Everton are plotting a deal to take Manchester City and England winger Adam Johnson on a season-long loan.
The former Middlesbrough man has fallen behind Spain star David Silva in the pecking order at City and, with Euro 2012 on the horizon, it is thought he would be keen on such a move.
Johnson, 24, made more appearances as a substitute - 16 - than as a starter - 15 in the Premier League last season.
Celtic hold crunch talks with Manchester City for Craig Bellamy
The 32-year-old Welshman has been the subject of much interest from Hoops' manager Neil Lennon who is keen to make an offer, but the £6m price tag is proving restrictive
Manchester City’s chief executive Garry Cook landed in Ireland on Friday for crunch talks about the future of Craig Bellamy with Celtic’s biggest shareholder, Dermot Desmond.
Bellamy, who spent a period on loan with Celtic earlier in his career, is wanted by Hoops' manager Neil Lennon, but his wage demands are an obstacle that could prevent the Glasgow club from completing a deal. The former Wales captain is currently earning £90,000-a-week at City, whereas Celtic are understood to be able to offer him only £20,000-a-week.
“There is interest, but it is dictated to by finances,” Lennon told The Telegraph.
“I hope to catch up with [City] while they are here and see if we can take it from there.”
Despite an apparent breakdown in the relationship between City manager Roberto Mancini and the Welsh striker, Bellamy is understood to be considering talks with the Italian, in a bid to reconcile their differences and stay with the richest club in the world.
James Lawton: City's flawed ambition can only drive the game mad
Nigel De Jong, Manchester City's Dutch midfielder, has let it be known that he is "frustrated," in his negotiations with his club over the terms of his future employment.
This may not rank highly on any chart of human suffering but some may see his point partly because, in almost the same breath as giving his new team-mate Sergio Aguero a guarantee of more than £50m wages over the next five years, City say the best they can do for him is a mere £80,000 a week, which of course is barely £4m a year.
The main reason, though, is that football has become, essentially and at times, almost exquisitely mad.
So separated has it become from the experience of most normal people, it has almost lost the power to outrage or astound. Most people just juggle the figures and shake their heads.
It has become a place where players even as resolutely functional as De Jong, who, for all his professional qualities, could no more light up a football stadium than double as lead violinist for the Hallé Orchestra, seem to spend much of their time agonising over quite how well they are keeping up with football inflation.
Now that City have become such a byword for the phenomenon, manager Roberto Mancini can only groan at the news that not only De Jong is upset but also Vincent Kompany, who is also being offered a slave-rate £80,000-a-week, and Micah Richards, for whom there is only the scrapings of £65,000, out of which, when you think about it, he could buy no more than four bog-standard Porsches a month.
These rumblings do not fit so easily into the image of mature, upward mobility that City had some cause to be projecting at the end of the season. Winners of their first significant trophy in 35 years when the FA Cup was gathered in at the expense of Manchester United, higher placed than Arsenal in the final roll-call for Europe, City had finally started to play some fully integrated, grown-up football.
However, right on the cue of a new season we have the rumblings of the disaffected, the ritual promises of the latest expensive hero and the increasingly plaintive cries of Carlos Tevez over the family tragedy of his not being able to share with his daughters a perfectly agreeable existence in somewhere like Madrid or Milan.
It is necessary to remind ourselves all over again about the essentially flawed ambition of Manchester City. They have created in their dressing room something that increasingly resembles a culture of ever-rising envy. De Jong, no doubt, is a forceful and effective professional but his own estimation of his worth is unlikely to be shared by most of those who remember him mostly by what appeared to be an attempt to decapitate Spanish midfielder Xabi Alonso in the World Cup final.
Kompany is a fine, consistent defender and Richards is still young enough to be regarded as promising, but for the moment such virtues are once again overshadowed by one of the older truths of football.
It is that you cannot buy success simply at any price. You cannot throw masses of money at players of disparate skill and personality and expect some smooth and seamlessly competitive result.
In the Manchester City executive suite, the belief, clearly, is that Sergio Aguero is worth at least twice as much as any of De Jong or Kompany or Richards. This is an entirely reasonable calculation, but at the moment it seems to offer only one guarantee. It is that City, for all their recent progress, will for some time continue to define the difference between building success and buying insanity.
