Saturday's B*ll*x

[Chinners]

MARK (BLUE ARMY)'S BOLLOX
City are set to name a strong side for their game against Inter Milan in Baltimore on Saturday night, but Brian Kidd says that the younger players have gained from being on the US tour.
Wednesday’s penalty shoot-out win over Club America in Atlanta saw the Blues field by far their strongest side of the tour so far, with the Toure brothers, Gareth Barry and Shay Given among those making their first appearances of the three-week visit.
Earlier games had featured a few younger players, who subsequently flew home, but the coach is adamant Scott Kay, Andrew Tutte and others will have gained from the games and the training they took part in.
“It was a fantastic experience for those young players to get game time in such an environment with such quality players that we have at the club,” Brian declares.
“They must feed and live off that, and it was always the plan to give the kids a go earlier, then get the more experienced players out in the later games but I hope the younger players got something out of it.
“The lads who came back from the World Cup are getting game time under their belts, and we have to look at them to bring them on a little bit because they had a long, hard summer before this.”
Brian, along with David Platt, will oversee City at the M & T Bank Stadium after manager Roberto Mancini returned to Italy on Friday due to a family illness.
“Clearly it’s a difficult time for the boss with him having to go back for family reasons. But the lads have been very professional, and he called to thank them for the commitment and effort that they have put in on the tour. mcfc.co.uk

ROBERTO MANCINI PUTS THE ACCENT ON TELLY
ROBERTO Mancini is rapidly improving his English by studying the commercial breaks between TV shows.
The Italian coach’s attempts to learn the language have constantly run into difficulties because he struggles to understand our regional accents. But his advisors suggested he should concentrate on the words in telly adverts, which come in short bursts, often no longer than 30 seconds, and would be far easier for him to take in.
Now Mancini, 45, is finally getting to grips with the lingo. And he has been helped out by Bolton-based comic Peter Kay, 37, in his cult John Smith’s beer sketches and Scouser Ricky Tomlinson, 70, now fronting up Farmfoods.
Geordie X Factor babe Cheryl Cole, 27, has also helped with her adverts for cosmetics firm L’Oreal. A City source explained: “Roberto has made a real effort after being advised to study the television commercials.
“He’s coming on in leaps and bounds because the attention span of adverts is so short. He’s really improving.”

Manchester City are still struggling to agree a fee with Aston Villa to buy their midfielder James Milner. Villa want £30m for the 24-year-old, but City are only prepared to pay £24m. (The Sun)

Spurs hit by alarm Bell
MARK HUGHES is close to persuading Craig Bellamy NOT to join Tottenham - for the second time.
Sparky convinced Wales striker Bellamy to sign for Manchester City ahead of the North Londoners 18 months ago.
And now the new Fulham manager is poised to nab Bellamy despite Harry Redknapp's public desire to land him.
Bellamy, 31, insists he wants to stay and fight for his place at City.
But the striker fears he could be squeezed out by Roberto Mancini's big-money buys and Hughes will do his best to convince Bellamy that his future lies elsewhere.

WAG OF THE DAY (DEFFO NOT SAFE FOR WORK)
http://www.linseydawnmckenzie.co.uk/preview.php

TRANSFER BOLLOX
Liverpool manager Roy Hodgson is considering a £10m bid for Standard Liege's Belgium international midfielder Steven Defour, who the former Fulham boss sees as a natural replacement for want-away Argentine Javier Mascherano. Daily Mail

And Mascherano is set to be the subject of a £20m bid from Italy's European champions Inter Milan, who are managed by former Liverpool boss Rafael Benitez. Daily Express

West Ham have snubbed Stoke's £9m bid for 26-year-old striker Carlton Cole. the Sun

Birmingham are lining up an improved £10m offer for Wigan winger Charles N'Zogbia after seeing their initial £8m bid turned down by the Latics. Daily Mail

Manchester United and Arsenal target Mesut Ozil has hinted that a move to Spanish side Real Madrid could be on the cards. The 21-year-old German midfielder has one year left on his contract with Werder Bremen who are ready to listen to offers. IM Scouting

Barcelona's former Arsenal midfielder Aleksandr Hleb could be on his way out of the Nou Camp. The 29-year-old Belarusian is attracting interest from Tottenham, Liverpool, Aston Villa, Sunderland and West Ham. IM Scouting

Blackburn have invited Roma midfielder Ricardo Faty for a trial with a view to a £1m deal for the 23-year-old, who has spent the last two seasons on loan - first, at Bayer Leverkusen and, later, at Nantes. Daily Mail

Arsenal youngsters Emmanuel Frimpong and Mark Randall, who both play in midfield, are loan targets for Southampton and Hull respectively. Daily Mail

