Dunne's delight
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The Guardian
"Near-mutiny turns into untold bounty for delirious Dunne"
Looking back, Richard Dunne could be forgiven for wondering whether it would have been the worst decision of his professional life. Manchester City did not have a manager or maybe even a plan. The fans were at the point of open mutiny and Dunne, the longest-serving player, captain and four-time player of the year was close to walking out. City, he remembers, were "at the bottom of the pit".
So much has changed in such a short space of time, Dunne finds it difficult to talk about the transformation without a bemused, almost disbelieving smile spreading across his face. "It's just amazement really," he confessed yesterday, as he reflected on the takeover by Abu Dhabi United Group's multi-billionaires and how close he had been to missing out on the adventure by severing his ties with the club in the August transfer window. "I'm just glad I didn't go through with it. I think I would always have regretted it."
After eight years at the club, the prospect of leaving was not a decision that Dunne had taken lightly, but the Republic of Ireland international was probably entitled to feel disillusioned, having seen a promising season collapse and a popular manager, Sven-Goran Eriksson, sacked against the players' wishes. "We lost 8-1 to Middlesbrough on the last day and that was the lowest it got," Dunne recalls. "There was just nothing positive coming out of the club and it didn't look like anything was ever going to improve. Everyone's heads were down. Nobody knew what direction the club was going to take and it was pretty much the same for a month after that game. We didn't know who was in charge, what was happening. Everything had come to a head. The fans had wanted Sven to stay. The players were the same. Everyone was fed up."
Newcastle United and Tottenham Hotspur tried to lure him away but Portsmouth came the closest. "They had just won the FA Cup and qualified for Europe," said Dunne at the launch of the EA Sports Fifa 09 computer game. "They were buying players and looked a very attractive option." But then Mark Hughes took over. "As soon as he arrived, he brought some direction back to the club. He's such a strong manager he changed my mind immediately."
The contrast between then and now could hardly be more marked. Last weekend City thrashed Portsmouth 6-0 and, on Wednesday, Redknapp's team sieved four more to Chelsea in the Carling Cup. City's own interest in the Carling Cup was ended by a Brighton side currently 13th in League One. It was the kind of shock that has been the norm for City, but they will have their strongest team back at Wigan tomorrow and Dunne is confident the club can shed their tag as attractive, lovable losers, particularly when he considers Robinho's early impact. "He's unbelievable," Dunne says. "He does the kind of tricks you normally see only in computer games. Elano's good but this guy's a different level. Everyone is criticising him, saying: 'Why has he gone to City?' But Robinho is just the first. Everyone will want to play for City in three or four years."
It is the kind of statement that has prompted Sir Alex Ferguson to talk of City being "all talk" and question whether, in true City fashion, something will inevitably go wrong. "I'm sure a lot of cynical City fans think the same," says Dunne. "But the new owners look like they are here for the long-term. It seems perfect. We've got the fan-base, the stadium, the manager, the chairman. It's real. OK, we're not going to challenge for titles straight away. But this is just the beginning. In the next five or 10 years it will probably be a regular occurrence that City are winning trophies."
He is reminded that Garry Cook, City's executive chairman, has talked of the club outgrowing Manchester United. "It's possible," Dunne says. "Next season, the owners will be pushing for us to reach the Champions League. It's not far away."
He was less enamoured by Cook's remark that "no disrespect, but the name Richard Dunne doesn't roll off the tongue in Beijing," describing it curtly as "not the best thing to say". But he is realistic enough to realise that a glut of superstar signings might have repercussions. "Come January, there could be a brand new squad here. That's the challenge for me. Can I stay in the team? I've always wanted to play Champions League football and it's suddenly dropped on our lap."
Two years from a testimonial, it would be particularly harsh if Dunne should suddenly find his place taken by a new signing. The 29-year-old has been at City long enough to remember them "turning an old Shell garage into a new training ground". Back then, he admits, City were just happy to scrape by. "But then everything changed," he says. "We're just wondering how long before we've got a dressing room full of the best players in the world."
