Stoke 1 City 2.

Having returned from Thailand at the start of the week, City continued their build-up to the season with a 2-1 win away at Stoke.
A trip to Stoke does not hold too many good memories personally, following the relegation game there a few years ago which then resulted in being chased all around the ground by some of the friendly locals.
It won't hold too many good memories for Sun Jihai either who was sent off for a professional foul in the second half with City already one down. David James saved the resulting penalty before BWP equalised and Andy Cole notched the winner.
One thing I do like about Stuart Pearce is his honesty in situations and there was no trying to defend the red card decision (as it was at best a 'clumsy' challenge on a forward about to pull the trigger).
However, Sun Jihai will now miss the season opener and having seen what players from other teams (guess who eh?) have escaped red cards for because referees seem to adopt a more lenient approach on violent conduct offences, it is disappointing.
Stephen Ireland again impressed in midfield and it maybe as well because it has been decided that Joey Barton will not be avaialable for the foreseeable future as Pearce believes he should complete his anger control course before he considers him available for selection.
It is a good move from Pearce as in some respects missing games will hit Barton the hardest, although I don't suppose writing a cheque out for £120,000 is a pleasant experience even for a Premiership footballer.
Anyhow, it does give us the chance to see the all-new, all-improved Trevor Sinclair who feels he is finally ready to show the City fans his best form. Hmm,, expect him to break down in training any day then..

Barton makes generous donation.

One way to ease the alledged £60 million debts at City is to keep hoping Joey Barton lands himself in hot water and continues to make generous donations to the MCFC fighting fund. Following the disciplinary hearing, the club have announced that he is to be fined eight weeks wages (two of which were suspended from the xmas party incident) totalling around £120,000. Interestingly, the club have also insisted he undertakes a programme aimed at anger control.
To his credit, Barton appeared quite contrite and stated 'I understand the distress I have caused to everybody concerned and want to apologise for my actions. I am grateful for the support I have received from the club and my friends and family'.
In some ways he is quite lucky to escape sacking, suspension or even placed on the transfer list, but an eight week fine is a harsh one and is probably so severe coming this soon after his previous admonishment.
The club have acted well over this episode and it does send out a strong message to the players as a group that they will not tolerate these sort of incidents - after all we're not Newcastle United are we?

Onto a story a world away from the Barton shenanigans, with news that four City greats have been nominated as possible inductees to the football hall of fame. Frank Swift, Bert Trautman, Franny Lee and of course Colin Bell have made the final seventy-five list. Managerial duo Joe Mercer and Malcolm Allison are also in the fifteen strong managerial category. Also on the list with links to City are Joe Royle and Howard Kendall. Seven players and two managers will be inducted into the Hall of Fame at a ceremony in October.
It will be difficult to make the final cut as so few are being inducted, but on the face of it Trautman and Bell appear to have the best chance of being inducted due to their almost mythical status. Trautman will of course be forever linked with Cup final whilst Bell's was a talent that was cruelly cut short due to injury.
However, perhaps what would raise the biggest cheer for City fans (and certainly those who were fortunate enough to be around in the late 1960's) would be if Joe Mercer were to be inducted and it would be a fitting tribute to the man who led City to their greatest and most succesful period.

Only one City?

The M.E.N. today reported that a group of disaffected Manchester City fans were in talks to set up a new club in protest at the way football is heading. Fed up and disillusioned with high ticket prices, soulless stadiums and Sky TV, they are hoping to have a new team up and running in one of the non-league pyramid leagues for next season.
The group state they are not going to be an 'FC City' as such and their dispute is not specifically with City but with football as a whole and the new club will be called 'FFC' - Football Fans Club.
However, given the publicity that FC United have had for their recent launch, then it is perhaps inevitable that comparisons (and accusations) will be made between the two.
Wheras AFC Wimbledon did have a geniune grievance over the decision to relocate the club to Milton Keynes and FC United - for all the pompous and arrogant posturing from the various groups involved, formed the club as a direct protest to Malcolm Glazer taking over, this organisation is setting a team up on the basis of issues that have existed in football for the past ten or fifteen years.
To me, if you are disillusioned with the game (at Premiership level) then stop going to watch it. It doesn't make you no longer a City fan. Go and watch a non-league side or even a lower league side, of which there are plenty locally.
Too dear to go to games? Match day tickets at City cost around £25. Surely that is not too high a price to pay if you compare it to other outlays you have (Sky TV is around £50 a month).
No atmosphere at the ground - create some. There are plenty of groups and organisations at clubs set up to do exactly the same thing.
This group may have honourable intentions, but their motives are misplaced. Fair enough if they have an issue with football, but you don't need to create a new club to address these issues as there are plenty of other avenues to take instead.

