Bollox Towers predicts that the inflatable Banana may of had it's day
.... expect a new breed at the Etihad anytime soon!
'Man City are the big shark - when teams swim with us we gobble them up'
Picture the scene: Monaco have been crowned French champions for the first time in 17 years and Benjamin Mendy, Kylian Mbappe, Tiemoue Bakayoko, Bernardo Silva and the club’s other coveted rising stars are sat around a table together, eating, reflecting on a remarkable season and playing a game probably best described as “Where are you going?”.
“We started to have this game where we’d be asking each other, ‘So where are you going then?’” Mendy explains, grinning at the recollection. “And everyone would lie. Some would say, ‘Oh, I’m going to Chelsea me’, others would go, ‘No, no, I’m off to Paris St-Germain’. Everyone was making up these stories. But when the calls came in and we all did go off to sign for other clubs, we’d agreed beforehand that we’d send each other Whatsapp pictures of ourselves at the point of signing, with the shirt aloft.
“Bernardo ended up being the first one. The rest of us were on holiday when we suddenly got this round robin photo from him signing for Manchester City, which was a surprise because he was the only one who had never said where he was going or what his plans were! And then he knocked us all over with that picture – ‘I’ve done it, here I am’. After that it was like dominos falling.”
Mendy would have to wait a while longer to get his own move to City as negotiations dragged on before Monaco eventually released the France left back for £52 million, a world record fee for a defender, in the final week of July. But most would agree he has been well worth the wait. Mendy’s City adventure is only two months old and yet he has already achieved cult status among supporters revelling in the emergence of a genuine star on and off the pitch.
A plentiful stream of side-splitting posts on Twitter and Instagram have turned him into a social media sensation and the only thing more razor sharp than the 23-year-old’s wit are those persistent raids down City’s left side that, combined with Kyle Walker’s presence on the opposite flank, have revolutionised the club’s playing style under Pep Guardiola this season and catapulted them to the top of the Premier League. Bottom club Crystal Palace are the visitors to the Etihad Stadium this Saturday afternoon and you really have to fear for Roy Hodgson’s team.
And yet Mendy, leaning in for dramatic effect and deliberately slowing his words, has something he wants to tell the City faithful. “I would like to pass a message on to the supporters – you ain’t seen nothing yet!” he says. On the field - and off.
Mendy is the ultimate dressing room prankster and Walker, for one, had better watch out. “Every time I get in my car I sit and sift through pictures and I saw that one of Kyle looking like he’d been taken down by a sniper against Liverpool,” Mendy says.
“So I stuck it on Twitter but then Kyle got me back. I got nutmegged against Feyenoord in the Champions League so he put a picture of that out and told me, ‘There you go. 1-1. Right back at you’.” So will you have reclaimed the lead soon enough? “Yeah, but, ssshhh, don’t tell him!”
At the moment, though, Mendy is preoccupied with playfully lobbying EA Sports for a improved rating on their popular Fifa video game. He jokingly pondered whether the game’s creators had actually watched any of Monaco’s matches on television last season when they settled on a modest rating of 78 out of 100.
“Maybe I’m 82, 83 now,” he says, laughing, although he is equally twitched by his resemblance to a former England striker on the latest version of the game. “Some friends called me up and said, ‘Look at the face you’re pulling, you look like Emile Heskey!’” he said.
Mendy’s mischievous sense of humour did get him into a spot of bother when former England players Steven Gerrard and Frank Lampard accused him of disrespecting Lewis Dunk after he had light-heartedly described the Brighton player’s own goal against City as a “bullet header”, complete with crying and laughing emojis.
“Maybe I shouldn’t have tweeted it there and then,” he says. “But that’s the way I am, I like to share things automatically. Maybe the sarcasm was too much. It wasn’t meant to be said with any bad intent at all and I was pulled up on it.”
Spend an hour in the company of this charming, larger than life character and it is immediately apparent that he is a natural showman but one with his heart very much in the right place.
