Manchester City Ready to Break Bank to Sign £55m AC Milan Striker Pato Next Summer
Manchester City boss Roberto Mancini has reportedly been given the green light by the club’s owners to push on with his attempts to sign Ac Milan striker Alexandre Pato next summer. The Eastlands outfit will have to fork out at least £55m to sign the Brazilian youngster who will push for an exit if the club does not make headway in their challenge for the Serie A and Champions League titles.
The 21 year old striker in now in his fourth season at the San Siro make little ground on perennial Serie A champions Inter Milan and the youngster is reportedly looking at moving on for a new challenge if new Ac Milan boss Massimiliano Allegri fails to reverse the tide.
The new season has not started very well for the Rossoneri who have managed just one win in their first four matches and suffered a humiliating home defeat against Cesena to make matters worse.
Mancini is known to be a huge admirer of Alexandre Pato and knows that Manchester City are capable of funding such a move but the success of just such a move would depend greatly on whether the Eastlands side can capture a top four spot which is probably something the Italian would have to secure just to keep his job.
FERNANDO TORRES is ready to quit Liverpool in dismay at the club’s progress under new boss Roy Hodgson.
And big-spending Manchester City are already plotting a £50m January bid to put the Spain superstar out of his Anfield misery.
The World Cup winner feels the club have gone back on promises to invest in top quality players and is now looking for a way out.
Torres was hotly tipped to leave Liverpool in the summer after the Merseysiders failed to secure Champions League football under Rafa Benitez last season.
Barcelona, City and Chelsea all showed a major interest in the striker – but Torres insisted he wouldn’t make a decision on his future until after the World Cup in South Africa.
After Benitez’s departure and a lot of persuasion from Hodgson, the former Atletico Madrid man followed in skipper Steven Gerrard’s footsteps by deciding to stay at Liverpool.
The shock capture of Joe Cole and Hodgson’s promise of more major signings playeda big role in persuading Torres to stay.
But the club has failed to follow up their swoop for ex-Chelsea star Cole with any other marquee names – a fact that has not gone unnoticed by the Spaniard.
The departure to Barcelona of Javier Mascherano – arguably the best defensive midfielder in world football – and their poor start to the season has also deeply concerned Torres.
All that, together with the club’s precarious financial state, has forced him to seriously reconsider his future.
Torres, 26, has come in for some early-season criticism for a string of below-par displays, with many questioning whether he actually wants to be at the club. Starsport understands that Torres’ representatives are already trying to engineer a move away from Anfield in the January window – particularly if the Reds’ quest to regain their Champions League status looks doomed.
And City chiefs have already made it clear that they are ready to smash their transfer record to bring the hitman to Eastlands.
Boss Roberto Mancini made Torres his No.1 summer target, but knew he would be facing an uphill struggle to lure the striker without the carrot of European Cup football.
But the Italian will renew his attempts to pull off the capture of Torres once the transfer window reopens.
Roberto Mancini's punishing training schedule blamed for mounting casualty list.
Roberto Mancini has been accused of contributing directly to Manchester City's lengthening injury-list due to the physical demands of his training methods.
City are likely to go into the Premier League clash against Chelsea at Eastlands with almost £120m worth of talent unavailable due to injury and the fitness crisis has left Mancini facing the prospect of playing England midfielder Gareth Barry at left-back.
The Italian has borne criticism from a number of players, including captain Carlos Tévez and forward Craig Bellamy, now on loan at Cardiff City, over his training regime and preference for at least one double session each week.
Bridge spared Terry reunion And Mancini has now been criticised by Raymond Verheijen, a renowned fitness coach who worked under Mancini and his predecessor, Mark Hughes, last season before overseeing South Korea's training during the World Cup.
Speaking in September's issue of FC Business magazine, Verheijen said: "Less injuries mean less money lost. In modern football, lots of money is still lost because of the methods of coaches and Manchester City are the perfect example.
"After the arrival of Roberto Mancini things changed dramatically. He decided players had to do double sessions many times a week.
"Those sessions often lasted for two hours. Not surprisingly, the players picked up eight soft-tissue injuries within the first two weeks of Mancini.
"In the second half of last season, City had a dreadful injury record which has cost the club an enormous lot of money.
"Club directors should be aware that 90 per cent of injuries in football can be avoided. They should raise the bar within their organisation to demand more professional training methods.
"During pre-season and the first half of last season, Mark Hughes had all his players available."