Barton to face punishment.

Joey Barton is believed to have met with John Wardle today and his fate at the club is expected to be announced sometime tomorrow.
According to local reports, Barton will be fined around £20,000 - which is the remaining 'suspended' amount left over from the punishment he received from the Xmas party incident last year, plus ordered to undergo anger management counselling.
Reading some of the message boards there have been calls for his sacking and it was an option I touched on in an earlier column. Although, the club would not have faced again legal problems if they chose that option was this ever a likely option for the club?
Here you have young player, tied to a medium term contract whose value must be at least £3 million. If the club sacked him then his contract would be terminated and he would become a free agent, able to sign for whichever club he wished. Would this be a punishment that would make him sit up and think about what he had done? There would only be one party who would be punished and that is City.
Look at the fuss Chelsea made when Adrian Mutu signed for Juve following his sacking for testing positive for cocaine. There, they had shelled out around £18 million for him and lost him for nothing.
Whilst City did not pay anything for Barton, it would still be a huge loss for the club and a move which does not make any sense, economic or otherwise.
Expect Joey to be wearing the shirt on opening day, but still be feeling the wrath of Stuart Pearce ringing around his ears.

Darius pops in.

No, no. Not the cheeky Scottish popster who appeared on our screens in the likes of Pop Idol, but Darius Vassell who is on the verge of signing for City from Aston Villa for £2.5 million subject to a medical.
It is a move that was rumoured on and off over the past couple of weeks but seemed to die a death after the signing of Andrew Cole last week.
However, Stuart Pearce clearly thinks that he can do a job for the Blues and moved swiftly to get him signed once the team arrived back from Thailand.
At this stage, I am very undecided how to view this signing. On the one hand, he has been an England regular (although he has lost his spot in recent games), has good pace, is only twenty-five and at £2.5 million is not a high fee to be pay for him. Added to the loss of SWP he will give us that pace dimension in attack that neither Fowler, Cole or Sibierski will really offer.
However, I can't help but have my doubts about the signing of him. He has in truth been prone to injuries over the past couple of seasons and with someone of his size and speed is likely to be troubled with hamstring problems. But, perhaps most worrying is his goalscoring record. He has scored only six goals in twenty-two England games and notched only three in twenty-one last season for Villa, unlikely to have himself described as prolific. I have never really been overly impressed with him as a player and the fact that David O'Leary stressed the sale was not financially motivated also concerns me.
I'm hoping to be proved wrong but at the moment the jury is still very much out on the signing of Darius Vassell.

Barton comes out fighting.

Joey Barton has returned home following the decision to axe him from the Thailand tour and he has been keen to play down the seriousness of the alleged incident, whilst at the same time acknowledging that he had not handled the situation anywhere near as well as he did.
He denied hitting either the teenage fan involved or Richard Dunne and insisted it was he who had been struck. He also stressed that at no time had he broken any of the team rules and looked to distance this incident from the Xmas party one where he admitted he was at fault.
It is a clever move from Barton and gets his side of the story in the public domain before the team land back in Manchester and he faces a disciplinary hearing. It is very much Barton's side of the story and is the polar opposite of the reports that first came out of Thailand on Friday which seemed to indicate Barton as the aggressor rather than re-acting to provocation.
He also did accept he hadn't handled the situation like he should have done and sought the counsel of some of the more senior players in the squad. It looks likely that he will face some club punishment but reports of sackings or suspension appear to be both extreme and unlikely outcomes. More likely will be a heavy fine and strong public words from the club over his future actions and a contrite apology from Barton before a line is drawn under the matter and both club and player move on from this.
Inevitably, clubs have been linked with Barton in todays papers with Birmingham and Wigan apparantly 'primed' for bids, although both Paul Jewell and Steve Bruce have played down the link.
Lost in all of this was the penalty win over Everton to earn City third placed in the Thailand tournament yesterday. The Blues scorer was none other than new signing Andrew Cole who jetted out in time to make the match and put the Blues ahead before James Beattie equalised from the spot.
The Blues now jet home to continue with the pre-season preperations before the season starts in just three weeks time.

