Carlos Tevez is almost certainly out of next week’s Manchester derby after suffering a setback in his recovery from a thigh injury.
Tevez was due back in Manchester yesterday after City boss Roberto Mancini had given him permission to return home to Argentina to undergo treatment and see his family.
But the doctor treating Tevez back in Buenos Aires for the blood clot on the striker’s thigh said it was too dangerous for Tevez to board the 12-hour flight back to Manchester.
The situation is a huge embarrassment to Mancini, who let Tevez return home on the proviso he returned by Monday to be treated by City’s medical staff at the club’s Carrington training complex.
With Tevez already ruled out of City’s trip to West Brom on Sunday, he is now not expected back in Manchester until Thursday, giving him very little time to be fit to face United on November 10.
City’s reliance on Tevez was exposed in their 2-1 defeat to Wolves in his absence at the weekend, and the 3-0 loss to Arsenal, when he was forced off after 53 minutes with the thigh problem.
Mancini, already facing criticism for letting Tevez fly home when injured and with simmering unrest boiling over among some of his disaffected players, must somehow get City’s faltering season back on track.
Back-to-back defeats have raised question marks over Mancini’s future and the Italian faces a huge week with Thursday’s Europa League tie in Lech Poznan followed by a trip to West Brom and the potentially seismic derby with United three days later.
City team-mates James Milner and Yaya Toure were involved in a tunnel row during the defeat to Arsenal, while Emmauel Adebayor and Vincent Kompany had a furious exchange on the pitch during Saturday’s loss to Wolves.
Mancini described as “rubbish” suggestions of a player revolt over his management style, but the City boss needs to get his team back to winning ways to ease the growing pressure on him amid claims he has lost a significant chunk of the dressing-room.
Toure insists no rift at City
Manchester City defender Kolo Toure insists the club will resolve their problems internally and believes it is usual for everyone at a big side to have their say.
Boss Roberto Mancini has faced problems off the field recently, with the Italian last week hitting out at what he sees as a drinking culture in British football after reports emerged that City quartet Adam Johnson, Gareth Barry, Joe Hart and Shay Given had been involved in late-night partying on a trip to Scotland.
Emmanuel Adebayor and Vincent Kompany were subsequently involved in a heated exchange during last weekend's 2-1 defeat at Wolves but Toure is adamant there are no major rifts in the squad.
"After the Wolves game the manager had his word and the players had our words as well, so we know what we need to do in the future. There are a lot of personalities in the team.
"When there is an issue, everyone has his say and that is really important if you want to be a big club."
Barcelona may have a vacancy to fill at right-back because Brazil international Dani Alves has emerged as a target for big-spending Manchester City. Daily Mail http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/footba ... -City.html
ROY HODGSON is eyeing a January raid for Manchester City winger Shaun Wright-Phillips.
The Liverpool boss has £25million to spend, thanks to the club's new owners.
Hodgson is short of widemen but will pay no more than £5m for SWP.
