Ancelottabollox
City & Liverpool Considered Ancelotti Move In November
Manchester City and Liverpool are believed to be among three Premier League clubs to enquire about the services of Carlo Ancelotti in November, according to reports in France.
The Paris St-Germain boss is a target of several top European clubs, including Real Madrid, and appears to be on his way out of the Ligue 1 at the end of the season.
Jose Mourinho and Arsene Wenger have both been linked with the Italian’s post at the Parc de Princes and that could open the door for a Premier League return.
Manchester City bosses have been disappointed with Roberto Mancini this season, following their lacklustre title defence and poor performance in Europe, whilst reports from Anfield suggest Liverpool owners FSG are growing frustrated with poor results from Brendan Rodgers’ side.
French newspaper Le Parisien report that the pair both considered a move for Ancelotti before the end of 2012.
City fans are back in love with Carlos Tevez
A year after Carlos Tevez’ infamous walk-out on the Blues, all is forgiven, says Rob Dawson
Carlos Tevez set about rekindling his love affair with the Blues, appropriately, on Valentine’s Day last year.
Those first few steps were taken, with a police escort and carrying his young daughter in his arms, through a sea of camera crews and flashbulbs at Manchester Airport after the Argentinian striker had ended his self-imposed exile in his homeland.It had been three months since his midnight flit home. Five months since he refused Roberto Mancini’s instruction to continue his warm-up in the Allianz Arena.
But a year on, and against all the odds, the on-off romance between Tevez and the City fans he dumped is back on. It’s not the first time he has battled ruin, having broken out of Fuerte Apache, a tough neighbourhood on the outskirts of Buenos Aires, to become a global superstar.
It’s also proof that while football fans rarely forget, they are always ready to forgive.
Tomorrow marks the one-year anniversary of Tevez’s return to the UK. In the end it was Roy of the Rovers stuff – disgraced footballer returns to help faltering club win the league title on final day of the season.
But in the aftermath of his Munich mutiny, a reconciliation looked a long way off. Four days after the Champions League defeat in Germany, Mancini took a squad, without Tevez, to Blackburn.
They were met with a ‘Tevez Out’ banner displayed in the away end.
“If you make a mockery of the club we love then we make our feelings known,” said Steven Hutchinson, the man with the banner that day at Ewood Park. “In a way, the fans wanted to set an example to the rest of the players.”
The reaction of the fans, Tevez revealed at the time, was what hurt the most.
“The club statement protected the manager,” said Tevez, in an interview on Argentinian TV the day before his return to Manchester.
“That’s why I was angry and didn’t want to return. To be insulted by the fans after what happened in Munich was something I didn’t deserve. They were misinformed, so when they were told that I didn’t want to play they naturally turned against me.
“I gave everything to that club and when I saw them burning my shirt with my name on it or hurling insults it really hurt.
But if a week is a long time in football, then a year is a lifetime, and in 12 months Tevez has undergone a transformation Optimus Prime would be proud of.
Fortunately for him, he has the one attribute that makes it easy to bury the hatchet – something lacking in his absence at Southampton on Saturday.
“I’ve forgiven him because when he came back he worked incredibly hard to get himself back in the first team,” said Steven Brocklehurst, 24, a season-ticket holder from Heald Green.
“Every minute he is on the pitch he gives 100 per cent. If there’s one thing in a player that will win over the City fans, it’s work rate.”
His unofficial trip to Argentina in November 2011 wasn’t the turning point, rather his return there with his national team for the Copa America that summer.
He had ended the previous season on a high – there is still an image of Tevez at the Etihad Stadium, at the end of Joe Mercer Way, with the FA Cup at Wembley, the first City captain to lift a trophy for 35 years. But Tevez returned to Manchester after the Copa America to find City had a new star – Sergio Aguero.
If fit, Mancini rarely picks a team without Joe Hart, Vincent Kompany, Yaya Toure and David Silva. Tevez left for South America as a member of the untouchables but returned to find Aguero had taken his place. It has remained the same since his second coming in February last year.
Before the bitter separation, Tevez scored 53 goals in 91 appearances for City. In those games he completed 90 minutes 43 times and was used as a substitute on just 11 occasions.
Since his return, he has scored 13 in 41 games.
He has come off the bench 10 times and in only eight games has he played a full 90 minutes.
It is not that Mancini is still punishing Tevez, just that he’s not the main man any more. Aguero is.
Tevez missed the disastrous defeat to Southampton at the weekend after the club sanctioned him leave to deal with a family matter.