Who could forget his decision to impose an image of the worker bee on his bag as he prepared to fly to Manchester to sign for City, a thoughtful show of support for the victims of the city’s terror attack in May. “I got that bag a few days before,” he said. “I knew the worker bee was the symbol of Manchester and thought it would send a message of solidarity to the people who were suffering.”
You get a glimpse of Mendy’s infectiously impish ways when he beckons this interviewer and the translator to come closer so we can take a peek at that day’s antics in the City canteen and reveals a video of himself posing as a Spanish speaking waiter serving up lunch for City’s Argentina defender Nicolas Otamendi. “Chicken, rice, lemon, there you go Sir ... bon appetit”.
There was a time, though, when Mendy did not know when to stop larking around and when to get serious. He joined Le Havre from his local Parisian side, Palaiseau, at 13 but was told bluntly he would not last long if he did not wise up.
“I was always messing around,” Mendy said. “In my first season at Le Havre they said, ‘Sort it out or you’re on your bike’. It was a big wake up call.”
It was under Leonardo Jardim at Monaco last season that Mendy rose to prominence but he credits his former Marseille coach, Marcelo Bielsa, one of football’s great obsessives, with changing his state of mind, even if it did take a while and some curious beginnings for the message to get through.
“I would have breakfast and then turn up on instruction to this blacked out room and there’d be no one there,” Mendy recalled. “There would just be a video running for an hour or so. So I’d sit on the back row and go to sleep and he allowed me to do that for a long time.
"After a while I thought, ‘This is a bit strange’ so eventually I said, ‘I’ve had enough of this, I’ll watch the video.’ So I did it once, then the second time thought, ‘Yeah ok’. The third time I’m interested and by the fourth time it was me there, knocking on the door saying, ‘Can I watch more videos?’
“Guardiola is from the same school as Bielsa, they’re cut from the same cloth. This transition from the world of Bielsa to the world of Guardiola for me is a great thing. Guardiola is one of those people who only talks about football - you say obsession, I say it’s love.”
Mendy admits he made it a mission to win over Guardiola when Monaco were paired with City in the Champions League Round of 16 in February. “After the game at the Etihad I was in anti-doping control with Kevin De Bruyne and had the opportunity then to ask him lots of questions,” Mendy revealed. “I knew at that point it was going to be my destination. And yes, Kevin asked me straight – ‘When are you coming to join us?’ And I said, ‘As soon as they come and ask for me!’”
Mendy likes to refer to City as #sharkteam on Twitter. “We’re the big shark and when teams swim up alongside us we gobble them up,” he says, but for all the focus on the club’s glittering attacking talent, from Sergio Aguero and Gabriel Jesus, to Leroy Sane, Raheem Sterling, the two Silvas, David and Bernardo, and De Bruyne, no one should underestimate Mendy and Walker’s importance to it all. Mendy has already made more crosses (27) in three league games than either Gael Clichy or Aleksandar Kolarov, City’s left backs last season, managed in the entirety of the previous campaign.
“The thing is, I have no limits to the energy I can give,” he said. “Even if it’s the 97th minute, I’m going to be there, running down the sides, getting that last cross in. If we are serious, with a team like this, there are no limits really.”
The spirit and camaraderie in the camp is strong, but while Mendy more than plays his part in that, he reserves special mention for Sergio Aguero. “Kun Aguero, he is a hero within the team, there’s respect for everyone, but he’s truly respected by all the players, irrespective of age,” Mendy said. “Look at the 6-0 win against Watford - we won a penalty and everyone knows Sergio takes our penalties but he said, ‘No, let Raheem take it’. Kun doesn’t just want to be the star himself. He wants all the players to shine, everyone to be brilliant.”
Sergio Aguero will 'die scoring goals', insists Pep Guardiola with striker on brink of equalling Manchester City's all-time goalscoring record
The prolific Aguero is just two goals short of equalling Manchester City's all-time goalscoring record having scored 175 times since moving to the Etihad Stadium in 2011.