The England ace, 29, has stalled on penning a £75k-a-week offer at City after sliding out of the reckoning. Sun
Manchester United may be about to lock horns with local rivals Manchester City once again in the transfer market, with both clubs, along with AC Milan, Real Madrid and Barcelona, interested in River Plate's 19-year-old striker Rogelio Funes Mori. caughtoffside
http://www.caughtoffside.com/2010/10/30 ... e-starlet/
WAG OF THE DAY
http://bleacherreport.com/articles/5035 ... eek#page/1
TRANSFER BOLLOX
Gareth Bale's performances down Tottenham's left flank have attracted the attention of Spanish giants Barcelona. Daily Mirror
Standard Liege's Belgium international midfielder Steven Defour is in the sights of seven Premier League clubs, with Manchester United, Liverpool and Everton all thought to be interested in him. sport.co.uk
Tottenham may snap up former Portsmouth midfielder Sulley Muntari from Inter Milan, although Pompey are still owed money on the deal that took the Ghana international to the San Siro. Daily Mirror
The Reds, meanwhile, have handed a trial to Maccabi Tel Aviv's 16-year-old Israeli attacking midfielder Omri Altman. Daily Mail
And Liverpool manager Roy Hodgson is also hoping to sign Sampdoria attacker Antonio Cassano. caughtoffside
Arsenal's Polish goalkeeper Wojciech Szczesny has suggested that he may look for a move elsewhere if he cannot force his way into manager Arsene Wenger's first team. Daily Mail
Manchester United are monitoring £8m-rated FC Nurnberg midfielder Ilkay Gundogan but have also been impressed by his team-mates midfielder Mehmet Ekici and striker Julien Schieber, both of whom are on loan at the club. Daily Mail
Manchester United, Chelsea and Real Madrid target midfielder Bastian Schweinsteiger has delayed a decision on extending his contract at Bayern Munich until January. IMscouting
Napoli president Aurelio de Laurentis has dismissed speculation that Manchester United could sign Napoli stars, midfielder Marek Hamsik and striker Edinson Cavani. IMscouting
Manchester United boss Sir Alex Ferguson will reportedly make a £25m summer move for Tottenham's in form wide man Gareth Bale and is willing to offer a variety of players in part exchange for the Welsh international. caughtoffside
Aalesunds keeper Anders Lindegaard, dubbed the new Peter Schmeichel, is being watched by Arsenal and Manchester United. sport.co.uk
Galatasaray captain and Turkey international winger Arda Turan has ruled out a move to the Premier League after being linked with Chelsea, Tottenham Hotspur, Arsenal and most recently a January move to Liverpool. sport.co.uk
Lassana Diarra is being tracked by four Premier League clubs after falling out of favour at Real Madrid this season. Aston Villa, Everton, Tottenham and Liverpool are now all interested in the midfielder. TalkSport
West Ham are considering a January bid for in-form Barnsley playmaker Adam Hammill. Daily Mail
Everton manager David Moyes is keeping tabs on Werder Bremen's Portugal forward Hugo Almeida. Daily Mirror
QPR's Scotland striker Jamie Mackie is a £3m target for Everton. (Daily Record)
Rangers are chasing Derby County's contract rebel Kris Commons - and hope to acquire the Scotland midfielder in a bargain deal at the end of the season. Daily Mirror
Sunderland are are interested in Sochaux's 19-year-old French striker Cedric Bakambu. Daily Mirror
Crystal Palace are ready to launch a £1m bid to make James Vaughan's loan deal a permanent move this January. TalkSport
OTHER BOLLOX
Liverpool midfielder Joe Cole may be ruled out of Sunday's match against former club Chelsea because of a hamstring injury. the Guardian
However, United striker Wayne Rooney could be fit for the showdown after returning to training from an ankle injury that was expected to keep him out for five weeks. Daily Express
Wigan owner Dave Whelan is preparing to sell the club - to ensure his family do not lose a fortune keeping it going. Daily Mirror
Mark McGhee is refusing to quit as Aberdeen manager, despite a record of 17 victories in 57 games. (Daily Record)
Dutch stars Rafael Van der Vaart and Wesley Sneijder have been trading insults on social networking site Twitter ahead of Tuesday's Champions League game between Tottenham and Inter Milan. Tottenham midfielder Van der Vaart tweeted: "Oi...Wesley! Your defence is like a piece of our Dutch cheese - it's full of holes." And his Inter counterpart replied: "Oi...Rafael! Good news: I have found you a decent keeper - just go to eBay." the Sun
FINAL BOLLOX
James Lawton: Big egos, booze and revolt... City's ills suggest they are destined only for mediocrityIf they think it's fine for Yaya Touré to do half a shift and then rush off to beat the traffic, then hey, remember these are the richest boys on the block
You don't have to have a soft spot for the best of Manchester City – it was always a charming, if edgy, stoicism in the worst of days – to worry about quite what is happening to them now. No, all you need is the concern that while getting used to the heady idea that they have become the richest club in football, they are helping to define quite how crass and self-destructive the English game has become.
