City ARE feeling title-race pressure admits Barry
Gareth Barry has admitted the pressure is growing for his Manchester City side the closer they get to a first Premier League title.
Barry acknowledged City’s Sunday showdown with title rivals Tottenham is a “huge” encounter and said his team-mates know they cannot afford any slip-ups now the big prize is in sight.
“There’s big pressure on us now,” said the England midfielder. “It’s a vital part of the season. There are still a lot of games left, but this period now, after a little sticky patch, is important.
“The game coming up against Spurs is a huge one in the title race. The lads aren’t thinking about the money the club has spent at all - they’re thinking about winning the league.
“That’s the pressure - trying to win the title. Managers can see when pressure is affecting players, and that’s where they must make their decisions. Pressure can affect some players more than others.
“We’re going into games now, knowing they’re all big and that there’s so much at stake.
“Earlier in the season the players were playing a lot more freely. But at this stage it’s all about getting three points and sometimes the football may not be as pretty.”
Manchester United manager Sir Alex Ferguson and Spurs boss Harry Redknapp have tried to derail City’s title challenge with comments designed to get under the skin of Mancini and his players and plant doubt in their minds over their ability to be champions.
Ferguson has questioned City’s lack of experience, while Redknapp claimed any title success for the Blues would be devalued because of the vast sums of money - £425million at the last count - spent on players by owner Sheikh Mansour.
But Barry claimed Mancini’s managerial rivals are wasting their time if they think the 47-year-old Italian, who led Inter Milan to three successive Serie A titles, will get rattled.
“There will be more of that from the other managers,” he said. “But it helps knowing that our manager has been there before and won titles in Italy.
“In terms of mind games, there have been opportunities when our manager could have had a little bite, but he’s resisted it and not really reacted.
“I think that’s definitely the right thing to do. The route the manager has gone down has certainly helped the players.
“He’s not added any more pressure on us before the games and the players feel very comfortable that he knows what he is doing.
“The manager is in charge of what you do, so if you see him getting involved in other things away from the pitch, it’s going to make everyone unsettled.
“Inside, the manager probably feels the pressure a bit more if the results aren’t going right.
“But judging by the way he’s approached it and spoken to us, he’s certainly not showing any signs that he’s under any more pressure.”
There is no danger of Mancini going down the same ill-fated route as Barry’s former boss at Aston Villa, when they were top of the Premier League in the 1998-99 campaign.
After extending their unbeaten run that season to 12 games with a 4-1 win at Southampton, Gregory assembled Villa’s players for a picture on the pitch, to create a lasting memory of the club record.
It proved a disastrous move, and one which exposed the extent of Villa’s ambition.
Gregory’s side, which included a then 17-year-old Barry, imploded thereafter and eventually finished sixth.
“I remember when we had that photo taken,” said Barry, wincing at the memory.
“I was very young at the time but some of the more experienced players weren’t happy the manager called for that to be done, because it can only add pressure and work against you in the long run.
“But there’s none of that going on at City at the moment. We’re just really focused on what we have to do.”
Barry knows City’s wealth and spending ability will always been held against them, regardless of their achievements, and feels such a perception is borne of envy.
“Maybe there’s a bit of jealousy,” he said. “Every supporter in the country would like a rich owner to come in and transform their club.
“It’s happened slowly here, but we won’t take any comments to heart. We just want to win the league.
“For us, that’s the main thing and we hope there are many more to come. If that happens, all the talk will be forgotten.
“That first title, as Chelsea did after spending a lot of money, is vital. But once you win three or four that [talk of spending] goes out of the window.
“As a club, we haven’t been in this position because we haven’t done it yet, so that’s a fact. But we have to try to get over the line.
“We have some really tough games between now and the end of the season - starting with Spurs - and it’s a massive challenge.
“This is why I left Villa, to be challenging for the title, and I think we have enough in the dressing-room to get the job done.”
