Pellegrini ready to swing the axe
Manchester City boss Manuel Pellegrini is ready to swing the axe by showing a number of players the exit door in January.
The Chilean has been told by the club's owners that he will continue to receive their full backing to get what he wants.
And the likes of defenders Micah Richards, Joleon Lescott and Aleksandar Kolarov, plus midfielder Javi Garcia are now directly in the line of fire.
They join goalkeeper Joe Hart and striker Edin Dzeko who are now all nervously looking over their shoulders at the Etihad Stadium.
Pellegrini has become frustrated by the number of errors which have been committed this term, which has already seen City slip to four away defeats in their first eleven games.
He will get decent funds after ensuring City qualified for the next stage of the Champions League with two games to spare.
But Pellegrini can also spend any cash that he generates from sales and is aware of interest from other clubs in some of his players.
Richards continues to interest both Newcastle United and Arsenal, while Borussia Dortmund will not give up the chase on Dzeko.
The pair would bring in around £30 million. Lescott is also wanted by Stoke City, who are willing to pay a £2m release fee before he becomes a free agent next summer.
Manchester City want Willy Caballero as Joe Hart breaks
MANUEL PELLEGRINI is lining up a move for Malaga goalkeeper Willy Caballero.
The Manchester City boss wants to raid his former club for the Argentine in a £12m deal.
Pellegrini has targeted Caballero, 32, after admitting defeat in his pursuit of Barcelona star Victor Valdes, who has agreed to join big-spending Monaco at the end of this season.
Pellegrini axed England No.1 Joe Hart earlier this month following a string of high-profile blunders.
Costel Pantilimon has come in but Pellegrini is not convinced about either of them.
Caballero, who once helped Argentina U-20s win the FIFA World Youth Championship, insists he is happy at Malaga. But Pellegrini would be willing to triple Caballero's wages in an offer he would find hard to refuse.
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Man City could turn to Spiderman
There are rumours in Italy that Manchester City will sign Inter goalkeeper Samir Handanovic to replace out-of-favour Joe Hart.
Today's Corriere dello Sport reports that Manchester City see Inter goalkeeper Samir Handanovic as the best option to replace Joe Hart and are willing to pay over £15m.
After a terrible run of form, Hart has found himself out of the team at City while Romanian Costel Pantilimon continues to impress, but many believe the Premier League side will look for another longer-term replacement for the England international.
And that man could be Inter's Handanovic who is known for his spectacular shot-stopping and who kept a clean sheet against Livorno last weekend.
The Slovenian international is nicknamed Spiderman and made his name in Serie A for Udinese where he spent eight seasons, although two were spent on loan to other sides, and made over 180 appearances.
In 2012 Handanovic signed for Inter for a fee of around £9m and he has been outstanding at San Siro during a tough time for the club.
The Corriere dello Sport claims that Man City have been warned off Iker Casillas and Malaga's Wilfredo Caballero and that Handanovic is next in line.
Whether the giant shot-stopper would be open to the move is another matter after he waxed lyrical about the atmosphere in the Inter dressing room following their victory over Livorno.
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Manchester City's away form could cost the title, says Pablo Zabaleta
• Argentinian full-back says 'we must defend much better'
• Manuel Pellegrini's team have slipped to eighth in table
Pablo Zabaleta has conceded that Manchester City's poor away form is threatening to derail their title challenge.
"There is a long way to go and we have many games to the end of the season, but when you lose points like this it will be really difficult to fight for the title," said Manuel Pellegrini's right-back following City's 1-0 defeat at Sunderland. "Every time we play away though it's not happening for us; we cannot keep a clean sheet. We must defend much better."
Zabaleta, who came on as a second-half substitute in his team's fourth loss in six away matches in the Premier League, accepts that a squad as strong as City's should be doing much better. And particularly at the Stadium of Light, a ground where they have lost their last four league games 1-0.
"We are playing much better at home than we are away but in this league you need away points, especially when you are a team like us that wants to win things," said Zabaleta whose side have now slipped to eighth in the table. "We have only beaten West Ham away and that is not good enough for Manchester City."