Of course we are constantly urged to show caution in our reaction to the new City. If they think it's fine, indeed even claim it to be club policy, to allow their best-paid player Yaya Touré to do half a shift in a rather desultory manner and then rush off in order to beat the traffic, then hey, remember these are the richest boys on the block. One way or another, all of the game is sooner or later destined to bend the knee.
You say perhaps not? Well, you could just be right but be careful where you say it. Some intellectual heavyweight might just level the charge that a green-eyed monster has taken possession of your marbles.
Back in the real world, however, Sheikh Mansour's advisers may just think the time is right for a passing review of his spending on City, which is now close to £600m.
They might wonder not least if they have in Garry Cook, the former sports kit promoter, quite the chief executive to lay down the foundations of a dazzling, secured football empire.
He did, after all, pronounce the former owner Thaksin Shinawatra a most agreeable golf companion, whatever that tiresome Amnesty International had to say, and accused the Italian prime minister Silvio Berlusconi, who had only recently rewritten his nation's constitution to ward off the possibility of prosecution and impeachment, of a loss of nerve in negotiations over the possible transfer of Kaka from Milan to Eastlands.
These do not constitute the acme of fine character assessment.
Nor, it has to be said, has the recruitment under first Mark Hughes and now Roberto Mancini. In the last week or so City's squad has begun to look like a parody of all you might expect from a gathering of hand-picked crack professionals.
Inevitably, Mancini claims to be involved in a work in progress but right now the whole process could hardly look more hazardous. Yesterday Kolo Touré said that it was time for the players to take more responsibility, including, presumably even the ace in City's distinctly crumpled pack, the apparently homesick Carlos Tevez.
The list of problems can hardly make for comfortable reading back in the Middle East: drinking episodes; at least one scuffle in the tunnel between Yaya and James Milner, team-mates costing a combined total of £50m; badly concealed disaffection with the training and disciplinary regime of Mancini, who is from a football culture where professionals are given the fancy idea at an early age that they are among the more privileged members of society; and, finally, the open contempt for team-mates currently being displayed by the talented but incorrigibly egocentric and ill-disciplined Emmanuel Adebayor and Mario Balotelli.
This, for the moment at least, is not a check list for a team going any place beyond grotesquely inflated mediocrity.
City, it is true, might just ride the squalls. Mancini, a serial winner with Internazionale, may hack into place the rudiments of team unity and a coherent set of tactics more in keeping with the richest club in the world than those centred around the seek-and-destroy methods of Nigel de Jong. But who can be confident that City, for all the oil largesse, have the fundamental ingredients that have always accompanied football success?
It's an old debate, of course, but then some principles cannot be bent to suit the particular circumstances of an inherently unpromising situation.
Those who assert that you cannot just walk into the street and buy a winning football team, that the project has not got an earthly feel if it isn't underpinned by the experience of men who have acquired a proper insight into what truly separates the winners and the losers, have always been arguing from the strongest of positions – those that are made by an understanding that if you don't grasp what happened yesterday you are unlikely to have much of a clue about the possibilities of tomorrow.
Even if you have loadsamoney, what you do is build a team piece by piece and put the job in the hands of a manager – in the English system it will always be the most important person – who has displayed the leadership potential of a Mourinho or a Ferguson or a Wenger.
Then, you have a sense of where you are going. You do not make a big splash for someone like Kaka while still struggling to form the basis of a winning team, and if you do, don't leave yourself wide open to an embarrassing rejection.
At least events have spared City the possibility of signing Wayne Rooney and injecting all of his broiling uncertainties of fitness and psychology into a dressing room to which you can only imagine he would have brought a degree of self-interest guaranteed to dwarf even that of Adebayor and Tevez and Yaya Touré.
Most depressing is not so much that City's windfall seems to be gathering something resembling a crop of bad apples but that they are also at the moment most dramatically mirroring the rot so manifest at almost every level of the football food chain.
It doesn't help that the majority of their problems were so easy to anticipate. City, if you remember, were supposed to be the team primed to define the future. Unfortunately, these last few days have provided something rather different. They have told us what happens when there is too much money, too little common sense. You get some hateful swilling in the trough.