Micah Richards staying on right path
Badly affected by a close friend taking his own life and with most of his City mates moved on, defender tells Ian Herbert how he has learnt to love Mancini's mix of freedom and fear
The past is never far away for Micah Richards – not even now, at the richest football club in the world, where, as of yesterday, he was the last remnant of the fabled youth ranks assembled in the days before the money arrived.
The first time we talked, five years ago, it was Richards making the call, from a train, aware that I was investigating the death of his boyhood friend, Daniel Nelson – who at the age of 18 took his own life in a Young Offenders' Institution – and wanting to offer his own words. It was clear, this week, that time has dimmed neither the memory of that tragedy, nor entirely the sadness. The Manchester City defender recalls the song "Make it Alright" by the R&B singer Carl Thomas, which he will always associate with his friend.
"I liked the song and I was singing it and humming it but I didn't know the artist," he says. "Danny told me the artist." Richards carried it on his iPod for months and still keeps it. "He was such a close friend," he reflects. "You can either go down that path he took or do what I've done. There's no in-betweens where we came from."
The two boys' paths certainly diverged radically when their carefree days in the rough streets of Chapeltown, in Leeds, came to an end, though the gilded environment into which Richards was thrust has offered precious few "in-betweens" either.
The group of young men he joined after leaving an Oldham Athletic traineeship for City in 2001 certainly had an infinitely more promising outlook than Daniel. But, one by one, those boys, with their plans to set the world alight, have gone: Stephen Ireland (Aston Villa), Michael Johnson (Leicester City) and, now, Nedum Onuoha, whose departure to Queen's Park Rangers for £2.5m on Thursday left Richards as the only man deemed talented enough for the club's tilt at global domination.
"To stick together would have been a bit more special," he says. "It's a bit disappointing for me that we all grew up together and haven't stayed together. With managers coming in and injuries, not everyone is going to fancy you as a player but I think that's sometimes a bit hard to take, because those players have all got the quality to play at the top level. It's just that different managers like different players and I suppose the quicker you learn that, the better."
He has needed to learn more than most. Richards has admitted that City was "a hard place to be" when Roberto Mancini arrived in 2009, and he often seemed likely to drop off City's magic carpet ride as Sven Goran Eriksson, Mark Hughes and then Mancini assumed the role of converting money – funny money, in Eriksson's case – into success.
Eriksson was the exception, a manager perhaps not as effusive about Richards as Sir Bobby Robson, who spoke of him becoming "our best defender since Bobby Moore", but one who imbued him with a mountain of self-belief. "He just gave me some sort of confidence that I've never, ever seen before – it was ridiculous!" Richards remembers.
It wasn't as easy with Hughes, who questioned Richards' positioning and physique, though he did initially make him his captain. "I know it didn't always go so well under Mark Hughes but it wasn't as if he didn't give me a chance or anything. He really did," Richards says. Mancini's love of defensive rigour threatened to make things materially worse and yet here Richards is now, quite possibly City's captain for the visit of Tottenham tomorrow, and quite certainly a better defender than he was before the Italian arrived. "Yeah, definitely he's made me a better defender," he says.
Eriksson, who was Mancini's early managerial mentor, says a coach cannot rule through fear, though there is a suspicion that it is the device which Mancini has used. "Why is he so good for me?" Richards asks. "Well certain managers will see you make mistakes and they'll tell you about it and then they've told you once and if you do it again, then it's up to you. He makes sure that if you make a mistake and you make it again you are out of the team. D'you know what I mean? And that's the difference. There are players in our team who ... I wouldn't say they are scared to make mistakes, but they wouldn't make the silly mistakes they normally make because they know [the consequences]."
This certainly bears out all the anecdotal evidence about Mancini – that if you are "in" with him, then you are "in", but it you are "out" you are nothing. "You need to get under his wing," as Richards put it just before Christmas. There appear to be other strategies too, including late-night texts with the next day's training times to keep players on their toes.
