Friday's B*ll*x

[Chinners]

Arsene Wenger last night gave Manchester City an ultimatum over their pursuit of Samir Nasri
Arsenal boss Wenger wants Nasri’s future sorted out in the next 48 hours before the Gunners kick off their Premier League campaign at Newcastle.
“We have to make decisions one way or the other,” he said. “Ideally you want it to be sorted out before the season starts.”
City have bid £20million for Nasri, £5m short of Arsenal’s asking price. But with City desperate to complete the deal, they are set to offer £22m.
Jack Wilshere looks set to miss Arsenal’s opener with an ankle injury.
City, meanwhile, have told Inter Milan there is no chance of them loaning out unsettled striker Carlos Tevez. He will be sold only if a club meet City’s £50m valuation. They are, however, ready to sell £4m-rated Shaun Wright-Phillips, with Bolton and Wigan interested.

Green light for Pantilimon as £6m Man City keeper grantedwork permit
Manchester City have been boosted by the news that Romanian keeper Costel Pantilimon has been granted a work permit ahead of the start of the season.
The 24-year-old joins City as back-up to first-choice keeper Joe Hart after joining from FC Timisoara in a £6m deal.
Pantilimon, 24, impressed for FC Timisoara in last season's Europa League play-off against City and Mancini's side moved quickly to sign the stopper after the departure of Shay Given to Aston Villa.
City's new reserve has 13 caps for Romania, is highly-rated across Europe and has previously been linked with Inter Milan and West Brom this summer.
FC Timisoara, who finished second in the Romanian top flight this year, were relegated due to accumulated debts

Balotelli's sister unhappy with attacks on striker
Mario Balotelli's sister is unhappy at the continuos castigation the Italy striker receives in England for his multiple misdemeanors and perceived petulance.
Cristina Balotelli acknowledged her adopted brother, who turns 21 on Friday, is a flawed character who is still developing as a footballer. But she said the constant stream of criticism has been unwarranted since he joined Manchester City last year.
In an interview with The Associated Press, Cristina said people in England are too "ready to attack an Italian footballer, or coach, when they are not brilliant.''
The forward has rarely been out of the headlines, with former Manchester United captain Gary Neville branding some of his conduct an "embarrassment to his club.''
That comment came after Balotelli had squared up to United defender Nemanja Vidic before being substituted in Sunday's Community Shield loss and racing straight down the Wembley Stadium tunnel.
"Mario might have not been brilliant, but putting all the blame on him for the defeat is totally unfair,'' Cristina Balotelli said. "Soccer is teamwork.''
City manager Roberto Mancini also defended him, refuting any suggestion that the Wembley incident was an act of petulance.
"Every time Mario does something people read things into it,'' said Mancini, a fellow Italian.
Patrick Vieira, a City player last season who now has an executive role at the club, says it's time for Balotelli to mature.
"People forget how young he really is,'' the former France midfielder said. "I hope this year he will learn from his mistakes. He is a really talented footballer and I hope he can show everybody how good he is.''
Cristina is angriest at the media for portraying her brother in a negative light. There are numerous stories she claims are untrue - saying he never bought a Harley Davidson motorbike in breach of club rules and a dead fish was not found on his Maserati, which one paper said was apparently a sign the supporters dislike him.
"Supporters love Mario,'' Cristina said. "Every time I go to see a football match in which he plays I find myself randomly in groups of supporters who sing the Balotelli song: 'Oooh Balotelliii ... he's a striker ...'
"I always tell him. I think they like him because he's fun and genuine like them.''
Maybe that's why when police asked him why he had 5,000 pounds ($8,000) in his car he quipped: "Because I'm rich.''
Comments he made to Italian TV that he didn't like living in Manchester brought suggestions he was trying to engineer a move back to Inter Milan after only one season at City.
Cristina said that, like his City teammate Carlos Tevez, Balotelli simply doesn't like living in the northern English city.
"He said he's happy with the coach and the team at Manchester City, but he doesn't like the city of Manchester because he misses Brescia, his home, not Milan,'' Cristina said. "He said, 'I miss my family and friends but I think this experience in England will help me grow as an individual.'
"I don't find anything wrong in what he genuinely said. He doesn't like the city, you cannot expect a foreigner to like Manchester when even the people who live there told me it is provincial and a bit depressing cause it rains a lot. Personally, I also don't like the city.''
Living away from Italy for the first time hasn't helped the homesickness, and establishing real friendships is difficult when playing for one of the world's richest clubs.
"People may think it is easy to be a footballer because you have money and popularity, but it is not easy at all sometimes,'' Cristina said. "They are surrounded by people who treat them like stars and stay with them because they are celebrities, not for what they really are. They see their name and photo on papers all the time. That's why they often miss genuine relationship, like your family or your best friends.''
Italy coach Cesare Prandelli has faith in Balotelli to deliver, saying the best way for him to prove his detractors wrong is on the pitch.
"Mario needs to improve and understand that if he does so his physical power could be devastating,'' Prandelli said.
Asked about English people becoming tired of Balotelli, Prandelli responded: "I'm certainly not - I haven't had him long enough.''