Ipswich striker Jon Stead's proposed £250,000 move to Blackpool has fallen through after the former England Under-21 international failed to agree personal terms at Bloomfield Road. Daily Mirror

Nottingham Forest have placed their 30-year-old reserve goalkeeper, Paul Smith, on the transfer list. Daily Mirror

Mido is so angry that Middlesbrough are holding out for a £1m fee over his proposed move to Ajax that the striker is threatening to sit out the last year of his contract in protest. Daily Mirror

OTHER BOLLOX
Arsenal manager Arsene Wenger insists that midfielder Cesc Fabregas will stay with the club for another five years, despite on-going interest from Spanish side Barcelona, and will be captain for this coming season. Daily Mirror

Blackpool's promotion heroes are still waiting to be paid the bonuses owed to them since their play-off victory at Wembley two months ago, leaving owner Karl Oyston facing a damaging row two weeks before their Premier League debut at Wigan. Daily Mail

France striker Nicolas Anelka is taking sports newspaper L'Equipe to court for libel after it printed details of his expletive-ridden World Cup rant at former coach Raymond Domenech. Daily Mail

North Korea's football 'flops' have been given a six-hour verbal roasting in front of hundreds of government officials for not winning the World Cup. Coach Kim Jong-Hun, 53, was made to work on a building site and expelled from the Workers' Party of Korea. Daily Star

Manchester United's new signing Javier Hernandez scored against his new club after playing the first half for his previous team Chivas Guadalajara in a pre-season friendly. He switched to United's side in the second half, but could not prevent Sir Alex Ferguson's side from losing 3-2. (Various)

[mr_nool]

Glad to see Roberto really making an effort learning Manc.

[craigmcfc]

Bloody hell, that WAG's not safe to be opened anywhere never mind just work, unless anyone's after a tranny. Complete and utter tramp

[saulman]

Bloody hell, that WAG's not safe to be opened anywhere never mind just work, unless anyone's after a tranny. Complete and utter tramp

Each to their own. I'd do it.

[TonyM]

Best wishes to Roberto if there's issues at home. Hopefully everyone's ok.

[john@staustell]

Glad to see Roberto really making an effort learning Manc.

Hope he doesn't end up talking like Peter Kay's John Smith's ads!

"Ah. it's Brittney, she's having nightmares............................don't worry there's no monsters in the wardrobe. It's them burglars brekkin in at t' winders you want to worry about. Sweet dreams, sweetheart"

[craigmcfc]

Bloody hell, that WAG's not safe to be opened anywhere never mind just work, unless anyone's after a tranny. Complete and utter tramp

Each to their own. I'd do it.

Yikes, may God be with you

[ronk]

Bloody hell, that WAG's not safe to be opened anywhere never mind just work, unless anyone's after a tranny. Complete and utter tramp

Each to their own. I'd do it.

Damning with faint praise.

[Burt]

Bloody hell, that WAG's not safe to be opened anywhere never mind just work, unless anyone's after a tranny. Complete and utter tramp

Each to their own. I'd do it.

Yikes, may God be with you

Old beggars like me can't be choosers. I'd rip the tha back out of it:o)

[Blue in the face]

Bloody hell, that WAG's not safe to be opened anywhere never mind just work, unless anyone's after a tranny. Complete and utter tramp

Each to their own. I'd do it.

Yikes, may God be with you

Old beggars like me can't be choosers. I'd rip the tha back out of it:o)

You'd be up my arse trying to get near her.

BEST WAG YET.

[Mark (Blue Army)]

I like having my own little part of the B*ll*x stories ;)

[Chinners]