Barton sent home from Thailand tour.

Never a truer is word is said than in jest.
2 days after joking on this site about the players having too much time on their hands in the 'delights' of Bangkok before the next game, and ironically mentioning Joey Barton's history, than the said midfielder finds himself being sent home from the Thailand tour by manager Stuart Pearce after consultations with Chairman John Wardle.
Initially it seemed that Barton and Richard Dunne had been involved in some sort of dispute, but as this morning went on it emerged that Barton had become involved in an 'altercation' with a 15 year old Everton in the bar of the teams hotel. Dunne then tried to step in as peacemaker before Barton rounded on him too.
Various reports have suggested that Barton struck the youngster, and bit Dunne on the hand before Dunne then kicked a door off it's hinges - ruling him out for the start of the season.
It is surely going to be a long journey home for Barton, and he must fear for his future with the club following last seasons Xmas party incident.
In his defence (for now anyway), it is not known what role this 15 year old played in all of this - for all we know Barton may have been the victim of a 'happy slapping' from a hoodie wearing Scouse toe-rag, but to have struck him and then turned all 'Paul Danan-esque' on Richard Dunne is not the cleverest move Barton has made.
So what now? We were led to believe that after the Xmas party that Barton was pretty much skating on thin ice at the club and a further incident would have serious ramifications. If it is as serious as we are led to initially believe then Barton has not learned from his previous indiscretion and yet again, it has also involved a fellow City player. It may be that the club decide enough is enough and we are better of without him.
We are though, extremely thin on personnel and particularly in midfield following Bosvelt and SWP moving on so we can ill afford to lose Barton - especially at a knock down price to rid ourselves of him.
Should this play a part in the decision on his future though? Of course not. He should be judged on the basis of this incident and previous form, not take into account the shortcomings of our current squad.
He probably regrets what he has done, but he regretted the Xmas party incident at the time and six months later here we are again. It is going to be a long, long flight back home for Joey Barton.

Penalty anguish for Blues.

A member of the Wright-Phillips clan was again in the news for City, and just like brother Shaun's transfer announcement from the weekend, it was not good news again.
Young Bradley (can he now be officially named BWP?) missed the fifth penalty of the shoot-out against Bolton in the semi-final of the FA Premier tournament out in Thailand. The match had ended in a 1-1 draw against Bolton after Joey Barton had put the Blues ahead late in the first half only for Kevin Davies to equalise. It was a Blues side which featured returns for long-term absentees de Vliiger and Sinclair and boss Stuart Pearce was pleased with the work-out the team got in the humid conditions, in particular praising the younger members of the side.
The defeat leaves the Blues playing Everton on Saturday for the third placed play-off and miss out on a chance of playing the Thailand national side in the final, although this may be a blessing as by all account the Thai's can be very attractive to watch but are fairly strong in the tackle...
Equally worrying could be the three days off the Blues have until the next game. Again, from what I have heard fregarding the 'entertainment' on offer in Bangkok, the City management need to keep a close eye on the players relaxtion time - in particular Joey Barton given his history and penchant for 'cigar tricks'...

Former Blues to return?

Lost amidst the weekends transfer stunners was news that one former Blue is on his way to the Premiership and another may soon be making a swift return.
Full-back Niclas Jensen has signed for Fulham from Borrussia Dortmund this weekend three seasons after moving to Germany from City after falling foul of then boss Kevin Keegan following a contract bust-up. In truth, we struggled to replace Jensen, with Tiatto, Tarnat and now Ben Thatcher not really offering anything more than Jensen did. But, having gotten on the wrong side of Keegan there was no way back.
Nicolas Anelka was not expected to stay out of the news for too long but even he has probably excelled himself with expressing his desire to move to Newcastle some six months after leaving City for Fenerbahce in pursuit of Champions Leage football. I was always a staunch defender of Anelka throughout his time at City but even I admit I sometimes wonder what he is thinking.
Let's see - he leaves City for Champions League football and at Fenerbahce qualifies for the Champions League this season. So he is now interested in a move to Newcastle who lost weekend opened up their season with an Inter-toto qualifier in the hope of gaining entry to the UEFA Cup. Hmmm...