City boss Guardiola has worked with Aguero to develop his all-round game but there has never been any doubt about the 29-year-old Argentinian's finishing ability.
Guardiola said: 'All we can say is just to convince him to be involved in the way we want to play - not to be (just) like a striker heading the ball in the box and scoring a goal, but to try to make one high press in the right moment to help to win the ball as quickly possible, to attack as quickly as possible and to be involved in the process to play football.
'I like the strikers who play in the process, like I don't just like the central defenders to defend. They have to be involved in the play.
'All the players in the world decide to play football for one reason - to play with the ball. Especially when they were kids, they enjoyed the training sessions when they had the ball, and I like all of them to be involved in that. Sergio too.
'But of course he has the character to score goals. He had it in the past in Argentina as a young boy. His mother and father gave him that talent. He will die scoring goals, there is no doubt about that.'
Aguero has scored six goals in as many appearances this season, including a hat-trick - his 10th for the club - in last week's 6-0 hammering of Watford.
Pep Guardiola sang the praises of his striker ahead of City's league match with Crystal Palace
He will get his first chance to challenge the 177-goal record mark of Eric Brook, which has stood since 1939, as bottom side Crystal Palace visit in the Premier League on Saturday.
Guardiola said: 'The record is going to be broken. Where? I don't know. Maybe at home would be better.'
Ahead of the season it was anticipated that Aguero and Gabriel Jesus would compete for one spot up front but such has been their form that Guardiola has been happy to play both together. There are strong signs the pair can form an effective partnership.
Guardiola said: 'They (defenders) can't focus on Sergio. If you focus on one, you help the other one to score goals. That is the way we have changed it a little bit.'
Guardiola has also revealed the club are hoping to agree a new deal with Brazil midfielder Fernandinho, who is in the final year of his current contract.
He said: 'The transfer market has finished but clubs are always updating and working. Of course there are players I think the club want to renew. One, of course, is Fernandinho and there are other ones. The club never stops.'
GOLDEN BOLLOX
On this day in 1989
League Cup is a waste of energy, says Guardiola
MANCHESTER: Pep Guardiola has called the League Cup “a waste of energy” as the Manchester City manager joined old rival Jose Mourinho in questioning the worth of the competition.
The League Cup was created in 1960 to take advantage of the fact that floodlights had increased the possibility for midweek football.However, the tournament has always been seen as secondary to the FA Cup in England, and its importance has gradually diminished over the last two decades as the top sides started to rest their key players until the latter stages.
In an attempt to keep the bigger clubs interested, the Football League has allowed English teams playing in European competition to be exempt until the third round since 1996.“We have a lot of games. If you have to play in a competition you have to play in it,” Guardiola said on Friday.
“It’s good for the players you don’t use a lot. It’s a prize where, when you win, it’s OK, but after that the people don’t give too much credit.“I think the prize is good when you win another one. But you waste a lot of energy.
“You can imagine going against a Tony Pulis team (West Brom) and playing 90 minutes in those conditions, then you spend three or four hours on the bus.“Then three days later, it’s Crystal Palace, three days later, Shakhtar Donetsk, three or four days later, Stamford Bridge.
“So for the managers, there’s a lot of wasted energy. But we knew that before, so it’s not a complaint in those terms. If we have to play, we have to play.”City and United go into the weekend joint-top of the Premier League I like the League cup so Fucl you Pep
WAG OF THE DAY
World War Two stopped Manchester City's record goalscorer Eric Brook from scoring even more
Were it not for the outbreak of World War Two and the fractured skull that brought a premature end to Eric Brook’s playing career, Sergio Aguero would have to wait a little longer to become Manchester City’s all-time top goalscorer.
As it is, Aguero needs just two more goals to match Brook’s record of 177 for City that has stood unequalled for the last 78 years, having played 235 fewer games for the club.
There aren’t many other comparisons between the Yorkshireman and the Argentine, besides both being no taller than 5ft 7in and having a natural instinct for goal.
