Weekend round-up.

Seems the possibility of a move for Steed Malbranque may be back on again. In what is becoming more on-off than a Hollywood romance, Stuart Pearce has signalled his intention to have 'one last crack' at landing the Frenchman. After returning to Fulham with an unsuccesful improved bid, it seemed that a deal was dead and buried amid some confusion over whether Fulham had turned down the bid or whether Malbranque himself had ko'd the deal with some reports suggesting he was happy at Fulham but if he did move it would be for Champions League football.
One factor could be the future of Jermaine Jenas as one of the Sunday's suggested Newcastle will move for Malbranque if Jenas does leave Tyneside.
At this stage it appears unlikely we will land Malbranque, but what is life without hope eh?

The only other player we have been linked with over the weekend was Villa's Nobby Solano. He has one year left on his deal with Villa and could be a short term answer to the right hand side of midfield vacated by SWP. Similar to Cole and Vassel, this is a signing that doesn't fill me greatly with excitement. He's not a bad player, but seems a bit hot and cold to me. With a full strength side, I think Pearce will have Reyna pencilled in for the right hand side and I don't see Solano has offering too much more.

City 3 Olympiakos 1. Final pre-season game saw City fall behind to a goal from Yaya Toure before second half goals from Darius Vassell and a brace from BWP won the game. Disappointing news beforehand was that Distin is now injured too (groin) and is missing the start of the season so our central defensive partnership is likely to feature two of Mills, Jordan, Sommeil and Onouha which gives it a very shaky look. It is not shaping up to be the ideal start injury wise as Sibierski and Fowler are also to miss the opener and with the fixture list throwing up a favourable start this doesn't help us in our quest to get off to a flier.