Friday, January 12, 2007

Mass exodus?

From todays Guardian:


Manchester City began what promises to be a period of
extensive transfer activity when they sold Ben Thatcher to Charlton Athletic
yesterday in a deal worth £500,000. Stuart Pearce hopes to spend the money on
new recruits but first he must prevent a larger exodus of players, with City in
danger of becoming the Premiership club who lose the most in the transfer
window.
Three successive league victories may have lifted Pearce's team into
the top half of the Premiership table but behind the scenes it is proving to be
an unsettling month for Pearce, with no progress in the club's preliminary
takeover talks and doubts persisting about the future of several influential
players, including the defenders Sylvain Distin and Micah Richards. City have
had difficulties trying to sign players and the manager admitted last night that
it was becoming an "awkward window".

Pearce, who has described his squad as "thin", wanted
to bring in a left-sided player and a striker. "We've made many, many phone
calls in the last few weeks but the general message is that no one wants to sell
their players," he said. "I dread to think how much time I have spent on the
phone. Everybody wants to buy somebody to shuffle their pack but nobody wants to
sell anyone."
His problems have been exacerbated by the financial
restrictions imposed on him in the wake of Kevin Keegan's free- spending days as
manager. However, it is the number of players who may leave the City of
Manchester stadium which is causing the club's supporters the most
anxiety.

vote it up!

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

An example of Lazy Journalisim at it's very best Danny Lad.

Your espousal of Turgid RAG diatribe such as that will only serve to alienate your fellow blues!

Anonymous said...

I don't understand what's going on with the Guardian - they seem the most determined of the papers' to undermine anything Pearce is trying to do this transfer window, saying on a regular basis that Richards wants to move to Chelsea - all the other information available suggests otherwise, and Barton's agent has publicly said he would only be interested in a move to the "big 4", so it's all a load of rubbish.

Anonymous said...

seems the Grauniad and MUEN are happy to continue to peddle the mythical 'takeover' lie a little longer. They're going to look very silly (hopefully) in 6, 12, 18, 24, 48 etc months time when it's never been mentioned again.

Anonymous said...

I'm not sure that the Guardian is anti-city as much as it is pro-anything-London. As much as I enjoy reading it, it riles me that their hacks seem oblivious to the fact that 4/5 of the population of England do not live in London. The north west especially seems to be dismissed as an uncultured, uncivilised backwater. This from a paper that had its origins with the Manchester working class, much like our club.

Anonymous said...

Just a load of crap by the MUEN sister paper. Frankly for any true blue to post such SHITE on their website is a DISGRACE!!!!!!!

Unknown said...

I am a Manc-born journo exiled in London, working for one of the Guardian's rivals.
I don't cover sport, largely because I find it too hard to overcome my blue bias. I agree than the Guardian is shamefully distant from its roots and that its London-centric ways let it down. But I also sense they are right about what is going on inside the club and that it could be a difficult winter financially.
Let's all not forget that day in York, not so long ago,when we reached our nadir. Let's be glad for what we have achieved since then as we build on up to our rightful place in the top 6, hopefully with a lot of fresh cash.