When Brook, who also acted as City’s emergency goalkeeper despite his size, was forced to quit in 1940 because injuries he suffered in a car crash meant he could no longer head the ball, he retired to his native Yorkshire where he became a coach driver and ran a pub in Halifax.
He later returned to Manchester and operated cranes before passing away at the relatively young age of 57 in 1965.
Born in Mexborough, the oldest of five children, Brook would have ended up down the mines like his father had it not been for football.
He became one of the finest players of his generation and among the best in City’s history.
He was spotted in amateur football by scouts from Barnsley who were quick to snap up the blond-haired 18-year-old.
Two years later, Barnsley banked a combined fee of £6,000 when Brook and his team-mate Fred Tilson moved to City. The Yorkshiremen would go on to score 310 goals between them in 726 games.
Brook was an outside left in name only, preferring to drift in from the wing and score goals from a central position. In a 12-year career at Maine Road, Brook helped the club win promotion from the old Second Division in his first season and become champions for the first time in 1937.
City had lifted the FA Cup three years earlier after Brook scored a stunning winner in the sixth-round tie against Stanley Matthews’s Stoke City in front of 84,569 fans — a record attendance for a club match in England until Tottenham met Bayer Leverkusen at Wembley last November.
Of Brook’s 494 appearances for City, he got to play in goal on three occasions in the days before substitutes were allowed.
Former City keeper Frank Swift described how Brook once took his jersey off him, ‘about two sizes too big for him’, before he had even been carried off the pitch on a stretcher during a game against Chelsea. ‘I really believe Brookie used to pray for me to be knocked out,’ recalled Swift.
‘I wasn’t long off the field and Eric was very annoyed because he had had no shots to save! Eric was perhaps one of the most amazing characters I have ever played with. There wasn’t very much of him, but what there was, was all dynamite.’
Brook was capped 18 times by England, scoring 10 goals. It was while travelling to a wartime international against Scotland at St James’ Park in late 1939 that Brook suffered the injury that ended his career at the age of 32. Having missed their train in Leeds, Brook and his City team-mate Sam Barkas drove north instead and were involved in an accident near Ripon.
The war led to the suspension of First Division football and Brook’s 178th and final goal for City being wiped from the records.
His record of 177 has stood for nearly eight decades, but now Aguero is ready to succeed Brook as City’s goal king.
OTHER BOLLOX
Roy Hodgson hoping Fulham's Great Escape can help aid Crystal Palace's
In April of 2008 Hodgson's Fulham side avoided the drop after coming from behind to beat City. The former England manager is hoping his current side can use that as inspiration on Saturday
It was April 2008 when Roy Hodgson’s Fulham were in a mess so bad that Crystal Palace’s current predicament looks meaningless in comparison. We are currently just five games into the Premier League season, and not even into October. At half-time a game at what was then called ‘Eastlands’, Fulham were 2-0 behind Manchester City and going down.
What happened next? Diomansy Kamara scored two and Danny Murphy the other, and Fulham won 3-2. They stayed up on the last day of the season and went on to reach the Europa League final in 2010. Hodgson would later manage Liverpool, West Bromwich Albion and England. And less than 10 years on, he is heading back to Manchester City hoping to kindle another resurgence.
Hodgson was asked about that famous day at his Friday afternoon press conference in Beckenham. He said that things had got so bad for his Fulham team that the pressure was released. “We were roundly outplayed in the first half in that game, 2-0 down and it could have been more,” he said. "I remember saying at half-time ‘right, it’s 2-0, all we can do is try to win the second half.’
“It was a rousing second half performance. That might have been a situation where the pressure was off. Because at 2-0 at half time, had that scoreline stayed, we were relegated, even with three games to go.”
So will there be a repeat at the Etihad Stadium on Saturday? That was a very different time for City: they were owned by Thaksin Shinawatra, managed by Sven-Goran Eriksson and had Elano at right-back. “We thought the Man City team of that team was a bit of a star-studded amalgam of a lot of players playing in the top teams in Europe,” Hodgson said. “You’d have to say now, I think, they can pluck all the best ones if they like. If they want a right-back, who’s one of the best right-backs, if they want a left-back, who’s one of the best left-backs. I don’t know that Sven had quite that level of firepower.”
