City chiefs ready to take £50m hit
MANCHESTER CITY chiefs have decided to take a £50million hit on five players.
The world's richest club will listen to offers in the January transfer window for Emmanuel Adebayor, Wayne Bridge, Shaun Wright-Phillips, Roque Santa Cruz and Jo.
Keeper Shay Given will also be made available — but for the £7m he was originally bought for.
All six stars were signed by Mark Hughes, City boss Roberto Mancini's predecessor, at a total cost of £87.5million.
But few have figured regularly this season and Mancini fears the presence of some of them is having a negative influence at the club.
City chief executive Garry Cook and chairman Khaldoon Al Mubarak discussed the transfer window with Mancini before flying to Abu Dhabi to meet owner Sheikh Mansour for a board meeting.
There, they delivered Mancini's plans for the restructuring of the squad for a second-half title push.
They include landing two new strikers, with Wolfsburg's Bosnian frontman Edin Dzeko topping the list as a £35m target.
City will take the biggest hits on strikers Adebayor, 26, and Santa Cruz, 29.
Adebayor cost £25m from Arsenal but is available for £12m after failing to set the world alight following his move in July 2009.
Paraguayan Santa Cruz, meanwhile, was an £18m buy from Hughes' former club Blackburn but will be up for grabs at a mere £4m.
City, though, seem prepared to make losses in all areas of the pitch.
Left-back Bridge, 30, cost £12m from Chelsea in January 2009 but City will now accept £5m.
And then there is winger Wright-Phillips, 28, who returned for a second spell at City following an £8.5m move to Stamford Bridge in August 2008.
He spoke about his desire to see it out at City this season but talks on a new deal have stalled and the club will take £5m for him.
The £17m deal for Brazilian flop Jo, 23, was agreed by former boss Sven Goran Eriksson but completed under Hughes and City know they will now be lucky to get £4m.
In fact, the only player City bosses want their full money back on is Given, 34, who they bought from Newcastle in January 2009.
The Republic of Ireland stopper lost his place to Joe Hart at the start of the season and said this week he had to get a move in the New Year.
Ironically, Given will play his first Premier League game of the season away to Fulham on Sunday when he replaces Hart, who is out for a week with a back injury picked up on England duty.
What City will not do is compensate the highly-paid players if they move. The six stars in question earn between £60,000 and £130,000 a week and will struggle to get the same wages elsewhere.
But City will tell them and their agents they are knocking down asking prices, so the players can get the moves they want - and return to action again.
In short, any make-up in wages will have to be organised with the buying club.
City have already lost just over £10m this year on British record signing Robinho, who was bought for £32.5m and sold to AC Milan for £22m in August.
And striker Craig Bellamy, 31, a £14m buy from West Ham, is currently on loan at Cardiff.
But the City hierarchy are determined to back Mancini in his plans despite outside pressures.
Mancini told the club's board in the summer it was his way or no way if he was going to continue as manager.
City lie fourth in the table after an incredible £320m investment in the squad in just over two years. SUN
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