But Blues looking for any hope they can yet overhaul United at the top of the table might feel some comfort that Tevez’s return to Premier League action could be against Chelsea at the Etihad – just as it was last season.
It’s a long shot, but Tevez is used to beating the odds.
Finally some good news for Mancini as defender Richards closes in on injury comeback
Manchester City manager Roberto Mancini is set to receive a much-needed boost with the return of key defender Micah Richards.
The 24-year-old is completing the closing stages of his rehabilitation programme after knee surgery in October.
Richards is waiting for the all-clear from consultant Andy Williams but City are confident of having the defender back in full training within two weeks, with the visit to Aston Villa on March 4 pencilled in for a return to action.
Mancini may look to field the right back in one of the club’s Under 21 fixtures ahead of his senior return.
Richards is itching to play again but knows he cannot rush back, given the seriousness of the injury. His return will give Mancini some comfort in what has been a difficult fortnight.
The Barclays Premier League champions are 12 points behind leaders Manchester United, having picked up just two points from a possible nine after Saturday’s shock 3-1 defeat at Southampton.
Richards has not played since being carried off on a stretcher in the 1-0 win over Swansea on October 27. He had an operation to repair a torn meniscus in his right knee.
Richards faces a fight to get back into the City first team once he is fully fit, given the excellent performances of Pablo Zabaleta.
But Mancini used Richards as a central defender before his latest injury.
Richards also missed the start of the season with an ankle injury sustained while playing for Team GB during London 2012.
City host Leeds in the FA Cup fifth round on Sunday, with Elland Road boss Neil Warnock set to make a decision on whether to keep Ross Barkley at the club.
The midfielder, 19, joined on loan from Everton last month and his spell was due to end after last night’s game against Middlesbrough, but Warnock will speak to the player and Everton manager David Moyes today. DSSC
The Daily shit-stirring cunts are at it again in "Tranny suck off his Bollox"
It would be difficult to play at City, admits Conaldo - but 'in football the impossible doesn't exist'
Cristiano Conaldo has not ruled out the possibility of joining Manchester City on the eve of facing his old club United in the Champions League tie the world has been waiting for.
Conaldo has been in prolific form at the Bernabeu this season — the £80million man scored a hat-trick in his last game for Real — and he will relish a chance to play his old team and mentor Sir Alex Ferguson.
But asked if he might one day return to English football and sign for United’s neighbours City, Conaldo told the Sun: ‘The future? I don’t know - only God know the future.
‘I’m not going to say it is impossible, because in football the impossible doesn’t exist. But I can say it would be very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very difficult to play at Manchester City. My heart’s in Manchester United, that’s why!
I can't be arsed to paste the rest of the cock-sucking-jism-monkey's article so you'll have to seek it out yourself if you are that interested ....
The Mourinho maelstrom is too destructive for Manchester By The Bearded Clam (aka Martin Samuel)
Every few years brings a Summer of Jose. 2004 was one, 2010 too. And Jose Mourinho has been working very hard to recreate the phenomenon in 2013.
A Summer of Jose is when all eyes are on the Special One. Where is he going, what is he doing? There are Jose sightings, Jose statements, Jose ploys, plays and schemes and, finally, a great Jose festival held in a major European city, with him as headline act.
It is like Glastonbury, minus the hippies. This Summer of Jose, however, risks being an unsatisfying affair, as doors close and options decrease.
There is a distinct absence of spectacle, and at least one dead end. Mourinho will not be the next manager of Manchester City.
As Rafael Benitez would say: fact. It is a dangerous game, denying Jose. He is capable of extraordinary narratives. He won the Champions League with Porto. He steered Inter Milan past Barcelona with 10 men.
The La Liga table suggests Real are not even the best team in Madrid right now, let alone Spain, yet could anyone say with absolute certainty that they will not be present at Wembley on May 25?
Mourinho is one of the great coaches of this or any era. He is one of only three managers to win the European Cup with two different clubs, and one of only four to have won the league in four countries (Tomislav Ivic won titles in six, although it could be suggested that Portugal, England, Italy and Spain for Mourinho trumps Yugoslavia, Holland, Belgium, Greece, Portugal and Spain for Ivic).
Yet there is no way in for him at City, even if the capitulation this season spells the end for Roberto Mancini. The Barcelona influence at the club - chief executive Ferran Soriano and director of football Txiki Begiristain - are too settled on treating Mourinho as the enemy.
Their reports to Sheik Mansour will paint him as a negative, disruptive individual, harmful to the good name of the club. And that name is important.