But City have not looked unbeatable, and all it will take for Palace is one win to transform the feel. “We were doomed, week after week, we just kept believing,” Hodgson said. “We had a nice campaign that Mohammed [al-Fayed] started, about keeping the faith and believing. The fans were terrific, they got behind us, even in games we weren’t able to win. They were using their clappers to make noise.”
What Hodgson and Palace have to give their fans is something to get excited about when they host Chelsea on 14 October after these difficult games against the Manchester sides, with United up next Saturday. At some point they will have to win. “What helped improve the belief of the fans and the players was winning matches,” he said. “And that is the only thing you can really do.”
Arsenal manager Arsene Wenger says getting Aaron Ramsey and Danny Welbeck to sign new deals is "something we want to address" but expects "more and more players going into the final year of their contracts". The 26-year-olds' contracts run until the summer of 2019. (Guardian)
Real Madrid are constantly monitoring the progress made by Liverpool forward Sadio Mane, 25. (Diario Madridista, via Daily Express)
Chelsea are leading Liverpool, Tottenham, Southampton, Manchester City and Manchester United in the hunt for Elye Wahi, 14, who is already scoring goals for Caen's under-17 side and comes from Courcouronnes, the same Paris suburb as Blues midfielder N'Golo Kante. (Sun)
Arsenal were keen to sign Napoli forward Dries Mertens, 30, this summer and the Gunners could try to sign him again, taking advantage of a 30m euro (£26.5m) release clause in his contract. (Calciomercato)
West Ham manager Slaven Bilic says 28-year-old striker Andy Carroll, who has two years left on his Hammers deal, needs to prove he can stay fit if he wants a new contract with the club. (Daily Mail)
The odds on Paris St-Germain winger Julian Draxler, 24, moving to the Premier League in January have fallen. (Daily Star)
Real Madrid president Florentino Perez has urged Manchester United manager Jose Mourinho to sign midfielder Andre Gomes, 24, from Barcelona next summer. (Don Balon - in Spanish)
Midfielder Ruben Loftus-Cheek, who is on loan at Crystal Palace from Chelsea, says he has no idea if he has a future with the Blues. (Daily Star)
Striker Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang, 28, has said he never seriously considered leaving Borussia Dortmund for the Chinese Super League last summer. (Daily Mail)
Real Madrid are in talks to sign 22-year-old Athletic Bilbao goalkeeper Kepa Arrizabalaga. (Don Balon)
Mark Sampson is considering suing the Football Association following his sacking as coach of the England women's team. (Times)
Diego Costa is moving everything out of England after quitting Chelsea to return to Atletico Madrid - including the nightclub he had installed in his Surrey mansion. (Sun)
Real Madrid forward Cristiano Ronaldo has demanded that fellow striker Gareth Bale be dropped to make room for 21-year-old Marco Asensio. (Daily Express)
Heavyweight boxer Hughie Fury dropped in on Manchester United's training session on Friday before his world-title fight with WBO champion Joseph Parker this weekend. (Daily Mirror)
Tottenham boss Mauricio Pochettino took his players and chairman Daniel Levy out to dinner this week - and picked up the £7,000 bill. (Guardian)
Alternatively, the bill was actually £10,000 for the meal, which was for 50 players and staff at posh West End restaurant The Beast. (Daily Star)
Nigel Pearson says he has put aside his differences with Leicester's Thai owners after agreeing to work with them again as head coach of another of their clubs, Belgian second-tier side OH Leuven. (Daily Mirror)
American president Donald Trump's 11-year-old son, Barron, has signed a deal to join MLS side DC United's under-12 team. (Sun)
GOLDEN BOLLOX
On this day in 2013
Fuming David Moyes gives Manchester United the hairdryer after derby-day annihilation
United's flops were made aware of their shortcomings by their new boss, who says he'll make sure they react and resume their title challenge
David Moyes tore into his Manchester United flops after their derby day humiliation.