"We normally get the text the night before," Richards confirms. "I don't know why. Maybe that's just to do with the weather." Yet Richards also provides evidence of Mancini malleability when required. "When he first arrived we [trained] in the afternoons and that was just bringing a culture from his old club," he says. "But when you're in such a physical league, training in the afternoons tires you out so that got knocked on the head. He appreciated that right away."
There is freedom, as well as fear. When you see Mancini in his technical zone, bellowing at the 23-year-old tomorrow, it's a fair bet that he will be ordering him "Go Micah, go". "That's what he tells me," Richards says. "He says 'Use your pace and power going forwards instead of just using it in defence', and I think that's why I've improved this season."
You sense he feels the rewards much more because he knew how it felt to be scraping around at 15th in the Premier League table five years ago. "I never thought it would have got to this stage because I think it's all happened so fast," he says. They'll tell you at City that there's no-one quite like Richards at public events, and the sight of him grinning through a session at the club's city-centre store in which he and Nigel de Jong sign their way through back tattoos, baby-grows and shirts, does bear out the sense that he knows there is another world out there, beyond the store's doors in the rain-drenched Manchester night.
This is perhaps why he is prepared to venture so willingly into a discussion of the boyhood friend he lost along the way. On Sundays, he explains, he, Daniel Nelson and his cousin Mark Harding – a friend since their early primary school days – would decamp from matches with the local Sao Paolo club to the house of Daniel's aunt, Bridget Harding, for dinner and evenings of music. By all accounts, the Hardings' swimming pool – a real novelty in Chapeltown – provided great entertainment.
"In a year he'd gone from playing football to being in prison," Richards says. "I couldn't understand it. He was a talent and if his head was 100 per cent right I'm sure he would be playing in the leagues somewhere. To see all that talent go to waste..." Daniel had self-harmed before taking his life and the tragedy has seen Richards quietly take on the role of patron of the ifucareshare charity, established by the parents of another child, Daniel O'Hare, who took his own life at the age of 19. Richards has never sought publicity for his involvement with the charity and this interview is not linked to it.
"If Danny had had someone to talk to, things would have turned out differently," he says of his own friend. "Every individual has to take consequence for themselves but if he had had someone to support him a bit more, that would not have happened." Another of Richards' charitable links is with the Black Health Initiative. "You can't forget where you come from," he says. "That's the most important thing to me."
It's not the only thing. No discussion with Richards is quite complete without discussion of Fabio Capello's robust disinclination to select him for the England team, though that is one topic where he is prepared to let his game talk him through. The message remains the same as last month. "I've said before I've been upset with England but it's not about that. It's about working hard and trying to keep this form."
The issue of how to avoid dismissal, following the red card for Vincent Kompany which has elicited such debate, animates him far more. Both of your feet might, quite reasonably, leave the ground if you leap into a challenge, he says, so dismissals like Kompany's red card has left players having to rethink the art of the tackle entirely. "Sometimes now I think [I have] to back out of a tackle so I don't get a red card," he says. "It's made me more cautious."
Of course, Richards must also factor the potential wrath of Mancini, should a defensive hesitation prove decisive tomorrow. "I've always said given a chance, with me being 100 per cent and none of the niggling injuries I always seem to pick up now and then, that I can compete with anyone in the league who is challenging in my position," he reasons. He will be up against Gareth Bale tomorrow, part of a Spurs team who arrive bristling with a motive to defeat City after August's 5-1 defeat. The past might be significant for Richards but the future is in a tearing hurry.
FERGIE'S BEST MATE BEFORE HE GOES DOWN B*LL*X
HARRY REDKNAPP last night dismissed Roberto Mancini’s record at Manchester City by claiming anyone could do it with the money he’s got.
Tottenham boss Redknapp took another swipe at the Premier League leaders ahead of tomorrow’s massive clash at the Etihad Stadium.
He insisted that being in the title race has nothing to do with the Italian’s managerial skills.