QPR Target Man City Defender
Nedum Onuoha has been linked with a move to Queens Park Rangers
Neil Warnock has been linked with the Manchester City defender as a temporary solution to the R's defensive conundrum.
Thus far Rangers have added former West Ham United man Danny Gabbidon to the ranks, but are reportedly keen to add further.
The Daily Mail are today reporting that Rangers have displayed an interest in the former Sunderland loanee Onuoha in a bid to bolster their options.
'I want a central midfielder and a winger'
Manchester City's Roberto Mancini reveals the summer spending is not finished
After completing the signing of Sergio Aguero, the Italian still believes he needs to strengthen his side even further to secure the Roberto Mancini has revealed he intends to sign two more players for Manchester City before the close of the transfer window, after completing the record signing of Sergio Aguero for €43 million.
Aguero to be unveiled at Dublin Super CupThe Argentine international confirmed his arrival from Atletico Madrid on Friday and was presented as a City player ahead of the Dublin Super Cup, where he won't be taking part.
But Mancini admitted his new striker could play some part in the Charity Shield against Manchester United next Sunday, and added that his spending isn't done there.
"Sergio is another striker, he is a young striker, I think that we need a player like him," he told reporters in Dublin.
"But if we want to compete with all the other top teams - Champions League or Premier League - we need other players, but the club are working in this way."
Asked which positions he needs to strengthen, Mancini added: "The middle and like a winger.
"One midfielder, one winger."
When asked what sort of impact Aguero will make, Mancini added he hoped the Argentinean striker would end up as prolific in front of goal as Brazilian hero Romario, who scored over 1,000 goals.
"And I hope that he can score all the goals that Romario scored!"
TOP LAKEY BOLLOX
Over here please Mr Lake. Are you with us, or not? No... I'm not really here
'Don't get too good, mind. I'm not having you nicking my f***in' place.'
Paul Gascoigne said that to Paul Lake at the check-in queue at Tirana airport in Albania in March 1989. Those are details a man remembers.
Another is that eight months later Lake joined Gascoigne in Bobby Robson's provisional England squad for Italia '90. Lake had just turned 21, he was captain of Manchester City and like Gascoigne, 22, he was one of England's coming footballers.
Lake missed out on that World Cup but from Robson there was an FEC of a consolation.
As with fabled fellow Mancunian Michael Atherton, FEC referred to Future England Captain.
That is what Lake was in Robson's opinion.
He had been part of the first-ever City team to win the FA Youth Cup, beating local rivals United in the final. In the famous City 5-1 win over United in 1989, Lake set up the second and fourth goals.
He could play anywhere in defence or midfield. Paul Lake was the future.
We all know what happened to Gascoigne and Atherton.
So it is tempting to ask the question: whatever happened to Lake?
Given his love of music; given his subsequent life, a more appropriate question might be: what becomes of the brokenhearted?
In Lake's case, one answer is that, hood up, they pound the streets alone and anonymous before limping to a motorway bridge in Cheadle to contemplate the meaning of it all.
Seeking to escape himself and what he felt he had become, Lake thankfully never considered suicide, but it is clear that someone who had it all to win had got lost and become worryingly detached.
He was just 26.
But that five-year contract meant Lake still belonged to Manchester City.
Thus in the summer of 1995 Lake was still there for the new-season squad photo at Maine Road. He had not played for nearly three years and, feeling uncomfortable and unworthy, he was sufficiently distracted for the photographer to ask: 'Over here please, Mr Lake, are you with us or what?'
In his head Lake replied: 'No, I'm not really here.'
Fast-forward 15 years and I'm Not Really Here is the title of Paul Lake's happy, sad, thought-provoking autobiography.
Happier times: Ian Bishop (right) and Paul Lake celebrate a 5-1 victory over Manchester United
Its sub-title is A Life of Two Halves and the dispiriting journey from high visibility to invisibility is captured on the cover.
There is a jigsaw of that '95 City squad photo with a piece missing. It is Lake's face. I'm not really here.