The Independent
"Robinho fires agent who made £4m from City deal"
Robinho announced yesterday that he had sacked Wagner Ribeiro, the agent who handled his recent £32.5m transfer to Manchester City and who, as The Independent revealed on Thursday, received a payment of £4.2m for negotiating the deal.
The decision reflects the Brazil striker's unhappiness at how his advisers dealt with his departure from Real Madrid. The 24-year-old and his agent were criticised for a press conference which Robinho held in Spain to try and force through a long-mooted deal with Chelsea.
Robinho has been a client of Ribeiro, one of the most-high profile agents in South America, for six years and his announcement, after the two men met in the Brazilian city of Santos on Wednesday afternoon, is a surprise. Robinho will now be represented by his father, Gilvan de Souza.
"I am thankful for everything Wagner has done for my career up to this moment," Robinho said in a statement on his website. "But our work cycle has come to an end, and this is the moment for each one to go his separate ways. I have new targets for my career with Manchester City and the time has come to have my father by my side, having a direct participation in my decisions."
Robinho said the decision was purely professional but though he says he is happy at City, there is no doubt he was expecting to move to Chelsea and was bewildered by events on the final day of the transfer window.
Robinho had been allowed to miss City's Carling Cup defeat at Brighton on Wednesday evening because, the club said, he had "domestic matters" to sort out in Brazil. "He has had a period in his personal and football life where a lot of decisions were made," City's manager, Mark Hughes, said yesterday. "He had issues back home as well that needed resolving, so it was more about clearing his mind."
City paid Ribeiro £4.2m on deadline day to ensure that the transfer went through. The club's new owners, Abu Dhabi United Group, instantly met Real's asking price and also payed the full transfer fee up front – something that is extremely rare in football. Payment schedules are usually agreed over a two- to four-year period.
City's new owners were determined to sign a high-profile player and wanted to make sure that Real would not, as they had intended, accept Chelsea's offer. They were also making a clear statement of intent and financial power which was meant to make other agents and football's powerbrokers take notice of what was happening at Eastlands.
It certainly worked, even if Ribeiro has, partly as a result, now seen his links to Robinho severed. However, as as with the player's transfer fee, the agent's fee was paid up in full.
Daily Mail
"City boss Hughes: Robinho flew home to 'clear his mind'"
Manchester City boss Mark Hughes has confirmed that record signing Robinho returned home to Brazil in midweek to sort out family problems.
But the £32.5m signing from Real Madrid will be back to face Wigan on Sunday.
Hughes said: ‘Robinho has had a lot going on around him. He had issues back home that needed resolving and it was about clearing his mind.
‘He’s back fit and well now and has trained this morning and will play on Sunday.
‘He’s had a period in his personal life and football life where big decisions have been made and he needed some time out. It would have been a big ask for him to play in midweek and then again at the weekendHart to pen new deal?
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The News of the World
"Pay hike for Hart"
JOE HART is expected to sign a new five-year deal with Manchester City within the next couple of weeks.
The England keeper was linked with moves to Spurs, Liverpool and Aston Villa after a breakdown in talks over his wages.
But Hart, 21, is set to agree a new deal which will bring him a pay hike from £8,000 to £30,000 a week.
City’s new owners, the Abu Dhabi United Group, are also keen to retain the members of the club’s successful FA Youth Cup-winning side with new contracts to ensure they stay.
Chelsea have been watching Slovakian Vladimir Weiss and Manchester United, Celtic and Fulham are keeping tabs on England Under-19 right-back Curtis Obeng.
Sunday Telegraph
"Steve Bruce eager to get one over Mark Hughes as Wigan prepare for Man City"
It is approaching 15 years since Mark Hughes and Steve Bruce won the double together at Manchester United but it would be wrong to expect back-slaps and broad smiles in the dug-outs when Wigan host Manchester City.
