All of the players have returned to training at Carrington, the Community Shield is just five days away and the newspapers are full of transfer speculation.
It’s not felt like the most arduous summer in terms of football deprivation, thanks to the World Cup, but now the season draws tantalisingly near, excitement levels are peaking.
City take on Arsenal on Sunday in what must, must, must always be described as “the traditional annual season curtain raiser”, but will there be any additions or subtractions from the champions’ squad before then?
According to most of the newspapers you’re waking up to this morning, Jack Rodwell is moving to Sunderland in a deal worth either £8m or £10m – depending on who you believe.
Louise Taylor of the Guardian goes with the latter: “With the deal expected to be completed on Tuesday Gus Poyet is on the brink of pulling off quite a transfer coup as Rodwell had been pursued by a queue of Premier League rivals.
“It seems that during a round of talks with assorted suitors last week Rodwell identified Sunderland as his preferred destination.
“An England international, he cost £12m when he swapped Everton for City in 2012 but struggled to establish himself in the first team at the Etihad, making only seven Premier League starts – and scoring two goals – during his City tenure.
“Barring an audacious late hijacking by another club, Rodwell – 6ft 2in and with three senior England caps – promises to satisfy the Sunderland manager’s desire for a “box-to-box midfielder."
Elsewhere, there’s a bit of a weird one in the Express as City appear to have been ruled out of contention for the signature of Radamel Falcao.
A weird one on me at least as I haven’t read us being linked with him this summer but, never mind what I think, here’s Express journalist David Wright with the scoop.
"Monaco striker Radamel Falcao admits he is not paying attention to transfer speculation this summer," Wright… writes.
“The Colombia international has attracted plenty of interest from the Premier League this summer, as well as being strongly linked with a move to Real Madrid.
“Chelsea, Liverpool, Manchester United and City have all been keeping tabs on the 28-year-old target man, who only moved to Monaco from Atletico Madrid last summer.
Finally, one man who definitely has been linked with the club before is reportedly on the brink of a long-protracted move to the Etihad.
Eliaquim Mangala, a familiar name to regular visitors to this gossip column, could be a City player within the next 48 hours, according to Simon Jones of the DSSC.
“The 23-year-old was due to return to training with the Portuguese club on Tuesday after being on World Cup duty with France,” the story reads.
“City, meanwhile, are considering loan requests from Valencia and Deportivo La Coruna for 23-year-old midfielder Bruno Zuculini who joined last month from Racing in a £3m deal.”
Jack Rodwell: Man City midfielder set to move to Sunderland
Sunderland are in negotiations with Manchester City to sign midfielder Jack Rodwell.
The 23-year-old England international is on Wearside for talks and to have a medical.
Reports suggest he will join Sunderland for a fee in the region of £10m.
Rodwell joined City from Everton for £12m in 2012 but has made only 25 appearances, after struggling with a hamstring injury and falling behind other midfielders in the pecking order.
Jack Rodwell in focus
Made his Everton debut against AZ Alkmaar in December 2007, aged 16 years and 284 days - becoming the youngest ever player to represent Everton in Europe.
Made 85 league appearances for the Toffees, scoring four times.
Moved to Manchester City for £12m on a five-year deal in August 2012.
But has played just 16 league games for City in two seasons after struggling with a hamstring injury.
Made his England debut in a 1-0 win over Spain in November 2011, and has since earned two more caps against Sweden and Brazil.
Rodwell would be the second high-profile Englishman to leave Etihad Stadium this summer after Gareth Barry signed for Everton.
Having failed Uefa's Financial Fair Play rules last season, City must name at least five home-grown players in their 21-man Champions League squad this season.
MCF.net THREAD: viewtopic.php?f=119&t=48833
Wenger gives it large on Lampard
Arsene Wenger has suggested that Manchester City's loan deal for Frank Lampard could be a way to get round financial fair play regulations. However, City have responded by stating that they will pay Lampard's wages in full. Nevertheless, he will count as one of the home grown players in City's restricted Champions League squad of 21.