Sitting outside City's new stadium, Lake took himself back two decades and explained: 'I'd just had a particularly good end to the 89-90 season and Howard Kendall was impressed. So I signed a five-year contract. It was on the premise that after 10 games as captain I'd be made the club's highest-paid player.
'He was aware that some bigger clubs were starting to look at me. Within two-and-a-half games of that conversation I had my first cruciate ligament injury.
'I had this five-year deal. So I spent pretty much five seasons trying to get fit. With every false dawn, with every bit of surgery, I just seemed to be ebbing away.
'By the time of my last season I was probably at my lowest. You can imagine the dressing room at the start of a new season - "Who are the new players? Where's the first game? What's the pre-season tour?" There's excitement.
'But I didn't belong there any more. That's where the front cover of the book comes from. The photographer actually asked me, "Are you really here, Mr Lake?"
'I was anywhere but. I'd rather have been hiding in a cupboard, or at home watching daytime TV, or on a bus going anywhere. I didn't belong any more. It was a token gesture by me because I had that contract. I had to be visible. And there was always that glimmer of hope that there might be a miracle.
'I thought to myself, "No, I'm not really here". When you combine that with the similar City chant, it fitted perfectly for the book title.
'The jigsaw was also my idea. That epitomised those five years.
'In a sense I was teasing the fans, almost insulting them, because I was the Next Big Thing supposedly.
'And yet: I was there, then I wasn't there. What was my purpose?
'I'd played 130 games yet there was such expectation. I had such unfulfilled hopes. I used to go upstairs at Maine Road and look at the scroll of honour, look at names like those of Colin Bell and Joe Corrigan. I wanted to be the most-capped name on that board. That was my dream.
'To play for England Under 21s (right), the England B team and have a little taste of the full squad, and to have Bobby Robson say that he had me down as a future England captain, those were such exciting times for me. And then . . . all those hopes slowly slipped away.'
The words flow from Lake without self-pity or bitterness, and he is entitled to both.
What happened to Lake is a personal and sporting tragedy.
That cruciate ligament injury he referred to occurred in early September 1990, three games after Lake had been made captain by Kendall.
It was against Aston Villa at Maine Road with new England manager Graham Taylor in attendance, and Alex Ferguson.
Lake had just intercepted a pass from Tony Cascarino when he 'felt a weird clunk in my knee . . . I lay on the pitch in the foetal position, frozen with shock, totally unaware that my life had changed for ever'.
City were unaware too.
After two days of ice and compression on his right knee, Lake was sent for an X-ray. The assessment was: 'You'll be back around the six-week mark.'
Lake was 21, a City fan as a boy, now team captain. He was thrilled with where he was. He trusted City.
As he writes in his book: 'I was given the impression that, while it was more than just a knock, it certainly wasn't as serious as everyone had initially feared. I wouldn't need to see the consultant again, I was told, and an MRI scan of my ligaments and tendons wouldn't be necessary.'
As you may have guessed, this was incorrect analysis.
Six weeks became six months and a belated scan led to the first of 18 operations on his right leg alone - his left has had to be straightened as well.
City's boy wonder, the future England captain, became in his description 'a ghost of seasons past'.
It was not immediate.
Lake put himself through one gruelling rehabilitation after another. He was so often in recovery at Lilleshall he spent almost a year of his life there.
But Lake did not sleep well at Lilleshall and that had a lasting effect.
He had a recurring nightmare where he was 'lying lifelessly on top of a rubbish tip like a discarded tailor's dummy . . . not the hardest of dreams to psychoanalyse, I imagine'.
That was the beginning of a destructive voyage inside himself that led to clinical depression: 'I was tormented by the triple-whammy of insomnia, inertia and amnesia.'
There were moments of hope.
Euro '92 might have gone but that summer Lake was deemed fit enough to rejoin City's first-team squad.
Manager Peter Reid spoke of 'like having a new £3m signing' - and £3m was transfer-record territory in 1992. So when next year, on the 20th anniversary, they re-screen the Premier League's first-ever live BSkyB Monday-night match, Lake will be seen playing for City against QPR at Maine Road.
He lasted an hour.
Two days later City were at Middlesbrough.
Lake convinced himself and everyone else that he was fit. He wasn't.
After seven minutes he made a pass to Steve McMahon and collapsed. His knee ligament had snapped again.