Taking Cole to Eastlands?

With City fans barely having shaken off their Sunday morning hangovers with the news that SWP was Chelsea bound, Sky Sports news breaking news revealed that we were on the verge of signing a new striker. Swift work by the board we all thought and licked our lips in anticipation at which renowned international pedigree player would soon be donning the famous Blue shirt. And then all was revealed - Andy (sorry, Andrew) Cole!!!!
Memo to City board in ways to appease loyal fans following sale of best and favourite player:
Do not immediately go out and sign now mid-30's former United player whose best days are long behind him.
At best he was a striker whose record was inflated by playing with attacking Newcastle and Man United sides in the mid-90's. As a striker, this signing has filled me with less enthusiasm than the ill-fated Lee Mills loan deal.
What next? Expect to see such other former Old Trafford luminaries as Russell Beardsmore, Ralph Milne and Jesper Blomqvist sending their CV's off to Eastlands as potential replacements on the wing for SWP.

City accept SWP Chelsea bid.

If a week is a long time in politics, then a weekend in football is an eternity if the SWP saga over the last 48 hours is anything to go by.
On Friday, City turned down a bid believed to be £20 million down from Chelsea and stated that SWP was happy to remain with the club. He had also featured for 45 minutes in the pre-season 1-0 defeat at Tranmere where he (and Chairman) enjoyed a good reception from the travelling Blues fans. The odds of 3/1 for SWP to be in the City line-up on opening day was suddenly looking even better.
However, on Saturday SWP pulled out of the pre-season game at Macclesfield with a 'stomach-bug' and was driven from the ground. It was on this journey that he rang John Wardle to tell him that he wanted permission to speak to Chelsea and from this point it was inevitable that he would be joining them.
Lo and behold, with both clubs due to fly out on pre-season tours this week, City announced that the club had accepted a £21 million bid from Chelsea.
It has been a strange situation this weekend as it appeared as though he was happy at the club, before requesting permission to speak to Chelsea. This in itself is a perculiar one, as (as far as I'm aware) no player has ever formally requested permission to speak to another club without a transfer fee being agreed first.
There will probably now be the inevitable conspiracy theories that the board wanted him sold all along and SWP wanting to leave is the 'cover story' to divert criticism of the board, as they know full well the fans would not turn against SWP over any transfer.
It is now inconceivable that any wage demands will not be met, and the only stumbling block will surely be if Chelsea cannot re-assure him regarding the number and type of games that he will feature in. Of course, City will welcome him back with open arms should he decide the move is not in his best interests but the odds on him not moving are now way higher than 3/1.

Odds against?

Found out some interesting betting odds regarding SWP yesterday. Apparantly, the odds of him being at City on the opening day of the season are 3/1 according to Skybet.
Chelsea are odds-on favourites at 4/5 to have him in their line-up and the press again think a move is imminent to Stamford Bridge as there is now doubt as to whether Michael Essien will move there this summer as Lyon appear to want him to remain in France for another season before he moves on.
Other options you can have a punt on are Arsenal at 5/1 and Liverpool 6/1, whilst United are priced out at 33/1.
Most of the press seem to feel he will make the move to Chelsea but cooments in the M.E.N. suggest he is happy at the club and is not letting the transfer speculation faze him one bit. With just a month to go before the season and pre-season preperations well under way it may be that a move does not go ahead and that a price of 3/1 is looks a very attractive price indeed.

Transfer round-up.

Former Blue Paulo Wanchope has caused a bit of a surprise by opting to sign for Qatari side Al Ghafar as opposed to returning to the Premiership with a move to Portsmouth. A nominal fee has secured the services of Wanchope, who had a troubled time at Malaga following his sale to the Spanish club from City last summer.
Wanchope believes he has achieved his ambition of playing in The Premiership and La Liga and now is set upon a new challenge.
Realistically, the only challenge Paulo will face out in Qatar will be how to spend all the dollars his new club will be shovelling his way. It's a strange decision as Wanchope is hardly calling time on his career as he is still (fairly) young. However, he was never the most predictable of characters on the pitch so let him sail off into the desert and the millions that await him.
Meanwhile, back at home Mikkel Bischoff has turned down a move to Cardiff after failing to agree personal terms on a move to Cardiff after the two clubs had agreed a fee. One appearance in three seasons does not suggest he has made a decent fist of his City career, but we are pretty light in defence (where aren't we light to be fair) so there may be an opportunity for him this season, especially if we decide to cash in on Sylvain Distin.

