Bridge on the horizon |
 |  | | |
| |||
New Year! The much-anticipated January transfer window is now open,
with City widely tipped to start spending as soon as possible.
The Times
"Manchester City target Wayne Bridge to open £60m spree"
Manchester
City have made a £10 million offer for Wayne Bridge and are expected to
follow up their move for the Chelsea defender by lodging a bid for
Roque Santa Cruz, the Blackburn Rovers striker, before the end of the
week as the Barclays Premier League’s new financial superpower waste no
time flexing their muscles in the transfer market.
With West
Ham United demanding in excess of £20 million for Craig Bellamy and
Scott Parker, after rejecting a £15 million bid from City for the pair
last weekend, Mark Hughes has focused his attention on the pursuit of
other leading targets as the transfer window opens for business today.
Hughes
has long identified Bridge as his first-choice target to fill the
club’s problematic left-back position, although if he is unable to
persuade the England player to leave Stamford Bridge — or if Chelsea
refuse to sell Ashley Cole’s deputy — the City manager is likely to
turn his attention to Philipp Lahm, of Bayern Munich, who has won 52
caps for Germany.
City are also eager to prise Santa Cruz from
Ewood Park, with Sam Allardyce, the Blackburn manager, all but
conceding defeat yesterday in his efforts to keep the Paraguay striker.
A bid of about £17 million could be lodged as early as today — with
Nedum Onuoha, the City defender, possibly a makeweight in any deal —
although Allardyce is holding out for £20 million after accepting that
Santa Cruz, whom Hughes signed from Bayern for £3.8 million in July
2007, is eager to team up again with the former Blackburn manager.
City,
who have had three offers for Santa Cruz rejected in the past year,
have also inquired about Amr Zaki, the Egypt striker, who is on loan to
Wigan Athletic from Zamalek.
“There appears to be an interest
[in Santa Cruz from City], but there is no confirmed bid from them,”
Allardyce said. “It would be reasonable to say we expect to hear from
them. Mark Hughes brought him to this club and if he’s struggling for a
striker, he’ll be interested. But it would only be at the right price
for Blackburn Rovers if we decide we want to sell him. It’s in their
hands to make the first approach.”
Hughes, backed by the club’s
immensely rich owners, the Abu Dhabi United Group, has a budget of up
to £60 million as he looks to recruit six new players. Hughes
reiterated yesterday that City would not be held to ransom and, so far,
the manager appears to have been true to his word. City were keen to
sign Lassana Diarra from Portsmouth, but pulled out of the running
because they were unwilling to go anywhere near the £18 million that
Real Madrid agreed to pay for the France midfield player last week.
Similarly,
Hughes believes that West Ham’s combined valuation of Bellamy and
Parker is unrealistic, even if the figure is, in part, a tactic from
the East London club, who are hoping to buy enough time to sell off
other players, such as Luís Boa Morte, Matthew Etherington and Calum
Davenport, and avert the threat of losing their star names.
Matthew
Upson, the West Ham and England defender, is also a target for City,
although Hughes may turn instead to Kolo Touré, of Arsenal, or Joleon
Lescott, of Everton.
The Independent
"City start spending with £18m Roque"
Manchester
City will greet the opening of the January transfer window with a bang
by offering more than £11m for Chelsea's Wayne Bridge. A deal is
thought to be close to completion. The world's wealthiest football club
are also bidding £18m for the Blackburn Rovers' striker Roque Santa
Cruz as the manager, Mark Hughes, acts quickly to bolster his squad.
Hughes
has made Bridge his No 1 target, with the City executive chairman,
Garry Cook, hoping to agree a deal for the 28-year-old England
international defender within the next 72 hours. Several other bids are
in the pipeline for City, who want Arsenal's Kolo Touré, for example,
as well as the Newcastle United goalkeeper Shay Given. City have
already had an offer of £15m for Craig Bellamy and Scott Parker
rejected by West Ham United.
Chelsea are likely to accept City's
offer for Bridge, even though he signed a new four-year contract to
remain at Stamford Bridge only last summer. The left-back is understood
to earn £70,000 a week and will be offered a pay increase at Eastlands.
There
is some bemusement in football at City's buying strategy – £11m for
Bridge is way above his market value – and the fees they are expected
to offer, but the decision by the club to flex their financial muscle
will have a knock-on effect for the rest of the Premier League and
provide funds which could kick-start a busy month of buying.
Chelsea,
for example, are planning to agree to their manager Luiz Felipe
Scolari's request to buy a striker and will have their funds boosted by
the expected sale of Bridge, while the Blackburn manager Sam Allardyce
can use the money from Santa Cruz to rebuild his team in an effort to
avoid relegation.