Six weeks later grumpy City chairman Peter Swales finally agreed to pay for Lake to travel to Los Angeles to see the surgeon who had rescued the knees and careers of Ian Durrant and John Salako.
Lake travelled first-class but, to his disbelief, he returned in economy, all 6ft 1in of him, and his crutches and his just operated-on knee.
Landing in Manchester he had to get a wheelchair.
He felt he had become 'an irritant' to Swales and City, who suggested that he recover in gyms in south Manchester.
It was a step away from the club, the dressing room, the noise and into solitude and silence.
What hope there was evaporated. Lake never played again. And he had depression.
Today Lake generously describes the treatment he received from City as 'of a time'.
He never sued the club, primarily because he was a supporter.
He had been first taken to Maine Road - which he still calls 'my church' - in 1976 by the local milkman, Albert.
It is one of many beguiling details in a book that captures a time, a place and a club.
Obsessed by pop music since hearing Showaddywaddy, each chapter is named after a Mancunian song - Sheila Take A Bow, In A Lonely Place.
At one point when thinking of career whatifs, Lake summons Jim Bowen's Bullseye programme, when the losers were always shown 'what you could have won'.
He tells the story from May 1989 when City needed to beat Bournemouth at Maine Road to ensure promotion.
City were 3-0 ahead at half-time.
Manager Mel Machin decided to forego a team talk, instead introducing a motivational speaker. It was 'funnyman' Eddie Large, who proceeded to do impressions of Cliff Richard, Frank Carson and Benny from Crossroads. City drew 3-3.
Lake had grown up in a normal, loving family in Denton in Manchester. His brother Michael played for Sheffield United.
But as his knee injuries came to define his career, Lake felt unable to discuss the despair gathering inside his head.
He had moved out, and while he had a girlfriend, he was living alone.
'I had no outlet, no back-up support, I was clinging on by my fingernails. Every single day I asked myself, "How is my knee?" Every . . . single . . . day.
'I'd walk to the corner shop and be asked, "How's that knee of yours?"
'I was so upset. I had to drag myself out of bed. I dreaded match-day. I had that perfunctory greet-the-fans role - and I love them - but I suppose they were even getting sick of me. One fan mistook me for David White. I signed his ball "David White". It lightened my day.
'Depression's in your head but you can't express it, you don't know how to. I was a young man. I was trying to conform to a professional persona.
'I think my managers were sympathetic, and in some ways empathetic, but it was never an environment to broach it. You bottled it up. Then there's no escape valve. So where do you go?
'I'd stand on the bridge and wonder, "Where's he driving to?", "What's he doing with his life?" That helped me get nearer to the following day without me having to think about my life, where I was. I felt I had nothing to look forward to. I felt I was letting everyone down, my family, my friends, the fans, myself. I felt my testosterone had left my body, seeped away.'
The music literally stopped.
Lake could no longer stand to hear it.
At last he found the will to speak to a psychiatrist. He was informed he was 'in mourning' for his career.
In a way Lake was pleased to hear someone identify that and say it out loud.
'It was putting into perspective the reasons for feeling what I was feeling. There was also the realisation that it was normal. But I still felt, "What on earth is my purpose?", and "What am I going to do next?"'
Lake formally retired on January 4, 1996, aged 27.
Alan Ball was City's new manager. He thought it would be a good idea for Lake to be photographed hanging up his boots.
Lake was unimpressed.
Ball's casual attitude confirmed that Lake no longer existed as a footballer.
A devastated young man had been left bewildered once already when, having asked to collect his medical records from the club, he was told 'they had been shredded because' - and I quote - 'they didn't make any sense'.
But the second half of his life had begun and after a testimonial match in 1997, for which Ferguson delivered a full United XI - and for which Lake remains enthusiastically grateful - he went to college.
The medical case studied biology at South Trafford and qualified as a physiotherapist at Salfor d University. From there he re-entered football and City.
He then got jobs at Macclesfield, Burnley and Bolton.
Lake has been able to dispense physical and emotional advice: 'It's not a weakness to talk, it's a strength. It shows character. You can be stronger for it.'
He thinks clubs are becoming more understanding of broad player welfare.