He and his team-mates are frustrated they must now wait to try to put things right. "When you have a defeat like this you want to play as quickly as you can, but we now go into an international break, and then we will face Spurs at home, which will be a crucial game for us," said Zabaleta.
"We are so disappointed. We had a great chance to reach third position and we knew before the game that Chelsea had dropped points on Saturday, and that Spurs had lost just before us. It was a great chance, but unfortunately we didn't take it."
Zabaleta is reluctant to make excuses for City's disappointing haul of four points from a possible 18 on their travels but does highlight Pellegrini's bad luck with injuries. "We have had too many problems with injured players – we lost Vincent Kompany for too many games, and now we have lost [Matija] Nastasic, David Silva and Fernandinho, who are very important players for this team," he said. "With Silva, sometimes we look a better team because he is an important player for us, especially in the attacking phase. Having five or six injuries makes it very difficult for us."
GOLDEN BOLLOX 12 November 1977
Peter Barnes and Mike Channon are on target but City continue to slide down the table after a 3-2 home defeat to Leeds United at Maine Road. Scots Joe Jordan and Gordon McQueen are on the score-sheet in a pulsating War of the Roses watched by almost 43,000 fans. The Blues, who had topped the table just six weeks before, now slip to eighth.
Arsenal and Manchester City Are Useless : Ian Wright Joins Fools’ Chorus Of Praise For Manchester United
IAN Wright adds his tuppence worth of views (the Sun pays him a lot more than that? – Ed) on Arsenal’s 1-0 defeat to Manchester United.
As Paul Hayward put it:
No team who win at Borussia Dortmund and lead the Premier League by two points at the end of Remembrance Sunday can be placed in a coconut shy for losing to a majestic Robin van Persie header at Manchester United. To dismiss the Arsenal revival after such an explainable setback would be intellectual vandalism.
Cue Ian Wright:
United have proved time and again that this time of the season is all about accumula-ting points, however you get them. And in many cases, that’s down to scrapping for your lives and making sure that if you don’t win the game, at least you don’t lose it.
Yep, Ian. The most points wins. Got it. Thanks.
Learning curves don’t come much steeper than the one Arsenal got on Sunday — and it’s a lesson they must learn from quickly.
Learning through an way win in the Champions’ League against last season’s runners up was pretty steep. Beating Liverpool 2-0 was steep. But that was earlier in the week, a lifetime away in Wright’s opinion-to-deadline world:
I realise I have to calm down a little on my hopes and expectations.
What do you expect, Ian?
A lot of Arsenal players haven’t really been in too many genuine pressure situations before and it’s something they are going to have to handle…it’s an issue they need to get to grips with sharpish. It’s a similar story with Manchester City…because another poor away defeat — their fourth — has exposed flaws there as well.
So, Arsenal – packed with internationals and managed by 64-years-old Arsene Wenger – and Man City, who won the league title on the last day of the season and are managed by former Real Madrid coach Manuel Luis Pellegrini Ripamonti - can’t handle pressure?
City may have the most expensive and glamorous squad. But they’ve got to realise when they go to the likes of Cardiff, Sunderland and Villa that those fans will be right up for it, making loads of noise, with the players desperate to rattle the big names.
Do you think they know that? How does Wright think you become a footballer at a top club, by accident? You don’t work your socks off? You don’t scrap it out and dedicate yourself to the game?
The quality is in no doubt, but all those big names have to realise fixtures like Sunderland aren’t going to be easy… Of course it’s important to win the big games but you win the Premier League by scrapping it out in the muck or nettles matches.Ones when it’s not pretty, it’s not eye-catching but it’s about heart, desire and determination. Ones where you nick a 1-0 win without being at your best, get the points and get back on the bus.
Like Arsenal did when they beat Crystal Palace with 10 men; and defeated Newcastle Untied away on the last day of the last season in a must-win match to qualify for the Champions’ League? And didn’t Man City beat Man United 4-1 this season? (No need to check – they did.)
If it stays as tight as this, the experience of handling the heat will be vital. And no one has it more than United.
No? Not Wenger and Pelligrini but Moyes has the experience of winning titles in Wright’s world.