It is why Abu Dhabi's royal family bought Manchester City in the first place. Even without the disquiet at executive level, Mourinho was going to be a hard sell. The region and its rulers are now associated worldwide with English football and are happy with the link.
City have largely been successful, and even when they haven't, Mancini's odd spat with Carlos Tevez or a referee has not adversely affected their reputation.
Abu Dhabi's representatives are content for their football club to be the ice-breaker in rooms of the great and good.
'How is the team going?' a well-briefed president will ask, and the conversation eases from there to more serious matters of state.
There would not be such comfort around a fresh episode of touchline eyepoking, as occurred against Barcelona in 2011. 'How's that manager of yours, half-blinded anyone lately?' does not have the same ring to it.
City want to be seen to be successful, but they also want to be seen behaving in the correct manner. The representative who made gauche claims about buying Cristiano Ronaldo on the day of the Abu Dhabi takeover has not been heard from since.
No way, Jose: City director of football Txiki Begiristain (left) and chief executive Ferran Soriano (right)
City have spent big and make no apologies for it, but the club has no debt, is embarking on a project that will benefit the local community and does not sack two managers each year.
The owners are intent on projecting the right image and were wary of Mourinho's dark reputation long before his adversaries, late of Barcelona, offered confirmation. It has been argued that Mourinho would not have gone to City anyway, knowing it would end his chances of employment across the road.
Yet, increasingly, messages from inside Old Trafford suggest the club has similar misgivings about Mourinho's reputation.
Sir Bobby Charlton's dismissal of Mourinho in an interview before Christmas was revealing and while United are no strangers to controversy, having employed Sir Alex Ferguson for so long, a Mourinho maelstrom is an entirely different beast.
Throughout Ferguson's battles - with the Football Association, with referees, with players and rival managers - he invariably has the club at heart. He takes feuds personally, but they are rarely personal feuds.
The same cannot always be said of Mourinho. Many of his most memorable salvos - against the Reading ambulance service for instance - rebounded horribly on the standing of his club. Do United need that aggravation?
Indeed, who does? A return to Chelsea would be an alternative, or a fifth country, France, if Carlo Ancelotti fails to deliver the title at ambitious Paris Saint- Germain.
Win the Champions League with Madrid, and there may even be a future for him in Spain. Except Mourinho's style is to leave them wanting more.
Hard if no-one wants more. This Summer of Jose may prove as fleeting as any he experienced in England.
EARLY SNUB BOLLOX
Sampdoria's 19-year-old striker Mauro Icardi will snub a switch to Manchester City and join Italian giants Inter Milan at the end of the season. talkShiT
apparently not .... it's just talkShiT talking ... er ... um .... shite again
Club denies that Icardi has snubbed Manchester City or anyone else
Manchester City have this week been snubbed by Mauro Icardi according to TalkSHIT. The media outlet said yesterday that Sampdoria's Icardi had ruled out moving from Italy and therefore wasn't keen on being Mario Balotelli's replacement They said that he'd agreed a deal to move to Inter Milan at the end of the season and would be changing Italian clubs in the summer, with him expected to make the move official on July 1st.
However, Sampdoria have told the Italian press that isn't the case and denied he's agreed to join anyone yet, because they're still listening to what other clubs are offering. Their director of sport, Carlo Osti, is quoted by Calciomercato as saying:
"He is a player who appeals to many clubs. With the Nerazzurri (inter) we have a great relationship, but of course everything will depend on agreements with other clubs and what the player's agents want. He is very important for us, especially in the season finale."
Agent Pino Letterio is also quoted as rubbishing claims of an Inter agreement "It is not true that there was an agreement with Inter."
Inter Milan are interested according to all those who have spoken on the issue but the agent also claims that Napoli are sniffing about and that Icardi is also attracted to that destination, but they are firmly all leaving their options open to see which offers come in. One from Manchester City would blow everything else out of the water financially, especially concerning his wages.
Manchester City are considering a summer move for Bayern Munich striker Mario Gomez. (Daily Express)
[spoiler]An explanation why Nasri is not concentrating on his football!
[/spoiler]ON THIS DAY BOLLOX 13th February
1978
Dennis Tueart quits England and City to join North American Soccer League giants New York Cosmos for £250,000 and play alongside the likes of Pele and Franz Beckenbauer for a year during an unforgettable time in the Big Apple, though he re-signs for City on 31st January 1980.
2010
City meet Stoke City in the fifth round of the FA Cup and hold the Potters to a draw at the City of Manchester Stadium.
Shaun Wright-Phillips gave City the lead after 11 minutes when he arrived first onto an incisive through ball from Stephen Ireland and chipped over the advancing Thomas Sorenson.