Clubs are likely to try and find ingenious ways to get round the restrictions of financial fair play regulations. Potentially, City's global network of clubs could provide opportunities to transfer players below market value or loan them at low wages.
I'm not suggesting that this is what is being done, but the emergence of networks of clubs does pose some interesting questions. An example on a smaller, European scale is Charlton Athletic where owner Roland Duchâtelet controls clubs from Spain to Hungary and moves players freely between them. He claims that his ambition is to create an equivalent of the EU Eramus scheme for footballers, but how the finances work is not entirely clear.
Arsenal's long-term strategy has been built around financial fair play rules hitting clubs like Manchester City, so it is not surprising that Arsene Wenger gets a little tetchy when he thinks the rules have been evaded.
How Chelsea legend Frank Lampard will (sort of) help Manchester City
It now appears as though Ferran Soriano was not quite telling us the whole truth. At the end of last week he announced that following the arrival of a central defender (likely to be Porto’s Eliaquim Mangala) that Manchester City’s transfer business was finished for the summer.
Fast forward 72-hours or so and we get the surprise news that Frank Lampard will sign for City on a short term basis until the end of January.
It is a move not without controversy of sorts, with Arsene Wenger already chiming in to question the morality of the deal from an FFP-perspective – without actually stating how it is intended to circumvent the regulations.
But, alas. The deal appears to be one of those that is a win-win for City. For a minimal cost (i.e. stumping up for Lampard’s wages for the next few months. Take that Arsene!) City get themselves an experienced hand who can come in and supplement the existing midfield players, providing some depth that could ensure City’s key players, the majority of whom are coming off the back of a World Cup campaign, can be managed to ensure they remain key contributors down the final stretch of the season.
For Lampard, it is a move that will see him train full-time with City to keep his fitness up ahead of moving to New York for the next MLS season. The question is though is it a move that City really need to make?
Without losing any personnel from midfield (Jack Rodwell surely doesn’t count given the scarcity of his playing time) they added Fernando to provide exactly the kind of depth that was needed. So why Lampard?
Depending on Manuel Pellegrini’s preferred formation City will line up with either a four or five-man midfield. These will come from the following: Fernando, Fernandinho, Javi Garcia, Yaya Toure, David Silva, Samir Nasri, Jesus Navas and James Milner.
Realistically, Lampard is not going to operate as one of the attacking, creative types so he is in contention for one of the two or three spots deeper in midfield. The difficulty is you already have Fernando, Fernandinho, Javi Garcia, Yaya Toure and possibly James Milner there – the latter of whom looks to be hit the worst by the signing. Good luck with that Frank.
It is difficult to see Lampard then making much of an impact on the squad, particularly so given he has missed the whole of the pre-season with City. Maybe though that the real aim is not necessarily for him to make an impact per se but rather the type of low-risk move that City can effect given their link with New York City FC (as we saw to a degree where David Villa will link up with Melbourne before heading to the United States).
Wenger is wrong that it is designed to get around FFP restrictions but there is no doubt that it is a unique move City have been able to pull off given their involvement in New York.
Welcome to what looks to be the essence of a very modern transfer.
Lampard could play 1,000th game at Manchester City
The midfielder, who has joined the Premier League champions on loan from New York City FC, has made 973 appearances for his clubs and his country so far in his career and needs just another 27 to reach a landmark.
The 36 year old is available for City until the end of January and will be considered an "important" player by manager Manuel Pellegrini, while Samir Nasri also hailed the Englishman's arrival.
He is available for up to 23 Premier League games, six Champions League matches, the start of City's League Cup and FA Cup campaigns and Sunday's Community Shield.
Lampard, who has not retired from international football, has a greater chance of adding to his 106 appearances for England after returning to the Premier League.
He is his country's joint sixth-most capped player and has also played once for England's B team and 19 times in Under-21 internationals.