That’s why Sunday showed Arsenal and City still have work to do in that department. They’re going to have to learn quickly otherwise they will end up empty-handed come next May.
To recap: David Moyes has never managed a team that has won the league.
Vincent Kompany is expected to be out for another three weeks
Manchester City captain Vincent Kompany is expected to be out for another three weeks due to a thigh injury.
The Belgium skipper has missed City's last seven matches after picking up his latest knock in a 3-1 win over Everton last month.
Kompany, who has been plagued by a variety of muscle injuries over the past 12 months, was originally expected to miss three weeks but has now been sidelined for five.
The Belgian FA has grown increasingly concerned with the time Kompany has been taking to recover and sent team physio Lieven Messchalck to assess the defender.
Messchalck suggests that Kompany is likely to be out for a further three weeks, bringing the total time out to around eight weeks, and will see him miss the Super Sunday game against Tottenham Hotspur on 24th November.
"I think Vincent is going to be ready in several weeks," Messchalck told Sky Sports News. "We will do everything we can to bring back Vincent in a good way for a long time.
"First of all he had a rupture, a tear into the abductor and then also he has bad luck with a small thing on the front side now, so it's everything together.
"It's not really so long, eight weeks is nothing in the time of injury, you must respect biology."
GOLDEN BOLLOX 12 November 2010
Garry Cook heads to Abu Dhabi to draw up transfer wishlist
Cook to meet Manchester City's owner and chairman • Future of Emmanuel Adebayor likely to be discussed
Garry Cook, the Manchester City chief executive, has flown to Abu Dhabi to deliver a progress report to the club's owner, Sheikh Mansour, and set in place their spending plans for what promises to be another extensive period of business in the January transfer window.
Edin Dzeko, the prolific Wolfsburg striker, is the principal target, though City know from experience that the Bundesliga club can be difficult negotiators. The clubs spent most of the summer haggling over a fee for the Bosnia international before City walked away from the deal because of the disparity in what they were willing to pay, around £25m to £30m, and Wolfsburg's valuation of £45m.
Cook is meeting the club's chairman, Khaldoon al-Mubarak, and their agenda will also include how to trim the squad of some of Roberto Mancini's fringe players, part of the effort to reduce the wage bill in line with Uefa's fair-play regulations.
The difficulty facing City is that their players are on such high salaries there is a fear potential buyers may be deterred. Wayne Bridge, who has already been informed he has no future at the club, earns £95,000 a week, while Emmanuel Adebayor is one of City's higher earners, with a weekly salary in the region of £150,000.
Adebayor's volatile relationship with the manager, Roberto Mancini, has improved recently and the club's coaching staff have been encouraged by his work on the training ground compared to six weeks ago when his attitude had become a major issue.
Nonetheless, manager and player still have differences. Adebayor's reaction at the final whistle of last night's 0-0 draw with Manchester United, heading straight down the tunnel, made clear his displeasure about being brought on as a substitute for only the final few seconds. City's backroom staff have noted that when he was informed he was replacing Carlos Tevez he did not have his shin pads or his boots on.
City will also listen to offers for the increasingly peripheral Shaun Wright-Phillips and Roque Santa Cruz while Shay Given wants a loan move after losing his place to Joe Hart.
As for Mancini, the manager appears to have ridden the storm of losing three successive matches before Sunday's 2-0 victory at West Bromwich Albion, although many supporters have questioned the team's conservative tactics in the Manchester derby.
Those criticisms were also aired by Graeme Souness and Ruud Gullit in their role as television pundits. "Chelsea's goal difference is plus 23, City's is five," Souness said. "I don't think you can go with that three of Tevez, [David] Silva and Yaya Touré if you want to play attractive football, be on the front foot, and win home games, which you must do if you are going to win anything."
Gullit said: "It's not pretty is it? You can see that they have difficulties to find each other [in attacking positions]. When they want to cross it, there is no one there to cross it to."
The centre-half Kolo Touré defended Mancini's tactics. "United are a top club with top players and it was important not to lose the game as we had to keep fourth place. When you play against the top teams the most important thing is to try not to lose. It was a difficult game for us and we are delighted with a draw."