Top plays third tomorrow when Redknapp’s Spurs visit the Etihad Stadium.
City have splashed out around £430m on players since Sheikh Mansour’s September 2008 takeover and more than £200m since Mancini’s arrival in December 2009.
Redknapp said: “It’s a different game, when you go and buy players and pay them £250,000 a week.
“To be honest, you would have a chance. I’d fancy you to manage them and you’d win the league. I would expect to have been very close to winning the league, for sure. I would be very disappointed if we couldn’t.
“I don’t know about winning it more than once, but certainly you’d fancy your chances when you can buy players like Tevez and Aguero, wouldn’t you?
“It’s the same as when Chelsea started breaking the bank and buying all the top players at that time. You’ve got a chance.
“I’m one of the lucky ones. I’m sitting in the top six, there’s six of us up there.
“But I’m no cleverer than Roberto Martinez (at Wigan) – he’s probably cleverer than me.
“He’s sitting at the bottom of the league because he hasn’t got the players and can’t afford to buy the players.”
Manchester City boss Roberto Mancini is pleased to see Emmanuel Adebayor thriving at Tottenham despite admitting he might have needed him in recent weeks.
City allowed the striker to join Spurs on a season-long loan last summer and began the campaign with Sergio Aguero, Edin Dzeko, Carlos Tevez and Mario Balotelli as their frontline forwards.
But with Tevez now out of favour after a dispute with the club and Dzeko and Balotelli both missing games through injury this month, City have occasionally been light up front.
In the meantime Adebayor has been impressing at White Hart Lane and his nine goals have helped lift Spurs into a title battle with Mancini's Barclays Premier League leaders.
When asked whether might have liked to have called upon Adebayor in those circumstances, Mancini said: "Probably, probably - but we didn't know with Carlos what would happen in Munich.
"We had four strikers. I think with four strikers you can play one year.
"I am happy for Manu because he is playing very well for Tottenham."
Togolese forward Adebayor spent the second half of last season on loan at Real Madrid after a disagreement with Mancini.
Mancini says he could not always guarantee the player, signed by Mark Hughes from Arsenal for £25million in 2009, a place in his team.
A decision over the 27-year-old's future will have to be made when his loan at Spurs expires in the summer and Mancini is unsure if he could find a place for him again in his team.
He said: "I don't know in this moment.
"I said I am happy because I watched a lot of games and he has played very well, scored a lot of goals.
"Sometimes it is possible that you have a situation like this - you have good players but he wants to play always. This is difficult in a top team.
"When you have three or four strong strikers you need to change.
"If you have one striker who needs to play always it is not easy."
Mancini will not have to contend with Adebayor as Spurs visit the Etihad Stadium for an eagerly-anticipated encounter on Sunday.
The restrictions of the loan preclude the former Monaco man from facing his parent club in a game that could have big implications for the title race.
City could extend their lead over third-place Spurs, who have lost just three times all season, to eight points with victory.
Mancini said: "I think in this moment there are three clubs - City, [Manchester] United and Tottenham who can win the title.
"After that, maybe Chelsea because things can change in the next four or five games.
"But I think to recover 10, 11 points on three teams is difficult.
"I think Tottenham are one of the best teams in the Barclays Premier League, like Arsenal, like Chelsea. They are a strong team."
City thrashed Harry Redknapp's side 5-1 last time the sides met in August.
Yet that was only Spurs' second game of the season and they then turned their campaign around with an eye-catching 11-match unbeaten run.
Mancini said: "We played five months ago. It was totally different, it was their second match.
"When you start the season anything can happen because maybe all the squad are not ready to play 100%. You maybe need four, five or six games to be confident.
"Now it is different and I think Tottenham are one of the best teams.
"They have 20-22 international players, and they are not all young players. For me they can win the title.
"It is better to lose one time 5-1 than five times 1-0.
"You can take one bad day when you concede three, four or five goals - it can happen. It happened to United, to Arsenal."