The Blues held the lead until the 56th minute when Ricardo Fuller met a trademark long throw-in from Rory Delap with a simple headed finish.
That’s how it stayed but when the sides met again on 24 February, Stoke booked their place in round six with a 3-1 win.
Everton are planning a bid to tempt Frank Lampard to Goodison Park. They are willing to offer the Chelsea midfielder a three-year deal if he agrees to remain within their pay structure, which has a maximum of £80,000 per week. Daily Star
LA Galaxy striker Robbie Keane wants Lampard to replace David Beckham at the Major League Soccer club. "Hopefully we can get him," said Keane. Sun
Arsenal boss Arsene Wenger has identified Celtic midfielder Victor Wanyama as a summer transfer priority and sent a scout to watch him in the Champions League on Tuesday night. Daily Telegraph
Newcastle will buy from France again in the summer with Saint-Etienne striker Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang, 23, and Valenciennes defender Nicolas Isimat-Mirin, 21, their targets. Metro
Blackburn manager Michael Appleton wants to sign the club's former winger David Bentley on loan from Tottenham. Sun
Striker James McFadden, 29, could re-sign for Sunderland, who he left last month, after the Scot's potential move to Nottingham Forest fell through.
Saint-Etienne striker Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang is a target for Newcastle, who already have nine French buys in their squad Newcastle Chronicle
Napoli have earmarked Brazilian striker Leandro Damiao, 23 - a player Tottenham tried to sign from Internacional in January - as the man to replace Edinson Cavani. talkSHIT
Liverpool are ready to tie up a £1m deal for the goalkeeper of Danish club Viborg, Kevin Ray Mendoza Hansen, 18, if he passes a two-week trial at Anfield. Metro
Wolves manager Dean Saunders says he wants to bring two more loan signings to the club after signing Reading defender Kaspars Gorkss, 31. Express and Star
Fiorentina could try to sign Southampton striker Gaston Ramirez, 22, if they sell Arsenal target Stevan Jovetic, 23, this summer. talkSHIT
Reading defender Alex Pearce, 24, is ready to snub offers from West Brom and Sunderland to sign a new deal. Daily Star
Real Madrid's Michael Essien has said he views coach Jose Mourinho as a father figure on the eve of Manchester United's visit to the Bernebau in the last 16 of the Champions League. "My father has given me the opportunity to be here and I'm enjoying every minute of being here." AS
Real Madrid forward Ronaldo has had more shots on target during the Champions League this season than Wayne Rooney, Robin Van Persie and Javier Hernandez combined. As well as scoring six goals so far, the Portuguese has been on target 27 times, compared to 11 for Hernandez, seven for Van Persie and six for Rooney. Marca
Paris City Council met on Tuesday to discuss their application to host matches during Euro 2020, which will be held at various cities across the continent. France is hosting the 2016 tournament. L'Equipe
Alex Ferguson says he didn't realise how good his former player Cristiano Ronaldo would become when he sold him to Real Madrid. Daily Mirror
Arsenal left-back Andre Santos, 29, has vowed to return to Arsenal after leaving to join Gremio on loan until the end of the season. London Evening Standard
Midfielder Moussa Sissoko, 23, has revealed that former Arsenal player Patrick Vieira was the inspiration behind his switch to Newcastle. Daily Mirror
Wolves winger Stephen Hunt, 31, says he has to earn a new contract at the club between now and the end of the season. Express and Star
Liverpool midfielder Jonjo Shelvey has used Twitter to hit back at fans who criticised his performance in the Anfield club's home defeat to West Bromwich Albion. Daily Mirror
Liverpool defender Daniel Agger is taking the blame for the shock defeat by West Brom, admitting on Twitter that his performance in the last 10 minutes was not good enough. Sun
Liverpool have warned their black players about the possibility of being racially abused in Thursday's Europa League meeting with Zenit St Petersburg, with managing director Ian Ayre writing to the Russian club and Uefa to express his concerns. Daily Express
Russian club Anzhi Makhachkala say QPR have "lost their minds" by spending so much money to sign defender Chris Samba. The Russian club were stunned that QPR met his £12.5m release clause and offered him wages of close to £100,000 per week. Daily Star
Football must do more to combat the threat of performance-enhancing drugs, according to John Fahey, president of the World Anti-Doping Agency. Independent
Arsenal's German striker Lukas Podolski spent his day off going round London in a black cab visiting the city's main tourist spots and taking a picture of himself at every one to share with fans on Twitter. 606 podcast
TODAY'S CRAIGBONUS
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