United slumped to an embarrassing defeat to local rivals City and afterwards Moyes gave his players a blast of former boss Sir Alex Ferguson’s infamous ‘hairdryer’ treatment.
The defeat means United – on seven points - have suffered their worst start to a Premier League campaign since 2004, when they picked up just six points from their first five games.
And Moyes was in no mood to spare his under-performing United players from his anger after revealing he told them their abject display was unacceptable and that he wants a reaction.
“I’ve made them aware of that,” said Moyes. “But if there is ever was a group of players I’d expect that from it would be a group of Manchester United players.
“I think the way they have been brought up, the way they have been bred with the manager previously, they react, that’s what they do, and that’s what we’ll do here.
“We’ll make sure we react. Every manager has bad results. I’m no different.”
When pushed on his post-match dressing-room blast, Moyes said: “I’ve been here before with Everton and never suffered a defeat like this.
“So I just told the players, in the same way I would have told players at any other club, if I don’t think they’re doing it.
“They’re good players, they’re good pros, they know when they’re bang at it and when they’re not.
“City were the better team, they were stronger, they got control of the game and we found it difficult to contain them.
“I’m disappointed we didn’t perform. There was no reason for us not to perform, but it was one game. There’s plenty of time to come.
“We were second to things, in the first-half especially. We seemed to be a yard behind it and never got to the pace of the game right from the off.
“We had a good result in midweek and we wanted to build on that, but we never got to grips with it.”
After drawing 0-0 with Chelsea at home and losing 1-0 at Liverpool, defeat away to City has increased the pressure on Moyes, 84 days into the United job. United have not scored in open play in the league since the opening day.
“We want to win more of those games,” said Moyes. “We have to do that.
“Maybe if those games are later in the season, I might have a better understanding of all of the players at the club.
“But any manager, given that run of fixtures at this club, would have found it difficult.
“There was no reason for us not to perform well today but it’s one game, there is plenty more to come and plenty of time for us to try to fix it.”
United were without leading striker Robin van Persie, who suffered a thigh strain in training the day before the game.
“Obviously you miss Robin,” said Moyes. “He would be a huge miss to anyone, but I don’t think it is going to be a long one.
“He just felt something in his groin in training. We didn’t want to aggravate it.”
Late on in the game David Moyes threw Tom Cleverley into the mix. It was like throwing an egg against a cliff.
Manager Paolo Di Canio's departure from Sunderland came after a bust-up with two senior players. Daily Mirror
Sunderland players turned on Di Canio after being called to a crisis meeting at the club's training ground on Sunday following the 3-0 defeat at West Brom. DSSC
Members of the Wearside club's squad are believed to have told Di Canio they were unhappy with his man-management methods and his public criticism of them. Northern Echo
Former Chelsea manager Roberto Di Matteo and ex-Brighton boss Gus Poyet are favourites to take over from Di Canio, while former England manager Steve McClaren is an outsider. Guardian
Udinese are looking to beat Manchester United to the signing of Desportivo Brasil youngster Bruno Gomes, 17. Daily Express
Arsenal and Juventus are weighing up a move for Basel centre-back Fabian Schar, 21.
insidefutbol
Chelsea boss Jose Mourinho has confirmed that there is no recall clause in 20-year-old Romelu Lukaku's loan deal at Everton. DSSC
Southampton striker Billy Sharp, 27, has chosen to join Reading on loan for three months after turning down three other Championship clubs. Sun
Former Chelsea boss Avram Grant has questioned the way in which Jose Mourinho is marginalising playmaker Juan Mata. Metro
David Flitcroft is in a fight to keep his job - after only 36 games as Barnsley manager. Daily Mirror
Leighton Baines admits fantasy football banter with Leon Osman inspired his brilliant free-kick brace at West Ham. Metro
MORE BOLLOX LATER
the man is sooo awfully good ! on so many levels, words are missing to express how much love... 