His self-esteem and testosterone drive gradually returned - he is married with three children - and depression is being held at bay.
The music is on again.
'As much as how I was treated medically was a source of upset and frustration, there were also some really happy times at Maine Road.
'I suppose the 5-1 was the highlight, but then there was the first home game of that season when I was captain. I was so proud, it meant so much to me I had to try not to well up. Mike Doyle, Paul Power. That's now me! I've got that armband on and Peter Reid is behind me!
'I look back at my playing days and my source of regret is that I didn't have 10 or 15 games, where I could give it a proper go. I'm a player governed by my injuries, my woes, millstones instead of milestones.
'I want to try to escape that so I'm not remembered for that. Yet I am. Even now people say it, "How's that knee of yours?" '
The questions will go on, for Lake has a discernible limp.
To visit his publishers in London recently he needed three anti-inflammatories.
But Lake is smiling.
In March last year he was invited to join City's community project and he now has the title of ambassador.
He loves it and City must love him.
So much of who he was and what he was going to be has gone - he made his City debut at Plough Lane, home debut at Maine Road, last game at Ayresome Park - but Paul Lake is back at the heart of the club.
He is a bridge between the old and the new.
He can get the missing piece of the jigsaw. He's really here.
I'm Not Really Here by Paul Lake, published by Cornerstone, priced £14.99. To order your copy at the special price of £12.99 with free p&p, call the MailLife Bookstore on 0843 382 0000 or visit maillife.co. uk/books
OTHER BOLLOX
Tottenham have tabled a bid of around £22m for Arsenal target Juan Mata. The Valencia winger is open to a move to the Premier League and Gunners boss Arsene Wenger is a fan of the 23-year-old but he is yet to make a formal offer. Daily Mirror
Liverpool are watching midfielder James McCarthy's contract talks at Wigan closely and will move for him if they go badly and the Latics show any inclination of wanting to sell. McCarthy has also been linked with Arsenal and Chelsea. Daily Mirror
Celtic boss Neil Lennon has admitted he has not given up hope of signing either Manchester City forward Craig Bellamy or Reading striker Shane Long. Daily Telegraph
Big-spending Championship side Leicester are to bid £4m-plus for Birmingham striker Cameron Jerome, who is also a target for Premier League sides Stoke, Fulham and Bolton. Daily Mirror
Liverpool and Tottenham are set to go head-to-head for the signature of Sao Paulo midfielder Lucas, according to reports in Brazil. talkSPORT
New Chelsea boss Andre Villas-Boas is set to miss out on yet another major transfer target, with Palermo playmaker Javier Pastore on the verge of a move to Paris St Germain. talksport
But Paris St Germain boss Antoine Kombouare has refused to discuss reports the club were on the brink of making Pastore their latest big-money signing. Sky Sports
Having publicly declared he would not leave Tottenham for the northeast of England after Newcastle United showed interest, striker Jermain Defoe could be the subject of a bid by London neighbours Fulham. Footie Online
Bolton Wanderers boss Owen Coyle has set a deadline of this weekend for the likes of Arsenal, Liverpool and Spurs to come forward with an acceptable bid for defender Gary Cahill. Bolton News
Dimitar Berbatov's agent says the Manchester United striker will not be leaving the club, even if the Premier League champions sign another forward this summer.
Full story: Inside Futbol
Arsenal chairman Peter Hill-Wood has confirmed the club are working on deals to bring in 'a few' new players with Phil Jagielka (Everton), Juan Mata (Valencia), and Christopher Samba (Blackburn) believed to be their top priorities. Metro
Luka Modric has accepted that he is stuck at Spurs, who are refusing to sell him to London rivals Chelsea, and will reportedly knuckle down for the new season. Metro
Leicester boss Sven Goran Eriksson has urged the Football Association to offer the England managerial role to Jose Mourinho when Fabio Capello steps down after Euro 2012. Daily Star
Rio Ferdinand evaded security to snap a quick Twitter picture in an out-of-bounds area of the White House during Manchester United's visit - before the photos mysteriously disappeared.... Metro
BONKERS BOLLOX ... SERIOUSLY
http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/timvickery/2 ... _to_t.html