Despite enjoying so much success together in their playing days at Old Trafford, the pair were not particularly close even before there was friction over Mark Bowen commitments as Hughes' assistant with Wales.
At Bruce's request, Bowen stopped working for Wales in 2002 but left Birmingham in 2004, re-joined the national team and then followed Hughes to Blackburn later that year.
Bruce is reticent on the subject but does admit that the issue with Bowen, who has been key to his fellow Welshman's success, "tainted" Hughes and that was even before Robbie Savage left Birmingham for Blackburn.
The Wigan manager maintains that losing Savage is not an issue but it can hardly have done much to bring him closer to his old team-mate.
"We've got a mutual respect but it's not right to say that we're pals, that's for sure," Bruce said. "We played in the same team and I enjoyed playing with him but it would be wrong for me to say we're pals because we're not. As I've said I've still got a huge respect for him but I don't think I've spoken to him for years.
"It happens. We've all had people who we've played with or worked with and you have a working relationship if you see them, but I'm not his pal like I am with Gary Pallister or Bryan Robson."
Bruce admits a level of surprise that Hughes, who was a quiet figure in the United dressing room, chose a career in management but expresses the same feelings for Roy Keane and Paul Ince.
He added: "People forget how much he enjoyed the game itself because he became a totally different person when he went onto the pitch. He was so quiet and an introverted person and then he pulled on the shirt and he was like an animal.
"He did have that quiet personality but then there's Incey as well, and even then, would you have backed Keanie being one too?"
The Independent
"Ireland takes City over place in country"
When your surname is the same as the country you come from, a certain quirky interest is guaranteed. Interest is one thing, however, controversy another and, for a 22-year-old, Stephen Ireland of Manchester City has had more than his share.
Once told by the manager of the Irish youth team that he would never play for the Republic again, he overcame that threat, only to be dropped from the senior squad after inventing a series of fictitious deaths in the family in order to return home to his girlfriend. There was disciplinary trouble with the Football Association, too, for dropping his shorts to reveal a pair of Superman pants after scoring against Sunderland last season; Roy Keane, another native of Cork and former Cobh Ramblers player, was almost certainly not amused, but was reported to be on the verge of signing him this summer.
Still not reconciled with the FAI, Ireland has at least settled down at City and, sporting a new shaven-headed look, is thoroughly enjoying life with his two families; the one at home with three young children and the one that is trying desperately hard not to be fazed by the footballing equivalent of winning several lotteries on the same Saturday night. "It's changed a lot for the better, management-wise," he says of the regime Mark Hughes has instigated in place of Sven Goran Eriksson's. "It's just so professional and the morale of the place is so good. Sven was a really good manager [but] the morale part of it was up and down."
So was City's form, tailing off so badly in the second half of last season that the Swede was sacked, like Stuart Pearce before him. Hughes appears to have brought more discipline, but in a sufficiently relaxed manner that the training ground is a home from home. "In Sven's time," Ireland says, "it was turn up, boots on, train, boots off, home. That was it. Now we come in an hour before, have our massages, have a game of pool or go on the PlayStation, then we go out and train and then come in and do the same thing. So everyone is really close."
Where Hughes was lucky in a para-doxical way was that the transfer window closed before there was time for the new Abu Dhabi squillionaire owners to write a cheque for more than one player. The superstar Robinho duly arrived from Real Madrid, a littlesurprised not to find himself at Chelsea, but has contributed two goals alreadybefore his first away game today at Wigan, without causing any disruption.
Far from it, according to Ireland: "If Robinho didn't know he has to be grafting, he will now. But he's a great player,you know you can trust him with the ball. He's like Cristiano Ronaldo, you just leave them isolated one against one and let them do their bit.
"It is between us and Aston Villa, pushing for a top-four spot. At the moment this is the place to be."
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