Hart Lane.
Mancini has the players to shock United as Manchester clubs prepare to do battle
One story that appeared in this newspaper last week sparked a unique reaction.
In reporting Manchester United’s desire to try to snatch Samir Nasri from Manchester City’s grasp, abuse through the now normal channels of this modern social media world came from both camps. It was the one time when supporters of United and City were, well, united.
The reaction was sparked, the abused can only presume, by the fans’ simple fear of being out-manoeuvred by their fiercest rivals. By a mutual hatred of losing to them at anything, never mind an actual football match.
Ignited by provocative posters and Sir Alex Ferguson’s dismissal of City as little more than a nuisance, the rivalry between these footballing superpowers could become more intense than anything we have seen in the Barclays Premier League.
For so long in Ferguson’s tenure, City were not even on United’s radar. At one stage, during the Treble-winning 1998-99 season, they were two divisions below.
Now, however, City have superseded United’s more traditional rivals and the focus is not so much on Chelsea’s visit to Old Trafford on September 18 or the trip to Anfield on October 15, but the Manchester derby that comes eight days later at Old Trafford. That game will provide a more accurate assessment of how these two teams compare than the Community Shield did.
While Chelsea might yet emerge as a third contender in the battle for the Premier League, the evidence of the first few games points to a straight fight between these Manchester neighbours and it is something that is already beginning to consume the city.
Among the people of Manchester there is a sense of anxiety as well as excitement because City have taken the fight to United’s doorstep. Already the two camps are looking across Manchester and wondering if they have enough to see off the challenge. If they measure up, man for man, on the pitch. If an 8-2 thrashing of Arsenal at Old Trafford amounts to a better or worse performance than a 5-1 win at Tottenham.
Roberto Mancini dared suggest the only team playing football like City were Barcelona. It also sounded like wishful thinking, even if it was probably a joke. But Pep Guardiola described City as ‘awesome’; a side who will challenge in the Champions League as well as the Premier League this season. City do seem to have a team that is hard to fault, supported by a squad as strong as any in Europe.
United and City are brilliant going forward. Organised in a traditional 4-4-2 formation, United dismantled Arsenal’s defence with a stunning combination of pace, width and skill. Nani and Ashley Young were superb on the flanks, and Wayne Rooney and Danny Welbeck were fast developing into a deadly partnership until Welbeck limped off with a hamstring injury.
In Rooney, United finally have their finest player back to his best. The injury that ruined his World Cup last year is behind him, as is all that nonsense surrounding his contract. On Sunday he was imperious; a dominant, devastating force. In Young, Ferguson has made yet another astute signing.
Over at the Etihad Stadium, they have their own weapons of destruction and the arrival of Sergio Aguero, in particular, appears to have acted as a catalyst for more expansive, ambitious football. Edin Dzeko endured a difficult start to life in the Premier League when he moved from Wolfsburg for £27million last January. Now the Bosnian looks as good a centre forward as any in the world, a 6ft 4in nightmare for any centre half.
With Aguero, David Silva and Nasri supporting him, Dzeko could not ask for more. They supply all the ammunition he needs.
It says everything about how good City are when Carlos Tevez is struggling to get off a bench also occupied by Mario Balotelli. Tevez was the big prize, prised away from Old Trafford for serious money. Now, if he stays, he is no longer among the main protagonists.
Defensively, both sides are also strong. Ferguson has again bought well in recruiting Phil Jones. The 19-year-old has been superb, and if he was signed as an understudy to Rio Ferdinand and Nemanja Vidic, that is no longer the case.
In the competition for places at United, Jones has quickly become a serious contender. As have Jonny Evans and Chris Smalling, even if Smalling has impressed more at right back in recent weeks.
At City, too, there are some fine defenders. Smalling will be competing with Micah Richards for the role of right back when England meet Bulgaria in Sofia on Friday. But Vincent Kompany is an outstanding centre half, Joleon Lescott strong, too.
It is when you look at the goalkeepers, however, that Mancini probably feels more secure. David de Gea had a better day on Sunday, saving a penalty among a number of promising moments. But the 20-year-old remains error-prone — he allowed a Theo Walcott effort to slip through his legs — and if you had to make a choice right now, you would go with Joe Hart.
In central midfield, too, City might also have a slight advantage. In an area where matches are often won and lost, Tom Cleverley and Anderson have been outstanding for United.
And those doubting their ability to hold their own against Yaya Toure and Nigel de Jong might point to the second half of the Community Shield.
But that remains a powerful City midfield, and if you were picking a team from both squads it would be hard to ignore De Jong and Toure.
Selecting the rest of the team becomes more complicated. Try picking two from Rooney, Aguero and Dzeko. It is easier, perhaps, to go for Hart, Silva and Kompany as well as Patrice Evra and Smalling.
But for the first time, certainly in Ferguson’s reign, you might just end up with more Blues than Reds. At least until we see how things play out in October.
Nasri fact of the Day B*ll*x
Made three times as many assists on his City debut (three) as he managed in the entire 2010/11 campaign (one).
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