Lampard played 187 times for West Ham, his first club, and 11 on loan at Swansea, before going to make 649 appearances in 13 years at Chelsea, putting him third behind Peter Bonetti and the record holder Ron Harris.
The last British player to reach 1,000 senior appearances was Manchester United assistant manager Ryan Giggs, who brought up the milestone in the March 2013 game against Real Madrid.
Current Fleetwood manager Graham Alexander, who played for Scunthorpe, Luton, Preston and Burnley, reached 1,000 games in April 2011
Ex Arsenal star Patrick Vieira wins right to demolish £3m Hampstead mansion and build new one... with a mega-basement
Former football star Patrick Vieira is to demolish his £3 million Hampstead mansion and build a new home in its place — with a mega-basement.
Planning permission was granted following months of wrangling after concessions were made to neighbours who complained about the “bulk” of the new house.
According to plans lodged with Camden council by the ex-Arsenal captain’s wife, Cheryl Plaza, the existing two-bedroom house, a short walk from Hampstead Heath, will be replaced with a four-storey, five-bedroom property of more than 9,000 square feet.
It will be “set into the gradient of the hillside” and the couple will create a “very private space” with “views across the treetops”.
The retired French international midfielder wanted to demolish the old property, which he bought in 2001 while playing at Arsenal, after discovering it was plagued by damp.
Patrick Vieira and Cheryl Plaza plan to demolish their existing home Despite the Frenchman and his Trinidadian wife undertaking extensive refurbishment works they said their mansion, which was built in the Nineties and includes an indoor pool, still suffered “extensive damp problems throughout”.
But Camden council denied planning permission for the works on the first attempt last summer after neighbours raised concerns that their homes and gardens would be overlooked and that there could be “structural damage” caused by basement excavations.
They also feared potential disruption from the works, the Camden New Journal reported.
After months of negotiations, the couple made concessions that included omitting a roof terrace and councillors approved the plans.
The new property will be built from dark brick with a “privacy screen obstructing views into and out of the house”, plus a “living” sedum roof. The basement includes a solarium, a cinema room and parking for two cars — which will be reached via a car lift.
Ms Plaza’s design agents said: “There is a strong history of modern design in Hampstead. The application site provides a unique opportunity to continue this tradition with the replacement of the existing modern dwelling.”
A planning official said: “The applicant has supplied a satisfactory construction management plan to show that the proposal would not harm the local transport network, and the basement impact has been independently assessed and considered to comply with the relevant policies.”
The applicants reportedly agreed to pay about £48,000 towards community infrastructure.
Today, work was yet to begin on the project and no one was at home, with builders working next door saying they have not seen the couple recently.
Vieira, 38, finished his playing career in 2011 at Manchester City and now runs the club’s elite development squad. He has a £2.2 million home in Cheshire.
Manchester City and Ms Plaza’s agents did not respond to requests for comment.
Why Dedryck Boyata Has Never Made It at Manchester City
A couple of years ago, it was generally understood there was a bright future ahead of young Belgian defender Dedryck Boyata.
In 2010, when he was 19 years of age, he was called upon to make his debut for Manchester City, where he had come through the ranks of the youth academy. He partnered fellow Belgian and City captain Vincent Kompany in the centre of defence, and throughout the 2010-11 season, he made a total of 19 appearances.
In May this year, Boyata signed a new contract with City. But not because he had been such a huge success in the blue side of Manchester. As per Ian Herbert of The Independent, Boyata’s new deal can possibly be connected to City’s need to fill their quota of homegrown players.
For the truth is that Boyata’s career at Manchester City has been a failure. Four years since his debut and after going through several spells on loan—at Bolton Wanderers and Dutch side FC Twente—the defender is nowhere near a position in manager Manuel Pellegrini’s starting XI.
Considering Boyata’s talent, it’s fair to classify his demise as a waste of potential. But in many ways, it’s difficult to blame the defender himself. At the top clubs in the Premier League, it has become increasingly difficult to even get a foot in as a player coming from a club’s academy.