Vieira insists City can take title
Patrick Vieira is convinced Manchester City can win the Premier League title this season.
The Frenchman ended his stellar playing career with City at the end of last season and has now become an official club ambassador. And, while he notes many experts are predicting the champions will once again be from the other side of Manchester, at Old Trafford, Vieira has faith in his own club.
"We can win the title," he said. "We have improved since last year. Winning the FA Cup and finishing third has given us the belief. We believe we can challenge Chelsea, Manchester United and the rest of the teams to lift the championship."
Much may depend on what happens over the next few days. Samir Nasri is edging closer to becoming the latest player to leave Arsenal for the newly-named Etihad Stadium.
However, that deal, likely to cost the Blues around £24million, comes with no guarantees in itself and Nasri will need to produce his form of the first half of last season rather than the second, with French national boss Laurent Blanc noting a reduction in the midfielder's standards this week when Les Bleus could only draw with Chile in Montpellier.
Record £38million forward Sergio Aguero is still to kick a ball in a match for his new club and the future of his fellow Argentina star Carlos Tevez remains unresolved, as does the issue of who will be skipper for Monday's opener against newly-promoted Swansea.
The chances are controversial Italian Mario Balotelli will be involved after yet another turbulent week in the 20-year-old's fledgling career. So poor was he in last weekend's Community Shield, Gary Neville felt compelled to describe Balotelli as "an embarrassment".
Yet Vieira, who worked alongside the former Inter Milan player in both Italy and England, is prepared to give Balotelli time to mature.
"People forget how young Mario really is," said the former Arsenal skipper. "He is a really young boy. He will make mistakes. I made a few in my career.
"Hopefully this year he will learn from them. Mario is a really talented footballer and I hope he can show everybody how good he is."

[spoiler][/spoiler]

OTHER BOLLOX
Manchester United have given up on their bid to sign Wesley Sneijder from Inter Milan, with the Old Trafford club now tired of a saga that has dragged on since the end of last season. Daily Mail

Chelsea look set to derail Real Madrid's bid to sign Santos's young Brazilian striker Neymar. Inside Futbol

Arsenal have already moved to replace Barcelona target Cesc Fabregas with £12m Shakhtar Donetsk midfielder Jadson. Independent

Arsenal boss Arsene Wenger will reinvest money from selling Cesc Fabregas and Samir Nasri to buy Valencia forward Juan Mata and at least one centre-back. Bolton's Gary Cahill, Everton's Phil Jagielka, Werder Bremen's Per Mertesacker and Birmingham City's Scott Dann are all on his list.Daily Mirror

Meanwhile, Arsenal have reportedly opened talks with Birmingham over Dann, and hope to conclude transfer discussions quickly in order to register the defender before Saturday's opening game against Newcastle. Metro

Tottenham have stepped up their interest in Blackburn defender Chris Samba and are ready to offer cash plus defender Sebastien Bassong as part of the deal. talkShiT