Tottenham and United look to keep pressure on City
Tottenham will look to take advantage of a Manchester City team going through their most vulnerable period of the season when the two new pretenders to the Premier League trophy meet tomorrow in a pivotal match in the title race.
After moving to the top of the standings with a freescoring start to the season, City surrendered their unbeaten league record with a 2-1 loss at Chelsea on December 12 and then stuttered over the holiday period.
Monday's 1-0 win at bottom team Wigan was only City's second victory in their last six matches in all competitions. And with captain Vincent Kompany suspended and key midfielder Yaya Toure at the African Cup of Nations, Tottenham will hope to capitalise at the Etihad Stadium.
Since being thrashed 5-1 by Roberto Mancini's side in August, Spurs have lost just once in the league and have climbed to third - five points behind the leaders.
In what is the most crucial weekend in the title race so far, second-place Manchester United will also look to keep the pressure on City when they travel to fifth-place Arsenal tomorrow.
That has been one of the Premier League's most entertaining matchups over the past decade but it could be trumped hours earlier, with City and Tottenham playing the most attractive football in the division this season.
Once a match between two perennial underachievers in the English game - neither side has won the league since the 1960s - it has suddenly taken on a much bigger profile.
Defensive midfielder Scott Parker and striker Emmanuel Adebayor, signed in the summer transfer window, have both played significant roles in Tottenham's resurgence.
Adebayor, however, is unavailable on Sunday under the terms of his loan deal from City, depriving the visitors of a vital component of their lineup. Jermain Defoe is likely to come into the side as the partner for Rafael van der Vaart up front.
City welcomes back striker Mario Balotelli and right back Micah Richards from injury but is feeling the loss of Kompany, who serves the third of a four-match ban, and Toure.
Two of the Premier League's old stagers could line up against each other at the Emirates stadium, with Thierry Henry and Paul Scholes already back in the goals following their returns to Arsenal and United, respectively.
United are three points behind City as the team bid to extend their record haul of titles to 20 but for Arsenal, qualification for the Champions League is the priority this season
PSG B*ll*x
Agent Jean-Pierre Bernes believes that the cash-rich club are a very alluring proposition for his clients, but claims there is more to it than money.
"[PSG] could bring Nasri and Ribery," he told France Football. "There are lifestyle choices that can lead a player to choose Paris: to go home; to be closer to family."
Bernes argued that the most significant factor in the equation is that PSG are now in a position to pay the massive transfer fees required to sign the country's top players and not that they can also offer huge wages.
Indeed, Bernes claimed that winger Jeremy Menez, another of his clients, did not elect to join the capital club from Serie A side Roma last summer for financial reasons.
"Juventus were pushing for him," the agent explained. "It was not a bad choice to have, but there was the sentimental side: Jeremy has always liked Paris. He did not come for the money."
Paris Saint-Germain currently sit top of Ligue 1 and recently installed former AC Milan boss Carlo Ancelotti as their new coach.
Carlos Tevez transfer expected to go down to the wire after agent has talks with Paris St-Germain
Kia Joorabchian travelled to Paris on Friday to discuss Carlos Tévez’s proposed £30 million move to Paris St-Germain. The striker’s adviser held talks with PSG’s sporting director Leonardo and coach Carlo Ancelotti.
The talks, first revealed by The Telegraph, were delayed 24 hours because Joorabchian was central to Taye Taiwo’s loan move from AC Milan to Queens Park Rangers and therefore had to remain in London on Thursday to complete that deal.
However Joorabchian spoke extensively on the telephone to Leonardo that day and it is understood that the financial package proposed by PSG for Tévez is far greater than the offers that have been made for the Argentine international by both Milan clubs.
That is not Tévez’s major consideration and it is expected that the player’s future will go down to the wire and he may not reach an agreement to leave Manchester City City until the final hours of Jan 31.