At Manchester City, Boyata is not the only talented young player who has failed to force his way into the first team. Swedish striker John Guidetti, who used to be regarded as a great talent, looks miles away from Pellegrini’s plans—despite a very successful loan spell at Dutch side Feyenoord two years ago.
A similar state of affairs seems to have become common ground at title rivals Chelsea. There, talented youngsters like Tomas Kalas and Gael Kakuta, who have both performed well during their loan spells at Dutch side Vitesse, are unlikely to feature in a prominent role anytime soon.
At Manchester United, there seems to be a little more space for youngsters who have come through the ranks of the youth academy—but not that much. In recent years, Belgian wonderkid Adnan Januzaj has been the only youth-academy player to have truly made an impact.
Indeed, only at Arsenal does the youth academy still seems like a stable part of the club’s culture. But even there, manager Arsene Wenger is looking more and more at big signings like Mesut Ozil and Alexis Sanchez.
A lot of this has to do, of course, with the increasing budgets available to the top clubs in the Premier League. Practically able to take their pick from the very best footballers in the world, relatively rich clubs will often refrain from picking a youngster to depend on.
But it is not all doom and gloom, for the less attention the big clubs give to young players, the more often clubs with considerably smaller budgets can snap them up—often on loan—and incorporate them in their first teams.
A collection of Premier League clubs now work with a clear and mapped-out youth policy. Stoke City, for example, has taken on talented young players like Oussama Assaidi and the aforementioned John Guidetti on loan—with varying success.
At Southampton, the promotion of youth players is a constitutive element to the success they have enjoyed in recent years. By selling some of the players who have broken through, the South English side have reportedly gathered around £90 million already—not bad for a club that played in the Championship only recently.
A player like Romelu Lukaku never got his chance at Chelsea. At Wigan, and later at Everton, though, he was allowed to blossom and develop his talents. For a player like Boyata, a career trajectory like Lukaku’s would have been very beneficial.
In the future, then, young players like Boyata would do well to direct their attention to clubs outside of the Premier League’s traditional top four. Only at clubs where faith in young players is part of the plans for the future, do they stand a chance to break through.
After that, they might still end up at one of the Premier League’s top clubs, but only as established and fully developed players.
In the future, young players like Boyata must think of themselves and their own careers first.
Former Manchester City goalkeeper in court for speeding
Carlo Nash was caught speeding at 140mph. Picture courtesy of Press Association
A former Manchester City goalkeeper will be sentenced today after being caught driving at 140mph.
Carlo Nash, who has played for clubs including Manchester City, Everton, Wigan Athletic, Middlesbrough, Crystal Palace, Stoke City and Norwich City, was clocked by a traffic officer on the A11 at Wymondham in Norfolk.
The 40-year-old from Leftbank, Manchester, was stopped in a 70mph zone by a marked car with a speed detector on February 2 this year.
He did not appear at a previous hearing at Norwich Magistrates' Court but the bench found the case proved in his absence.
The case was adjourned to allow Nash to attend.
Today's hearing will consider imposing a diving ban and any other penalty.
Nash was released by Norwich City, where he was third choice goalkeeper, following their relegation from the Premier League at the end of last season.
Hart cannot afford slip-ups ? Corrigan
Manchester City legend Joe Corrigan believes that Joe Hart will be pushed by Will Caballero for the number one spot next season.
Caballero joined the Citizens this summer for a fee of £6million from Malaga, following in the footsteps of boss Manuel Pellegrini to the Etihad Stadium.
Corrigan believes that the Argentine will not be satisfied with a place on the bench and will be hoping to push Hart in order to win some game time.
Hart will begin the season as number one but will be mindful of slipping-up as he did last term when he was replaced by Costel Pantillimon after a run of poor performances.
Corrigan insists that with two top keepers to select from it will provide more competition for places within the squad.