Spurs will move for Shakhtar Donetsk midfielder Willian, if they lose Luka Modric to Chelsea. Daily Mail

Aston Villa have joined the race to sign French striker David Trezeguet. The former Juventus forward is a free agent after leaving Hercules. Daily Mail

Sven-Goran Eriksson's ambitious Championship side Leicester want to buy Tottenham striker Robbie Keane for £3m. Daily Mirror

Stoke City are closing in on Newcastle midfielder Joey Barton and Arsenal striker Nicklas Bendtner. the Sun

Barton is also wanted by Zenit St Petersburg, with the Russian side ready to make the midfielder - who has been told he can leave Newcastle United on a free transfer, despite having a year remaining on his contract - a lucrative offer. Metro

Wigan manager Roberto Martinez has backed midfielder Tom Cleverley, who impressed in a loan spell at the DW Stadium last season, to make a major impact for Manchester United this term. talkShiT

West Bromwich Albion boss Roy Hodgson has said he would like to manage England when Fabio Capello steps down after Euro 2012, but he would need to have the backing of supporters and the media. the Guardian

Chelsea captain John Terry insists his side are not too old to win the Premier League and Champions League double. the Sun

Barcelona star Lionel Messi surprised photographers on a holiday to Ibiza by sporting a tattoo of his mother's face on his left shoulder. Metro

Owen Hargreaves will be given a Premier League lifeline by West Brom after a three-year injury nightmare which led to him being released by Manchester United in July. Daily Express

[halnone]

anyone know who she is??

[Scatman]

anyone know who she is??

Naira Zara. Diego Forlan's bird.

[Bianchi on Ice]

HA HA....surely it should read... "The daily mail has given up in its bid to get manchester u****d to sign wesley sneijder from Inter..." they just wont listen will they? boo-hoo..now fuck off and carry on making up snidey little stories about us you cuntbags

[Goaters 103]

Its been funny this summer with the red tops and tabs utterly convinced that Nasri was a cert for Utd and would beg to go there, only to then find he's off to City. Naturally glossing over this fact, they have then shifted and spent the past month telling us Sneijder is desperate to join Man U with The Mirror announcing he will "sign within 48 hours"

If Sneijder doesnt sign for Utd it may be too much for some of knobs at the Mirror/Mail/Sun to take - if this was the other side of the coin you can guarantee the headlines would be "Nasri Snubs City" and "Sneijder Snubs City"

When Lukaku eventually signs for Chelsea expect a swift "Lukaku Snubs Man City for Chelsea" headline thrown in there as well.

[Beefymcfc]

Further to the Mario article, this was from back in Feb which I thought was a good read, especially the insight from his sister; if you're a Balotelli man, or even if you're like me!

Revealed: The complex and wonderful world of Mario Balotelli

What makes the City striker such an arresting character? Ian Herbert talks to those closest to him and uncovers the man behind the myth

Mario Balotelli cast his eye around the Prestbury mansion once occupied by Robinho – the airy rooms, outlying fields and rack of remote control panels all took his eye – and wondered if the home comforts of a Cheshire life might be just the thing for him.


It was his Italian friends, knowing him as they do, who asked the Manchester City striker how he would deal with all that rural isolation. "We couldn't see what he would do out there all alone," says one of them. "There are hours to kill for a footballer and we saw it becoming so solitary for him."

They were right. Balotelli heeded the advice and has settled instead in a ninth-floor penthouse flat, where the little congratulatory notes stuck to his door by the neighbours – and their bottles of wine presented at Christmas – attest to the way he seems to be settling. At first, City tried to find out the 20-year-old's interests to help him fill his days. They learnt of his interest in wildlife and the Italian is consequently now more acquainted with Knowsley Safari Park than any other Premier League footballer. But Balotelli has found his own way. "He has never wanted his life to be run for him," says his sister, Cristina, an accomplished journalist now helping him navigate his way through the pitfalls attached to English celebrity status. "He does things his own way."