TWO SIDE OF FOOTBALL'S MONEY BOLLOX
Portsmouth v Manchester City: The two faces of football's money madness
They are the two sides of football which expose the financial madness at the heart of the national game. One club have so much money they can afford to write off millions of pounds to satisfy new regulations by putting highly-paid stars in mothballs for the first four months of the coming Premier League season - and maybe even longer.
The other club face the start of their new life in the Championship with only eight senior players likely to be retained in their squad, an 18-year-old rookie goalkeeper and financial restrictions which ban them from signing new players even on free transfers.
The problem for Manchester City manager Roberto Mancini is one of an abundance of riches; the challenge for Steve Cotterill, the man with the hardest job in football as manager of crisis club Portsmouth, is quite simply whether he can arrange enough loan deals to send out 11 men when his season kicks off at Coventry on Saturday.
Cotterill, appointed manager just six weeks ago, is philosophical about his task. 'It's almost an impossible situation but I've got to make it work,' he said yesterday. 'There are so many people relying on me. We haven't even got a full team at the moment, let alone a squad. I have only eight players who are good enough at this level. The goalkeeper is 18 but he's not strong enough. I need another three players just to make up a proper team.'
Mancini's concern is the polar opposite. New Premier League regulations mean City's manager must pare his squad of - at the latest count - 37 men down to 25 in a month's time. Those 25 must include eight who qualify as 'home-grown', although those players can be of any nationality, providing they played for an English or Welsh club for three years before they were 21.
In addition to the chosen 25, clubs can field an unlimited number of players under the age of 21 and any registered player in domestic cup competitions, where the new regulations will not apply.
Despite the luxury of his expansive squad, Mancini has spent close to £100million of his multi-billionaire owner's money this summer. And with Inter Milan's 19-year-old striker, Mario Balotelli, still a target, clearly there is one corner of Manchester that is immune to the recession gripping the rest of the country.
Mancini's toughest job will be in deciding which of his millionaires must spend the next few months - until a revised squad can be named after the January transfer window - doing nothing more on match days than watching the action from the stands. The problem is one that will afflict many of the Premier League's biggest clubs as they get to grips with the new regulations but, at City, the effect will be at its most dramatic.
Unless Mancini can secure hastily arranged loan deals, highly-paid stars such as Ecuadorian winger Felipe Caicedo, Brazilian strikers Jo and Robinho, Paraguay's Roque Santa Cruz and England's Shaun Wright-Phillips could find themselves omitted from City's squad. That would leave the club to shell out up to £10m in wages before the January transfer window to a group of players expected to do nothing more strenuous than pick up their pay cheques.
The new squad regulations were approved by the clubs last September but as the deadline for naming them at the end of this month draws near, some managers have voiced their concerns.
New Liverpool boss Roy Hodgson, who needs a serious overhaul of a squad topheavy with overseas players, is keen to follow Joe Cole's arrival with further high-profile signings but cannot bring in any more until he ships out a raft of foreigners.
Hodgson is in favour of the homegrown rule, already employed in UEFA competitions, but is anxious to secure loan deals for several players. 'Twenty five is not a big number of players for a Premier League club fighting on four fronts,' he said. 'You could have 60 matches a year and although three keepers and 22 outfield players sounds a lot, it isn't.'
Tottenham manager Harry Redknapp is seeking at least three experienced players to bolster his squad ahead of their Champions League debut. Redknapp will have to sell or loan to keep his senior squad within limits as well as within budget. 'The three players I have in mind would cost an awful lot of money so I have to loan out some others,' he said. 'People are now going to be loaning all over the world.There will be loads and loads of them. You have to loan out the high earners, you'll see an awful lot going.'
Arsene Wenger, a past master developing raw talent at Arsenal, biggest critic of the new restrictions, despite being used to them Champions League. Wenger, forced sell Eduardo to Shakhtar Donetsk, 'I am not too much for rules, I believe what is important is the quality. It will put many players without clubs and the clubs in a weak position for most of the time because when you already have 25 players and you buy another one, you have to get rid of one. It's a disastrous decision for football and for the players.'
At Portsmouth, Cotterill would surely welcome the problem. Pompey's seemingly interminable crisis has put them on the brink of meltdown, with the club under a strict transfer embargo, stripped of their parachute payments following relegation last season and facing a date in court with the taxman that could lead to a second massive points deduction. Before a ball has even been kicked in the Championship, Portsmouth are already one of the favourites to be relegated.
'The job is trickier than I thought it was going to be but I can only deal with the immediate,' said Cotterill yesterday. 'This is a great club with a great fan base and I don't want to let them down. I don't see it as a no-win situation because if I can turn this round, I can do anything.'
Cotterill is using all his knowledge of working on a shoestring budget at Burnley to try to keep Pompey on an even keel. 'Burnley had only eight decent players when I joined and 18 months after I left, nine of those I brought in played in the play-off final,' he said.
The difference is that Portsmouth are barred from spending any money, a situation that could become even worse on Tuesday when the High Court hears an appeal by HM Revenue and Customs, who claim they are owed £37m by Portsmouth, against the Company Voluntary Agreement prepared by the club's administrators.
A CVA would allow the club to exit administration without a football sanction but if the tax authorities win their appeal, another massive points deduction looks inevitable.
To make matters worse, Pompey have had their parachute payments withheld by the Premier League to cover some £8m worth of outstanding fees owed to other clubs, understood to include Tottenham, Lens, in France, and Italy's Udinese.
Administrator Andrew Andronikou is confident of success on Tuesday but admits that whatever the outcome, Portsmouth will have to carry on selling players, with the likes of high earners John Utaka and Kevin-Prince Boateng, fresh from World Cup action with Nigeria and Ghana, likely to go first.
'Lots of players are way over our budget and we are trying to get rid of them,' said Andronikou.
But with Premier League clubs now facing restrictions on their squads, that may be easier said than done.