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Edin Dzeko was an emotional wreck when he came to Manchester City but now wants to help them win the title
Edin Dzeko is looking forward to his first full season with Manchester City, admitting that he arrived in England as an emotional wreck. The towering Bosnian looked like a giant, ungainly white elephant during most of the five months that followed his £24million transfer from VfL Wolfsburg in early January.
He scored only two goals in 15 Premier League games, managed just six in a total of 21 games in all competitions and the nickname of The Lamp Post, that has haunted him from early in his career, seemed particularly accurate.
But his He now reveals that by the time he got to Manchester he was turning into a basket case.
“I was sick of it, all about this transfer,” he said. “For my head, it was a little bit difficult. I was new in the team and it was a hard season. It’s always difficult to come to a new club midway through a hard season like that although I still think I had some good games, but that’s passed now.
“Now is my second season and I want to do better. I will do my best.”
Dzeko was talking at a beach soccer event held by Manchester City down the Pacific coast from their Marina del Rey HQ before their final game of their North American tour against LA Galaxy and the 25 year-old looked a holiday snap of contentment.
Even the dark shades cannot disguise his happiness nor can they hide the confidence he is feeling.
Even if Carlos Tevez leaves, there will still be Mario Balotelli as arival for the main striker’s spot and the expected £38 million arrival of Sergio Aguero means that life will still be challenging for him.
Yet he insisted: “I don’t think about that. Manchester City didn’t pay money for me because they saw me once on YouTube or something like that. They saw me scoring good goals. I haven’t forgotten how to score goals and I will show that next season.”
Dzeko’s story might have been conceived in nearby Hollywood. He survived the carnage of his home town of Sarajevo, constantly living in fear for his life amid the falling bombs, to forge a career in football that would make him one of the most sought-after strikers in Europe.
The script so far in the Manchester episode of his career has been fairly dreary and there is no guarantee of a happy ending, yet he added that manager Roberto Mancini as well as the City faithful supported him through his hard times, saying : “I think the fans have helped me a lot.
“Sometimes when a striker hasn’t scored and they’re still singing your name, it’s something special and the manager, he’s telling me all the time, ‘I believe in you and just work hard’ and that’s what I’m doing.
“So I want the new season to have started already. I’ve had a pre-season with the team now, which I think is the most important thing for every player, and I think I’m working hard and well and so we’ll see. But I know this season will be much better.
“City hadn’t won anything for 35 years and then we won the FA Cup and I was in the team. I think that could be a beginning for me.
“I’m not thinking about what has happened in the past or what may happen in the future. It’s important what I do now. I’ve trained well and we’ll see what happens when the season starts.”
The altered state of his head now even prompts the player who scored 85 goals in 138 appearances for Wolfsburg to go big-time on expectations not only for himself but for his team-mates as he declares that winning the Premier League can be done, saying: “I think we showed last season that we can compete with the big teams.
“I think we have good players, we can win the league. It was very important for the mentality of our team to win the FA Cup and next season everything is set.”
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[/spoiler]OTHER BOLLOX
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Ipswich boss Paul Jewell is set to sign Arsenal striker Jay Emmanuel-Thomas in a £1.1m deal. Daily Mirror
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CELEB BOLLOX
Man City will scare the Living Daylights out of rivals, says lifelong fan Timothy Dalton
Former James Bond star Timothy Dalton reckons Manchester City will scare the Living Daylights out of their opponents next season.
Dalton, who played 007 in The Living Daylights and Licence To Kill, is a lifelong City fan and caught up with Roberto Mancini's squad at a beach soccer event in Los Angeles.
And the 65-year-old actor, who divides his time between Los Angeles and London, said he expects City to push for several trophies next season.
"City are going to be special next season," said Dalton. "I think they're going to be really special. We've got past potential now.
"The way they were playing towards the end of last season, I thought they were absolutely fantastic.
"They're really beginning to gel and I'm looking forward to seeing what they can do next season."
Even if Carlos Tevez gets his wish and leaves City, Dalton said Roberto Mancini's squad could cope with his loss.
"Tevez is an extraordinary player," said Dalton. "He's been fantastic for City and I'm quite sure City have been fantastic for him.
"I'm sure a lot of people will be disappointed if he goes, but the thing to always remember in life is that, given time, nobody is irreplaceable.
"Everybody goes at some time, and it's up to the club to continually regenerate and sign players who work well together. And the club will do that."
Dalton, currently starring in American TV series Chuck, lived in Cheadle, near Manchester, and revealed how he came to support City.
"I was born in North Wales but my parents lived in Cheadle," said Dalton.
"A friend and I used to skip out on a Saturday afternoon, catch the bus up to the end of Platt Lane and walk down to the old Maine Raoad stadium.
"There was only one stand back then, one covered bit, and if we could then we would sneak in. We were just kids and we'd try to get in over the turnstiles. Ever since then I've been a City fan.
"It was in the 1950s, the days of Bert Trautmann, who was my hero. I thought he was wonderful, absolutely fantastic."
Even though he spends most of his time in Los Angeles, Dalton said he keeps in touch with City and the Premier League.
"You can watch more game over here than you can in England," he said.
"Between three or four Spanish-speaking stations, because they love the soccer, you can generally get two or three Premier League games a day.
"Then you've got the ESPN stations and Fox Soccer, so you generally watch games live, and if you can't do that you can always watch them on the internet.
"I was over here [in Los Angeles] when City won the FA Cup but I watched the game on TV. It was a great day."
*Manchester City players met children from the Boys & Girls Club of East Los Angeles and played beach soccer with them at Long Beach, Los Angeles, at a City in the Community, an initiative designed to forge closer links between the club and its local community.