There is no way back for Tévez at City and the player is determined to leave this month. However he is concerned that if he joins PSG there is a danger of a rerun of his time at City where he was the club’s most important player but was then isolated, he felt, under a new regime.
PSG have offered higher wages than either of the Milan clubs and will also come closest to City’s valuation for Tévez but they need to convince him that having missed out on the likes of David Beckham, who has re-signed for LA Galaxy, that they are intent on acquiring the players to propel them into being a significant force in European football.
Tévez has already agreed personal terms with AC Milan and would appear to favour a move there, although the club had hoped for a loan deal with an option for a permanent transfer, with Inter also in the reckoning despite having had a £21 million bid rejected by City.
[spoiler]
[/spoiler]OTHER BOLLOX
Juventus are hoping to offload out-of-favour Serbian winger Milos Krasic, 27, to Liverpool. Daily Mirror
Chelsea have launched a £20m bid for Shakhtar Donetsk's 23-year-old Brazilian forward Willian. Daily Mail
LA Galaxy are interested in signing Chelsea midfielder Frank Lampard. ESPN
Bolton boss Owen Coyle may make a move for 28-year-old French striker Sebastien Le Toux, who currently plays for Philadelphia Union in Major League Soccer.talkShit
Arsenal manager Arsene Wenger says Russian forward Andrei Arshavin, 30, will not be sold in the January transfer window. Metro
Rubin Kazan have held talks about signing Tottenham striker Roman Pavlyuchenko who will be out of contract at the end of the season unless the club exercise a one-year clause in his deal.
Times
Stoke City have declared an interest in signing QPR striker DJ Campbell on loan.Times
Sunderland are interesting in a loan deal for Valencia striker Aritz Aduriz, 30. talkShit
Swansea boss Brendan Rodgers says it would take a £30m bid for him to part with any of his stars. South Wales Evening Post
New QPR manager Mark Hughes has targeted Rangers striker Nikica Jelavic and knows a bid of more than £7m is required to persuade Ibrox owner Craig Whyte to start negotiating. Daily Record
West Ham have made Nikica Jelavic their main target after failing in a bid for Huddersfield's Jordan Rhodes but have been told by Rangers their £6m approach is way below their valuation of the Croatia striker. Daily Mail
Fulham and West Ham have both bid around £6m for Rangers striker Nikica Jelavic. Daily Telegraph
Norwich City striker Grant Holt is Rangers' top target should they sell Nikica Jelavic during the January transfer window. (the Sun)
Arsenal manager Wenger has admitted it will be a "disaster" if the club fail to finish in the top four of the Premier League and miss out on the Champions League. Daily Express
Manchester United midfielder Paul Scholes has described team-mate Michael Carrick as the "Rolls-Royce" of the team. Daily Express
Everton manager David Moyes has admitted he tried to register a 'B' side in the Conference in an attempt to enhance the development of the club's young players. the Guardian
Arsenal goalkeeper Wojciech Szczesny insists "there are no scars from the Manchester United mauling" as the sides prepare to meet for the first time since the Gunners' 8-2 drubbing at Old Trafford. London Evening Standard
United could go into Sunday's game at the Emirates without defender Rio Ferdinand. The 33-year-old defender is a major doubt for the game after breaking down in training with a recurrence of an old back injury. Goal.com
Reading chairman Sir John Madejski has agreed a £40m takeover of the club by a Russian tycoon. Daily Mail
QPR and Scotland striker Jamie Mackie says he will go to the Olympics as a spectator rather than accept an invitation to be part of the Team GB squad for the London event. Sun
Morocco defender Badr El Kaddouri has returned to Dynamo Kiev at the end of his loan spell with Celtic and blamed the Scottish Premier League's "long ball game with no skill" for his lack of first-team appearances. Daily Record
New Bolton loan signing Tim Ream has already shown his devotion to the Trotters. The 24-year-old American cancelled his honeymoon in order to complete the move. Metro