Ex City Fitness Coach Slates Mancio Training
It's threatening to look like something out of M.A.S.H in City's treatment rooms as players report injured at an alarming rate. Is our former fitness coach on the ball?
Raymond Verheijen, who was the fitness guru employed by Leslie Hughes then latterly Roberto Mancini has expressed his concerns over Roberto Mancini's training methods at Carrington via a YouTwitFace social networking site:
'I really feel sorry for the Man City players. They are having a difficult time. Hopefully none of them will suffer a career threatening injury.
'During pre-season and the first half of last season Mark Hughes had all his players available...City played each game with the same team. The team had the best Prozone statistics of the Premier League during the first part of the season. The players had the highest number of sprints and the highest total sprinting distance of all the Premier League teams....After the arrival of Mancini things changed dramatically. He probably did not even look at the Prozone statistics and our best-injury record in the Premier League. He decided players had to do double sessions many times a week. Those sessions often lasted for two hours. Not surprisingly the players picked up eight soft-tissue injuries within the first two weeks of Mancini.'
There are facts that Blues can deal in right now. Yes, City have an unprecedented amount of early season injuries that are threatening to derail the campaign. The boss has already blamed a severely inexperienced League cup team selection on those injuries.
We also know that Mancio has had a training hill constructed at Carrington and a couple of senior players bemoaned double training sessions last season. One of those players, signed by Mark Hughes with an ongoing knee problem is Cardiff's Craig Bellamy.
Verheijen has been working with the firey Welshman this week:
'We have almost repaired all the physical damage done to Craig in pre-season by our Italian friends at Manchester City. Thankfully, an explosive player like Craig was able to escape this training regime to save his career.'
Strong words. The rantings of a bitter former employee or reasoned statements?
MORE TRAINING METHOD BOLLOX: viewtopic.php?f=119&t=34874
Manchester City yet to match Chelsea when it comes to smart investment
After Carling Cup woe for Manchester City and Chelsea, the smart money is still on the Roman Abramovich revolution
On the face of it, they have plenty in common. Oil, lavish spending on blue-shirted footballers, an insatiable appetite for sporting glory and, less impressively, shared tales of woe in a week of Carling Cup upsets.
Not that defeats in the much-maligned League Cup will unduly affect the grand ambitions of Sheikh Mansour bin Zayed al Nahyan and Roman Abramovich, yet Chelsea's Russian owner has more reason to be ambivalent about the fourth-ranked trophy on his club's hit-list than his rival from Abu Dhabi.
Two years on from the takeover that stopped the clocks in east Manchester and rocked the world of football on its axis, Sheikh Mansour has yet to acquaint himself with the priceless sensation of lifting silverware at Manchester City.
By the same stage of his tenure at Stamford Bridge, Abramovich was able to caress the Premier League trophy and the League Cup having pumped £230 million of his fortune into the squads of Claudio Ranieri and Jose Mourinho.
City will argue, with some justification, that Chelsea on day one of the Abramovich revolution bore little resemblance to the shambolic organisation, on and off the pitch, that Sheikh Mansour acquired in return for the £210 million required to drive Thaksin Shinawatra out of Eastlands and English football.
When Abramovich signed a cheque for £140 million to take sole control of Chelsea in July 2003, he might have done it just in time to save the club from the ignominy of administration, but he also strode into a club with a Champions League infrastructure and a dressing room with the names of Terry, Lampard, Desailly and Petit above the clothes pegs.
By outbidding Chelsea to the £32.5 million British record signature of Robinho within 16 hours of signing off the deal to buy City, Sheikh Mansour did little more than place an expensive cherry on a cake that, not only had it not been baked, but had not even been placed in the oven.
Since that dramatic first day of Abu Dhabi-control at City, the message from those within the corridors of power has been constant – Sheikh Mansour is in it for the long-term, there will be no quick-fix and the growth of the club will be more organic than that of Chelsea, whose brashness in the early days of Abramovich continues to influence opinion of outsiders.
But two years on and the growth curve is beginning to appear less pronounced than the spending chart.
In excess of £350 million has been spent on new players since Sheikh Mansour's arrival and, aside from a titanic losing battle against Manchester United in last season's Carling Cup semi-final, success has proved elusive.
Wednesday's Carling Cup defeat at West Brom, when manager Roberto Mancini fielded a severely-depleted team due to a defensive injury crisis, has closed off one route to success this season.
