Buffon story gathers pace

Manchester City's wealthy Arab owners have launched a world-record £50million bid to sign Gianluigi Buffon, widely regarded as the best goalkeeper on the planet. A delegation from the Barclays Premier League club travelled to Turin this month to discuss a possible transfer and, despite the protestations of Juventus, City firmly expect to secure a deal by making an offer that neither the goalkeeper nor his club can refuse.

>>timesonline.

It seems that the Buffon story is certainly gathering some momentum at the moment, and it certainly is no secret Hughes is looking to bring in a goalkeeper (particularly given his reluctance to throw Kasper Schmeichel into the fray given Hart surely could not have been 100%).

In his post match interview yesterday, Hughes was not giving much away although it may be suggested he was hardly revealing all with this excerpt from The Independent:

Mark Hughes enjoyed only City's second win against Arsenal in the Premier League. His owners are apparently interested in the notion of paying £63m for Juventus' Gigi Buffon. "I don't know what you're talking about," Hughes grinned, when that notion was put to him.

Juventus themselves have been more forcible on the issue, with both Claudio Ranieri and Jena-Claude Blanc insistent that Buffon will not be going anywhere, yet The Telegraph reports Buffon himself would be open to the possibility of joining the club:

“If a club is willing to pay that much for you, it would be fair to say I will tell my agents to make the deal happen,” said Buffon.“Juve can go and buy a team full of champions of their own."

I don't think there is any question that the addition of Buffon would improve the side and give us a goalkeeper who is truly capable of winning games by himself. Given he was bought by Juventus for £32 million back in 2001, a fee of £50 million may not even be considered too high a price and he still has plenty of years ahead of him.

Quite what it would do for the confidence or future of Joe Hart though is a different matter, and having identified him as a definite talent this could be a huge setback in terms of his development.

From what we have seen so far though, Hughes has shown no signs of letting sentiment get in the way of any decisions he makes.

Agent - Chiellini wants City move

Giorgio Chiellini’s agent has revealed that the Juventus
defender is hoping to join Manchester City this week. The former Azzurrini
full-back was linked with Liverpool in recent weeks and seems set to leave the
Serie B champions after stating that he felt neglected by the club. “I will soon
meet Juventus to discuss Giorgio’s future,” said Davide Lippi. “We all hope that
he will soon join Manchester City. “The problem is that in transfer negotiations
there always is a club who sells and one that buys, so I cannot possibly know
how this will end.“Chiellini would be thrilled to play in the Premier League
with City, but everything depends on Juventus, on the final price and on their
will to let him leave or not.”

-channel4.co.uk

Perhaps you have to take what agents usually come out with with a pinch of salt, but on the back of Claudio Ranieri's comments over the weekend it does look promising that we could capture Chiellini - although it appears as though there is a little media posturing to get over first.

Hopefully we do capture him sooner rather than later though, if only to put an end to this rumour.

Ranieri takes charge at Juve

I expected the stories linking the vacant job at Juve with Claudio Ranieri to be nothing more than idle speculation - especially given the comments attributed to him that appeared to suggest he had all but taken the City job (in principle at least), but today's announcement that he has succeeded Didier Deschamps at the newly-promoted side was certainly a shock and has left most Blues in a state of flux.

No real reasons have come out thus far to suggest his reasons for taking the Juve job over he City one (merely some hyperbole at the press conference), so it appears that either:

a) He was keen to take the City job, and may have tentatively agreed to take charge, only for the lure of the Juve post to turn his head at the last minute.

Or perhaps more worryingly,

b) He became disenchanted/concerned at the time the takeover appears to be taking and decided he couldn't wait around for something that may not come to fruition - particularly with an offer from Juve landing on his doorstep.

It has certainly put people in pessimistic mood, with a shortlist of Ranieri, Houllier, Eriksson etc now appearing to comprise Jewell, Warnock and Souness.

Perhaps ofmost concern is that this is now throwing weight behind the rumour that the Shinawatra takeover is soon to be dead in the water - leading to the prospect of the current board remaining in charge and scratching around for a replacement for Pearce (how foolish would they then appear) echoing a situation just over ten years ago when Alan Ball arrived at the club ludicrously late in the day to try and assemble a side with little or no budget.

Yet again though, our board are remaining extremely quiet over the whole affair - not even so much as a 'We are conducting a thorough search for the next manager and have targets in sight' type message, leaving most to the conclusion that there is nothing but confusion reigning at the club at the present time.

The silence is beginning to speak volumes.