Micah Richards has no regrets at snubbing England in favour of Team GB
Micah Richards acknowledges that his England bridges may be burned, but has no regrets at snubbing a Euro 2012 call-up.
The Manchester City defender took the decision last summer to represent Team GB at the London Olympics, rather than go on standby for the European Championship.
Richards insists he made the right call for him, with a 'once-in-a-lifetime' opportunity presenting itself.
He is, however, prepared to acknowledge that his England days may now be over at the age of 25 - after earning just 13 caps - with Glen Johnson and Kyle Walker the favoured options at right-back for Roy Hodgson.
Richards told The Sun: "It was one of those. Do I go on standby or play in the Olympics? I wanted to go and play under (Stuart) Pearce as I knew him from here at City.
"It was a decision I made, people will always think negatively about it.
"But, from my point of view, we'd won the league that year and the FA Cup the season before. Kyle Walker got injured and I was still being asked to go only on standby.
"Was I wrong for making the decision? Maybe. But I wanted to play in the Olympics. It was a once-in-a-lifetime chance and I enjoyed it. It was one of the best times of my life."
He added: "I still want to play for my country, everyone does. But what can I do now?
"Of course, there's still a lot of time. But time waits for no-one. We've got young players coming through now like Kyle and Nathaniel Clyne.
"So, yeah, time is still on my side. But sometimes with England, if you don't get in when you're young and stay in, they look to go younger. All I can do is play well.
"People ask me the question about getting back in the England squad and I think, 'I won the FA Cup and then the Premier League in 12 months and I still didn't get in'. So what can I do? I couldn't do any more than that."
Any international recognition at this stage would be a bonus for Richards, with the City man's focus locked on nailing down a regular role at club level rather than chasing a 2014 World Cup dream.
He said: "I'm coming back from injury and I've only played a few games this season. So do I expect to be in the England squad right now? No.
"On ability maybe I should be. But if you go on form and if people are playing every week, probably not."
GOLDEN BOLLOX 12 November 2011
Man City unsure if Tevez will EVER return
Manchester City have no idea whether Carlos Tevez will be returning to England.
The Daily Mail says uncertainty continues to surround City's Tevez. The 27-year-old went AWOL earlier this week when he flew back to Buenos Aires to be with his family.
City emailed Tevez telling him to contact the club with an explanation yesterday, but last night neither camp would confirm if he had done so ahead of a midnight deadline.
The striker is expected to be fined £600,000 over the latest controversy, having already been hit with a £400,000 fine for his touchline fallout with manager Roberto Mancini in September.
Tevez has also been summoned to a meeting with club officials on Monday to discuss his future, but it remains to be seen if he flies back to Manchester over the weekend.
Man City target Shaqiri is staying at Basel
Manchester City target Xherdan Shaqiri will not be sold in January - but Basel may cash in on him next summer.
The Switzerland star has attracted interest from across Europe following a result of impressive performances for club and country.
According to reports in the Swiss press, City are on a lengthy list of admirers thought to be considering a January offer.
The skilful midfielder, 20, is rated at around £9m by Basel but sources in Switzerland have revealed the club will resist all offers until the end of the season.