Wenger shows his hand.

With another weekend of SWP to Chelsea stories once again firmly behind us (I can't wait for the News of The World to give it the 'you read it here first byline') and still no sign of SWP heading to London, Arsenal boss Arsene Wenger has subtly entered the race for his signature but made it pretty clear they will not be making a bid of Chelsea-esque proportions in order to land him.
In todays Independent, he was quoted as saying 'I like Wright-Phillips very much, but we are in a transfer market where you first have to let Chelsea make decisions, then come in when they have made that decision. That is because there is a price for Chelsea and a price for everybody else'.
Although City have so far been vocal in the fact that they do not want to sell SWP, any bids over the £20million mark are expected to trigger the sale. Interpret Wenger's comments as Arsenal will not be bidding anywhere near that for SWP and perhaps he is being very sneaky in that assuming Chelsea do not actually want him - as of yet they have not commented one way or the other, and so far SWP has not been seen dining with Peter Kenyon or sunning himself on one of Roman's fleet of yachts, then Wenger may be trying to get him at a knock-down price hoping City will be desperate enough to accept a bid in the region of £10-£15 million.
It's a clever tactic from Wenger and he probably knows that if he were to leave City, Arsenal would surely be SWP's preferred choice but the City board will face a severe backlash if they sold him at all, let alone on the cheap so unless Arsenal find some hidden reserves in the Highbury vault it will be Chelsea or nowhere for SWP this summer.

Pass the source.

So, Steven Gerrard decides to eschew the overtures of Chelsea et al and decides that Liverpool is the place for him (despite saying 24 hours earlier that he 'has to leave') after all and promptly signs a new four year contract hours later - puts Rio's comments that 'these things take time' when referring to his own contract somewhat into perspective eh??!!!
The best bit over the last couple of days though was the 'investigate' journalism on behalf of the tabloid press desperate to steal a march on each other in the sales stakes.
Tuesday July 5th 2005 : Gerrard says he is leaving and Chelsea are the favoured destination. All of which leaves SWP out of the frame at Chelsea so the tabloid press lead with the 'story' that SWP will go to Liverpool as his replacement.
Wednesday July 6th 2005: Gerrard does the biggest about turn seen in football since United fans state 'we might as well see what Glazer has to offer'. All of this of course means that Liverpool won't be buying SWP and of course he will now be on his way to Chelsea after all.
Is it me or is a job on the sports desk of a tabloid newspaper the easiest job in the world? I'm sure that these people just surf internet forums and just pick out snippets of what people post and pass of as 'insider knowledge' or from a 'club source'.
The best bit is when they then claim that they led first with the 'scoop' when a player does actually sign for a club they predicted - conveniently forgetting that they had linked him with every other Premiership, Serie A and La Liga club around.
Roll on some real football action.

Final year Blues.