He said: "I think it was a good move to get a very good goalkeeper, who won't come as a back-up. He will be thinking he wants to get in the team - and when he does, he will want to stay there.
"It is up to Joe if he keeps his place. I think Caballero will push him on. I was fortunate when I was playing to have that competition."
Atletico Madrid are ready to make a £25m bid to sign Mexico striker Javier Hernandez, 26, and Japan midfielder Shinji Kagawa, 25, from Manchester United. Guardian
United boss Louis van Gaal is set to tell executive vice-chairman Ed Woodward that Hernandez and Kagawa can be sold, along with midfielders Marouane Fellaini and Anderson, both 26, winger Nani, 27, and possibly 21-year-old forward Wilfried Zaha. DSSC
The Red Devils are looking to do a swap deal with Atletico Madrid by offering Kagawa for 27-year-old midfielder Arda Turan. Mundodeportivo
Everton's attempt to sign Chelsea winger Christian Atsu, 22, on loan has broken down because of concerns the Ghanaian would not get enough playing time. Daily Mirror
Arsenal are ready to move for Sporting Lisbon midfielder William Carvalho, 22, because of increasing concerns at Emirates Stadium over the wage demands and injury history of Real Madrid's Sami Khedira, 27. Times
Liverpool and Tottenham are ready to move again for Ivory Coast striker Wilfried Bony, 25, as Swansea are set to drop his £19m release clause. Daily Mirror
Belgium defender Thomas Vermaelen, 28, will not discuss a new deal with Arsenal in a bid to force through his exit, with Barcelona or Manchester United ready to match the £10m asking price. Sun
Tottenham are closing in on a £17m deal for Argentina centre-half Mateo Musacchio, 23, from Villarreal and are ready to sell 28-year-old defender Younes Kaboul to Italian side Lazio for £6m. Daily Telegraph
Sunderland are ready to move for former Cameroon striker Samuel Eto'o, 33, who is a free agent after being released by Chelsea. Talkshit
Aston Villa boss Paul Lambert is planning talks with Netherlands defender Ron Vlaar, 29, in a bid to keep his captain at the club. Metro
Alisher Usmanov admits he has never spoken to Stan Kroenke since the two billionaires began to vie for control of Arsenal seven years ago, but believes the club is now finally ready to deliver a new era of trophy-winning success. Daily Telegraph
West Ham have stressed manager Sam Allardyce will not be judged until the season starts and say midfielder Ravel Morrison, 21, has a future at the club despite his latest off-the-pitch troubles. Times
Barcelona are interested in signing Bayern Munich defender Jerome Boateng, 25, in a deal that could reach £31m. Bild
Bastia are in talks with Chelsea over a loan deal for 18-year-old Colombian forward Joao Rodriguez. L'Equipe
Barcelona defender Dani Alves, 31, has not had contact with Inter Milan over a possible transfer. Mundodeportivo
Atletico Madrid have been unable to complete a deal for Lille's Zakaria Bakkali as the 18-year-old midfielder is concerned he may not play enough. AS
Liverpool have made an £18m offer to Paris St-Germain for Argentine forward Ezequiel Lavezzi, 29. Tuttosport
Wolfsburg are keen to sign Atletico Madrid's Josuha Guilavogui but do not want to pay the £12m asking price for the 23-year-old France midfielder. AS
Peterborough United tweeted their official squad picture for the new season, including Roma's Ashley Cole standing to their right after the former Chelsea left-back appeared on the fringes of a team picture posted by his new club.
A Vine video has been released showing World Cup referee Howard Webb scoring a cheeky 'Panenka' penalty in a charity match at Barnsley two years ago.
Four fans played the football computer game Fifa 14 at the home of Reading midfielder Royston Drenthe, 27, after he put out an invite on Instagram.
AC Milan striker Mario Balotelli, 23, has been filmed showing his basketball skills. DSSC
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/articl ... -dunk.html
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