The emotional draw towards his old home life and to his parents back in Brescia has hardly been surprising, given their huge role in helping him through his challenging early years – a full picture of which can be revealed by The Independent today. The couple he has come to call father and mother are Franco Balotelli, a retired former warehouse supervisor in the pasta trade, and his wife Silvia, originally a nurse by profession and an indefatigable foster mother through much of her married life.

But the surname he carries on his No 45 shirt at City is one which was legally denied him until 2008, such was the protracted nature of his wait to be legally adopted by the Balotellis from his Ghanaian parents, who rarely showed up during those years.

The Balotellis – whose own three children, Corrado, Giovanni and Cristina were growing up when they learnt about Mario – thought their days of fostering were behind them when social services pleaded with them to care for the child, who was only two and a half but had undergone a series of operations at a local hospital. Franco had already retired from the warehouse and the couple were not wealthy. But they returned from a family holiday resolved on making him a part of their lives. The court decree under which he was fostered was renewed every two years until he was 18, which did not help the sense of permanency which the Balotellis created for him.

Balotelli's first memory of his new home was running and sliding down a long corridor, shattering several of his mother's vases along the way, and it was the absence of attention and affection in his life until that time which seems to have dictated his pattern of behaviour. "I'd be in the bathroom drying my hair when he'd appear at the door, turn the light off and run away," Cristina recalls. "It was the attention he wanted."

The relationship with his adoptive mother – in Manchester this weekend, just as she was after defying snow-delayed flights to join him in Manchester on Christmas Day and witness his first City hat-trick against Aston Villa three days later – has become one of extraordinary depth. "For a long time, he could not sleep without her there to hold his hand," his sister adds. "He hated to be alone. To an extent, that's how he still he is. He has always needed company, though we see the difference that Manchester is making, in giving him independence and helping him to mature."

His mother's firmness when needed instilled discipline into his life. Balotelli tells a story of how one day she forbade him from attending football training in Mompiano because of his behaviour. But he crept out and made the journey from Brescia anyway – taking 50 minutes on foot. By the time he arrived, his mother had called the coach of the team – who sent him straight back.

Franco Balotelli has been the one with the endless patience, driving his adoptive son to football, scouts, karate, judo, basketball, athletics and swimming. He was also the one who, within a year or so of the young boy joining the family, would be found in the midst of endless afternoon football matches with him in the parks of Brescia. The striker would have tried athletics or martial arts, had a career in football not been forthcoming for him. His brothers, both much older than him, have also followed and supported him closely since his career began at Lumezzane, near Brescia, at the age of 11.

Though his family life became a settled one, the colour of his skin has been a more intractable problem. The racism he experienced as a player at Internazionale was overt – Juventus were ordered to play a match behind closed doors a few years ago, such was the racist abuse – but as a child it manifested itself in Balotelli feeling that he was invisible. "Two things were close to my heart, like all boys at a certain age: girls and getting attention," he reflected in one of the few interviews he granted in Italy. "But it was like I was transparent. I'm no Clooney but I couldn't explain it why I was ignored. My friends explained. They told me people didn't like blacks."

Football has offered some great sources of strength against that affliction. Lilian Thuram, another black player with experience of Italy, has been one, though Balotelli has never revealed what advice the former Juventus defender offered. Balotelli has spoken out against racism when he has needed to, though his crusades have been reserved for a different, eclectic mix of causes which have absorbed him over the past few years.

One of them is a Brazilian refuge for destitute children and women in the Brazilian favelas, where Balotelli spent the Christmases of 2007 and 2008. Cristina recalls the latter as a time when he was at his happiest. "His friends and brothers went out there too and I remember he was so animated, playing football barefoot on the beach. It showed his love of being with those who are close to him. It showed his love of being free, among people who don't judge him and whom he feels are as straightforward as he is."

The same can be said of the WWF summer camp he joined at Sicily's Zingaro Nature Reserve two years ago – not the typical close-season break for an Inter player. Absorbed by the time he was having with friends of his own age there, he cancelled his flight home and made the day-long train journey with them all, instead. "The most distinctive part of his personality is his playful character," says Cristina. "He loves to joke and play around."