Saw an interesting article on one of the websites the other day which took me by surprise a little as I didn't realise that we faced the prospect of losing more than half of what is our first choice team at the end of the 2005/06 season.
Despite the good work over the last season in locking SWP, Joey Barton and Richard Dunne up on long-term contracts, David James, Nicky Weaver, Geert de Vliiger, David Sommeil, Christian Negouai, Antoine Sibierski, Claudio Reyna and Robbie Fowler all see their contracts expire after the forthcoming campaign.
It was on the instruction of KK that this was to happen, as he believed it was not fair on both the players and the club to leave the next manager to inherit his predecessors side. It could work in the clubs favour as we have a side who are potentially playing for their futures, but on the other side of the coin could easily attract the attention of the Premiership vultures.
It does leave us in a situation though as Stuart Pearce has arguably the next six months to decide on the fate of the above players and it is evident that some or more vital to the future of the club. I've looked at the players whose contracts are expiring and analysed whether it is likely they will be offered new deals.
David James: Has been outstanding for us since signing midway through the 2003/04 season. An important part of the side who could attract the attention of Arsenal should their keeping problems continue this season.
Decision-The club have an option for a further year and I expect him to be number 1 for a few more seasons to come.
Nicky Weaver: Has had a horrendous time with injury but fought back to make an appearance from the bench against Boro. Needs a full injury free season behind him.
Decision- Should be offered a new contract, but will probably be just a short-term deal.
Geert de Vliiger: Signed as back-up to James last summer but injury wrecked his season. Will vie with Weaver for the back-up role this season.
Decision-Depends on how Weaver fares but may not survive beyond this season.
David Sommeil: Bright start with the club turned into a non-event and maybe on his way to Wigan this season.
Decision-No chance of being offered a new deal.
Christian Negouai: Hailed by KK as his most exciting signing but has bombed disastrously and last season saw him injured against Arsenal and sent off against Everton moments afte coming on.
Decision-No chance of being offered a new deal.
Claudio Reyna: Struggled with injury last season and had an indifferent start with the club but ended last season on a high and will have an important role now Bosvelt has gone.
Decision-Should, and will be offered a new deal.
Antoine Sibierski:Not most fans cup of tea and his City career has seen him shunted around different positions.
Decision- I'm yet to be fully convinced by him but Pearce appears to be a favourite so I expect a new deal to be given to him.
Robbie Fowler: Struggled badly at the start of his Blues career with fitness and form provlems but picked up following Anelka's departure. I expect him to score twenty goals this season.
Decision-The days of Fowler commanding a move to the elite Premiership sides are gone so I expect him to remain a Blue for some years to come.

Royle loses right to appeal.

Former boss Joe Royle has been refused permission by The House of Lords to counter-appeal against the appeal court decision which ruled he should return £420,000 he was originally awarded by City following his sacking back in 2001 following our relegation from the Premiership.
City originally paid Royle £150,000 which was the amount he was owed remaining on his contract based on the club playing in Division 1. However, Royle argued and succesfully sued the club, arguing that technically the club had breached the contract as they were still officially a Premiership club at the time of the sacking.
This was based on the interpretation that although the season had ended, and that season had resulted in relegation, the club had still to hand over their Premiership shares to the promoted sides.
City then launched an appeal at The House of Lords, which subsequently ruled in City's favour, saving the club nearly half a million pounds which with ironic timing was just at the time KK left the club armed with what was probably a rather tasty 'golden handshake'.
City have issued what is basically a rather brief terse statement which reads "It is hoped that this latest ruling will finally bring to an end the long running dispute."
This pretty much summed up City's attitude to the whole Royle dismissal situation and neither party emerged from this with a great deal of credit. City left themselves open to this kind of technicality by firing Royle as quickly as they did, amidst rumours that they had already approached Kevin Keegan to take over before doing so. Given the fact that Royle had been a former player for the club and had got them to the Premiership in successive seasons from the dark days of Division 2, City really should have avoided a situation which would lead to a long, drawn out bitter affair.
Royle though perhaps came out worse in the eyes of City fans though. Despite what he did for the club, and coupled with former Chairman David Bernstein's efforts helped restore the club to the top flight, the relegation proved that Royle had taken the club as far as he could and that he could not deliver the style of football the fans wanted (and got the following season under Keegan) and his treatment of players such as Wanchope, Weah and Brown bordered on the bizzare.
And by taking the club to court it was effectively him against the whole of Manchester City and this led to him being labelled greedy in trying to squeeze as much money as he could from a club he had guided to relegation, overshadowing his many achievements with City.
Thankfully the whole saga appears now to be over and both sides will hopefully avoid a game of tit for tat in the press and the relationship between Joe royle and Manchester City can be left where it should be - firmly in the past.

Round up from the Sunday papers.