With chief executive Garry Cook admitting recently that the goading '34' banner at Old Trafford – a reference to the years passed since City last won a trophy – "drives us nuts", the club can surely not shrug their shoulders at the merits of wheeling out their expensive signings for any competition with a trophy available at the end of it?
Chelsea's surge to success under Abramovich did not accelerate to trophy-winning speed until the Russian replaced Ranieri with Mourinho in the summer of 2004.
Just as Mark Hughes failed to satisfy the demands of Sheikh Mansour, Abramovich was unimpressed by Ranieri's shortcomings, but the Italian at least left Mourinho with a squad that became formidable with the new manager's additions of Didier Drogba, Arjen Robben and Ricardo Carvalho.
By bequeathing the likes of Joleon Lescott, Emmanuel Adebayor, Roque Santa Cruz and Jo, Hughes did not leave behind a golden legacy for Mancini, but equally, the present City manager has failed to replicate the astute buys that followed Mourinho's arrival at Chelsea.
Mancini has spent just short of £130 million on recruits this summer, yet few could argue that the likes of Yaya Toure, Mario Balotelli and David Silva are yet in the same bracket as Drogba, Carvalho and Robben. But could Mancini's English recruits be City's salvation and prove the foundation stones of Sheikh Mansour's grand plans?
Ranieri's foresight in adding Lampard and Joe Cole to the pivotal figure of Terry helped provide Chelsea with almost a decade of service, with Lampard and Terry proving as influential at Stamford Bridge as Paul Scholes and Ryan Giggs at Manchester United and Steven Gerrard and Jamie Carragher at Liverpool.
James Milner and Adam Johnson have been signed by Mancini to play alongside Joe Hart, Gareth Barry, Shaun Wright-Phillips, Wayne Bridge, Micah Richards and Lescott. In the long-term, will that English core drive the same success at City that has been enjoyed elsewhere?
Abramovich's withdrawal from the high-rollers' table now dominated by Sheikh Mansour and the presidents of Real Madrid and Barcelona highlights a developing maturity at Chelsea, where the influence of Frank Arnesen, the director of football, and manager Carlo Ancelotti, both pragmatic players of the long game, is beginning to shine through at the club's Cobham base.
City are still searching for that state of mind, however. Huge improvements have been made in every corner of the club, but Sheikh Mansour's investment will always be judged against trophies won rather than training ground improvements or partnership agreements with sponsors across the globe.
Chelsea and Abramovich have delivered the blueprint, but while the authors of 'Buying Success in Football' remain in the game, City and Sheikh Mansour will find their route to glory anything but straightforward.
WAG OF THE DAY
http://www.footballfancast.com/2010/09/ ... e-cabau_10
TRANSFER BOLLOX
Bundesliga champions Bayern Munich are looking at the prospect of buying a Liverpool player too, in their case goalkeeper Pepe Reina, and are set to offer £17m.Footylatest
But Liverpool are apparently looking at buying too - with Tottenham striker Roman Pavlyuchenko and midfield team-mate Giovani dos Santos targeted. Caught Offside
Tottenham, meanwhile, have agreed a £1.5m deal to sign South African defender Bongani Khumalo from Supersport United. Daily Mirror
OTHER BOLLOX
Liverpool captain Steven Gerrard has already written off his side's chances of winning the Premier League, saying the 18-time champions will be happy to settle for fourth place. Daily Mail
Sir Alex Ferguson has admitted for the first time that lurid off-the-field stories that have turned the spotlight on Wayne Rooney have affected the form of Manchester United's star striker. The Guardian
Arsenal boss Arsene Wenger is hopeful skipper Cesc Fabregas will be fit for the Premier League fixture against Chelsea on 3 October. Daily Telegraph
Former West Ham boss Gianfranco Zola and former Spurs boss Juande Ramos have both applied for the position of Ghana national manager. Daily Mirror
Striker Andy Johnson is close to returning for Fulham following his long-term injury. talkSPORT
Newcastle midfielder Alan Smith says he is still suffering from the mental scars that followed his horrific 2006 leg injury picked up when playing for Manchester United against Liverpool. Daily Mail
Celtic midfielder Marc Crosas describes Neil Lennon as one of the best bosses he has ever worked with - despite being given the cold shoulder by the Parkhead manager for almost six months. (Daily Record)
French fourth division club Levallois SC are to name their new stadium after former player and current Chelsea striker Didier Drogba. The club say Drogba will be at Wednesday's inauguration. goal.com
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