Basel are currently three points clear at the top of the Swiss Super League and have an outside chance of progressing to the knock-out stages of the Champions League and the club do not wish to compromise their position by selling one of their key players. talkSHIT
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[/spoiler]Chelsea are planning a £60m bid for Monaco striker Radamel Falcao, 27, with boss Jose Mourinho going to watch him in action for Colombia against Belgium on Thursday. Daily Mirror
Arsenal have stepped up their pursuit of Real Madrid striker Karim Benzema, 25, as Gunners boss Arsene Wenger looks to boost his attacking options. Daily Mirror
Manchester United could make a January move for 24-year-old Borussia Dortmund midfielder Marco Reus, with Shinji Kagawa, also 24, heading in the opposite direction. Times
Chelsea are interested in signing promising 18-year-old Schalke midfielder Max Meyer. Daily Star
Fiorentina are determined to keep Arsenal midfield target Juan Cuadrado, 25, at the Serie A club. Metro
West Ham have been handed a boost in their pursuit of striking reinforcements with former Manchester City player Felipe Caicedo, 25, ready to quit Lokomotiv Moscow in January. Daily Express
Lazio are to open talks with Arsenal and Tottenham target Hernanes, 28, over a new deal to remain at the Stadio Olimpico. Daily Star
Chelsea manager Jose Mourinho called West Bromwich Albion centre-back Jonas Olsson a "Mickey Mouse player" to spark a tunnel bust-up between the two sides after their 2-2 draw at Stamford Bridge last Saturday. Daily Telegraph
England boss Roy Hodgson's squad will not prepare for Friday's game against Chile at their usual St George's Park camp following concerns of a virus sweeping through the training base. Guardian
Scotland manager Gordon Strachan will try to convince Cardiff City centre-back Steven Caulker to play for his side and give up hopes of turning out for England. DSSC
Chelsea midfielder Frank Lampard will captain the side against Chile as a mark of recognition for the 35-year-old having reached the 100-cap mark against Ukraine in October. Daily Express
Liverpool midfielder Steven Gerrard says he will not "lose any sleep" over Alex Ferguson's claim he is not a "top, top player" and that the former Manchester United manager tried to buy him at least once. DSSC
Goalkeeper Thibaut Courtois, on loan at Atletico Madrid, has told Chelsea he will not open talks on his future at the club until after the World Cup, leaving Jose Mourinho with six months to stew over a choice between the 21-year-old Belgian and Petr Cech. DSSC
Former Manchester United assistant boss Rene Meulensteen is a surprise outsider for the Crystal Palace managerial vacancy. Daily Mirror
Fulham's turbulent season is being disrupted by growing tensions between manager Martin Jol and the club's academy over the manager's apparent reluctance to promote youngsters into the first-team set-up. DSSC
Defender Thomas Vermaelen, 27, insisted he is happy to stay at Arsenal and fight for his place despite rumours linking him with a move. London Evening Standard
Defender Phil Jones, 21, has sent a defiant message from Manchester United by stating that the champions are inspired by "everyone hating" them. Guardian
Liverpool captain Steven Gerrard has told the club's fans to enjoy striker Luis Suarez, 26, "while he's here". The Uruguay striker was linked with a move away from Anfield in the summer and is expected to be the subject of further speculation in January. London Evening Standard
Barcelona midfielder Cesc Fabregas, 26, has again voiced his frustration at not being a regular part of the starting XI for Barcelona's biggest games. ESPN
David Beckham's son Brooklyn, 14, has taken another step towards following in his father's footsteps as a professional footballer by training with Fulham. DSSC
Fans of Swedish footballing superstar Zlatan Ibrahimovic will soon be able to lick the back of his head when he is honoured in a set of stamps. Metro
GOLDEN BOLLOX 12 November 2012
Roberto Mancini Will Be At Manchester City For Another 5 Years, Says Patrick Vieira
Patrick Vieira has backed Manchester City boss Roberto Mancini to be at the club for a further five years as speculation regarding his position continues.
The Italian has come in for criticism over the terrible Champions League form and it was also revealed that he held discussions to join French side Monaco after last seasons 1-0 defeat to Arsenal leaving them eight points adrift of Manchester United.
However football development executive Vieira believes that there will always be questions raised regarding his future as a consequence of the success he has managed to bring since his time at the club.
“People are like that and you people, journalists, try to find the little things that will sell more papers and will get more people listening to the news,” said Vieira. “But this is a part of our game and we accept it, no problem at all.”
Vieira who had the benefit of playing under Arsenal boss Arsene Wenger insists that for a football club to have continual success they need to have a manager at the helm for the long term.
He said, “I hope (he is here in five years) because I believe that stability will bring success to the football club, to any football club. When you look Man United is a perfect example to follow, so why not?
“I think Mancini, since he's been at this football club his record has been fantastic. So credit to him - you're not winning the cup and winning the league as an average manager. You have to be good.
“He's a winner. He's working hard all week in training, trying to make the team focused and is really aware of the tactical aspect of awareness of the game.
“He is looking for the perfect game and he's really demanding. I think this is why he's so successful.”