Not too much in the way of new transfer stories knocking about this morning but one which hopefully may be true is that Wigan are preparing to launch 'a raid' on City for David Sommeill! In all honesty, this raid won't need to be planned with military precision as I'm not too convinced the club would fight tooth and nail to keep hold of him bearing his last two seasons have involved him being shunted to Marseille as part of the van Buyten loan deal and then playing a solitary game last season at left back just before KK departed. I remember his debut at home to Fulham and he looked a class player early on but obviously flattered to deceive judging by the rest of his career. Expect to see the usual 'nominal fee' agreed if he does move to the Latics.
More rumours that Peter Crouch is on his way to the club - and this time a fee of £6 million was mentioned. Considering we don't have a pot to piss in on the transfer front I'm not sure that whoever wrote that 'rumour' was sure how we were going to pay for him....unless, we sell Sylvain Distin to Villa as the News of The World (the oracle of truth) suggest Villa will stump up the City's believed asking price of £7 million. This one doesn't seem to be going away and I can see that there is a temptation to cash in as we have Nedum Onouha as a ready made replacement and he certainly looked impressive at the end of last season deputising for Richard Dunne. However, Onouha is likely to miss the start of the season through injury and I'm sure Stuart Pearce is reluctant to break up the James-Dunne-Distin axis which was such a success last season.
Also in the NOTW was an interesting piece that City are trying to encourage Ray Ranson to invest in the club. Ranson, former full back for the Blues of course has built up a small fortune through his businesses had a failed attempt to buy AstonVilla last season and is believed to be keen on making a renewed bid for the Midlanders and views them as a better financial proposition than City would be as Villa are apparantly debt free whilst are debt is currently the size of a South Anerican dictatorship. Looks like the mystery Arab/Russian/Finnish consortium may be back in the new sooner rather than later then!

The road to fitness.

Good news today in that City's long term injured trio of Geert de Vliiger, Sun Jihai and Trevor Sinclair are all on the road to recovery.
The trio, who between them missed virtually all of last season have apparantly worked hard all summer and are expected to return for pre-season training.
One player who has had a setback however though is Nicky Weaver. Weaver, who himself is no stranger to long term injury woes finally made a return to action last season in the reserves before making his first team return during the Boro game which saw David James play as a makeshift striker. Unfortunately, Weaver broke a bone in his wrist at the end of season which it was hoped would fuse together over the summer. However, he now faces minor surgery which rules him out of pre season and sees him possibly slip down to number 3 in the pecking order.
While it's fair to say Weaver did not do himself many favours earlier in his career when he first hit the headlines, he has fought back bravely from injury which would have wrecked many players careers.
I think though that once he overcomes this setback he needs regular first team football to get his career back on track this season. With David James entrenched as number 1, we can afford to let Weaver go out on loan for the season to a Championship side, especially with de Vliiger back to full fitness to reside on the bench for the season.
Hopefully, with a full first team season under his belt, he can then come back to City the year after to put pressure on David James to eventually reclaim the number 1 spot and fulfill the potential that he showed when he first broke through into the side.

Free The Goat?

During the last week of relatively quiet news, Shaun Goater has featured in the M.E.N. a couple of times talking about the 'hell' of last season at Reading where he has been effectively frozen out by the club who will owe City a further £50,000 as part of the transfer fee which was agreed when Goater left City for Reading two seasons ago.
This effectively wasted Goater's season, and he ended the season on loan at Coventry. It is a surprise that Reading are holding off on paying this installment as he's a guy who could probably still score goals at that level and a lack of goals cost Reading a play-off place down the stretch. On top of this, they are not a poor club and could easily afford to pay this amount and it all leads to Goater having another miserable season as he still has one year left on his contract.
What has astounded me though is that looking around various message boards is the call from many City fans to bring Goater back for one last hurrah at City. Granted, following selling Jon Macken to Palace (although no tears were shed by yours truly there) we are down to the bare bones in attack and at present there has been only rumours of potential new signings, but does anyone seriously believe Goater could step into the City side and add something to us?
Admittedly, I was never sold on his 'talents' as a striker but he worked hard and deservedly earned himself a place in City history for his efforts during his time with us but I had to laugh as I read the pleadings of fans who think he could still score twenty Premiership goals. Especially with two seasons out of the Premiership and only playing eight games last year, he could struggle to perform in the Championship let alone the Premiership.
If it even came down to a straight choice between the Goat and David James to fill a strikers position for City this season, I'd be sorely tempted to tell Jamo to leave his gloves in the car.
Sorry Shaun, you may have some role to play at City again in the future, but it won't involve lacing up your boots I'm afraid.