The type of absorption which will contribute much to his contentment in Manchester seems to be unscheduled, like that long trip north through Italy. It was the same last May when he encountered two young representatives of the campaign to stop the use of child soldiers at a hotel in Milan, ahead of a conference. It turned into a two-hour private conversation with Bosnian Zlata Filipovic (who lived with the bombs during an adolescence in Sarajevo) and the Sudanese John Kon Kelei (who was kidnapped and forced to fight in his own country for seven years). The plight of child soldiers has become a cause Balotelli has taken up again this month.

It is a story which confounds the simplistic characterisation of Balotelli as a perpetually angry individual with nothing to smile about. "There are contradictions in him but like many people, often the bullishness is there to cover a weakness," his sister reflects. Another friend says: "Those who come to know him realise the kind of person he really is. Manchester has not been the easiest city to get accustomed to and is not as busy as London. You do feel a bit like a fish out of water at first. That's because Italians are used to a better climate and a different language."

Different cars, too. His family's advice that he own a right-hand drive model has been heeded after an altercation with a BMW in his left-hand drive Audi R8. The Manchester Christmas markets, where he bought the memorable five-pointed woolly hat he wore the night City played Everton, have long gone and there's not been much call for the quad bike he enjoys but life does seem to be developing.

So now for the biggest challenge – to shake off the knee injury which has so truncated Balotelli's season and emerge as a genuine force, starting against Notts County in the FA Cup tomorrow. City sent him to the Green Mountains of Vermont, under the care of knee specialist Bill Knowles, as much for the focus on recovery that isolation brings, as for Knowles' own work. Mancini, desperate to find any way to get him fit, knows that life off the field counts for nothing until he is delivering on it.

"He is a young man learning to live away from home," his sister concludes. "Success for him and the team on the field will make so much difference but he has just needed time to adapt. He has settled and now he is just desperate to prove what he can do when he plays."

[Ted Hughes]

Stoke have bid for Peter Crouch. Can't see how he's going to fit in there..

[Beefymcfc]

Sky reporting that Spurs are after Ade on loan but will only pay £75,000 of his £175,000 wages.

Poppy-cock.

[ashton287]

When Lukaku eventually signs for Chelsea expect a swift "Lukaku Snubs Man City for Chelsea" headline thrown in there as well.

I wish we were in for him. The money being talked about im surprised there arent a few clubs in for him because at less than 20 mill he could be a bargain, relatively speaking.

[Wooders]

Stoke have bid for Peter Crouch. Can't see how he's going to fit in there..

Him and kenwyn on the end of pennant crosses will surely equal goals ?

[Ted Hughes]

Stoke have bid for Peter Crouch. Can't see how he's going to fit in there..

Him and kenwyn on the end of pennant crosses will surely equal goals ?

One or both of us is taking the piss, I can't decide which ;)

[Slim]

Didn't they sign John Carew as well?

Force to be reckoned with, but how will they keep all these top strikers happy?

[Blue in the face]

Any pictures of Balotellies sister?

[Beefymcfc]

Any pictures of Balotellies sister?

Not worth it mate, honestly.

[BmoreBlue]

Didn't they sign John Carew as well?

Force to be reckoned with, but how will they keep all these top strikers happy?

carew went to west ham on a free maybe two weeks ago, although he was at stoke for the 2nd half of last season.

[Beefymcfc]

Didn't they sign John Carew as well?

Force to be reckoned with, but how will they keep all these top strikers happy?

carew went to west ham on a free maybe two weeks ago, although he was at stoke for the 2nd half of last season.

After a big barney with Houllier at Villa.

[Slim]

Didn't they sign John Carew as well?

Force to be reckoned with, but how will they keep all these top strikers happy?

carew went to west ham on a free maybe two weeks ago, although he was at stoke for the 2nd half of last season.

My point proven already, they couldn't keep all those strikers happy.