Yesterday, Allardyce insisted there had not yet
been a formal bid from City for Santa Cruz, whom Hughes signed for
Blackburn for just £3.8m 16 months ago. He scored 23 goals last season
but the Paraguayan has been plagued by injury during this campaign – he
currently has a calf strain – and has also been distracted by City's
interest – they made two offers for him in the summer of £12m and £15m.
"It's
not a done deal," Allardyce said. "You never welcome losing your best
players, but you can't help it if they make a bid, and you have to do
whatever you have to do to take consideration over it and make the
right decision from the club's point of view."
However, City are
ready to pounce, along with a move for Bridge, who joined Chelsea for
£7m from Southampton in the first flush of the owner Roman Abramovich's
spending in 2003.
The defender is a popular figure within the
squad and would be loath to leave Chelsea but it is a sign of the
shifting spending power in the league that City, backed by the Abu
Dhabi United Group and with plans eventually to bid for a host of world
superstars such as Kaka and Gianluigi Buffon, can provide such an
attractive offer for him. A world-record bid from City this month
cannot be discounted, with Valencia's David Villa a realistic target.
Bridge
has made six league appearances this season and continues effectively
to be understudy to Ashley Cole at Chelsea. Nevertheless, he has
managed to keep his place in the England squad and is regarded by
Hughes as among the finest left-backs in the league. His arrival at
Eastlands would immediately solve one of City's defensive problems.
It
is unclear whether City would back out of a bid for Bellamy should they
sign Santa Cruz and while Arsenal will be willing to sell Touré,
Newcastle intend to hold on to Given.
Hughes tried yesterday,
once again, to dampen down expectation, although he admitted that City
know they will have to pay a "premium" for transfers given their
backing. "We're aware of this assumption about the level of finance
that we'll throw at the project in January, but we still have realistic
market values," Hughes claimed. "There is also an assumption that we
will stimulate the market, that the money sloshing around will be from
the deals that we have started, but we have to make sure we protect the
club as well.
"The deals that we do will have to be good ones,
but we are quite happy at the moment. We know that there will be a
premium that we will probably have to pay because it's January, and
teams don't want to lose their better players. But it will not be to
the extent where we are paying hugely over the market value."
Santa set to arrive in the new year? |
 | | | |
| |||
Mail is convinced that Roque Santa Cruz is on his way from east
Lancashire, and there's a raft of other players mentioned as we stand
on the cusp of the next transfer window.
Daily Mail
"Hughes set to finally get his man and seal £18m Santa Cruz switch"
Manchester
City will kick-start the January sales by agreeing a fee of £18million
with Blackburn for striker Roque Santa Cruz in the next 24 hours.
Talks
are at an advanced stage, with both clubs keen to complete the move
quickly. City manager Mark Hughes is anxious to secure a player he
signed for Blackburn from Bayern Munich for a bargain fee of £3.8m just
16 months ago, while new Rovers boss Sam Allardyce expects to be handed
£10m from the sale and wants as much time as possible to spend it.
Santa
Cruz himself insistedon Tuesday he would only quit Ewood Park for
another Barclays Premier League club despite interest from Real Madrid.
The
27-year-old told Radio Primero de Mayo: 'I would like to stay in
England. I like this league. It is one of the most competitive in the
world.'
He added: 'I have nothing to do with any offers. They are made to the club and the directors make a decision.'
As
revealed by Sportsmail earlier this month, Allardyce has always
accepted he would have to sacrifice his prize asset to afford the
reinforcements he needs to keep Blackburn up.
Although he
insisted that he would be reluctant to part with his best players,
Santa Cruz's desire to leave, Blackburn's need for new blood and City's
ability to give them a huge profit on their investment always made a
deal inevitable.
Santa Cruz, 27, has to agree personal terms, but
that is not expected to be a problem considering the wealth of City's
owners, his close relationship with Hughes and an admission on the eve
of Allardyce's first game that he wanted to test himself at a bigger
club.
The Paraguay striker, who scored 23 goals in his first
season in England, has yet to play under Allardyce because of a calf
injury.
But Chelsea are in no hurry to do business with City
after seeing their deal for Robinho hijacked at the 11th hour in the
summer.
Hughes is ready to pay £8m, but if Chelsea play hardball over Bridge, he will once again turn to his old club Bayern.
Lahm
made the all-star team at the 2006 World Cup and has six years'
Bundesliga experience with the club he joined as an 11-year-old.
He was a Barcelona target last summer but signed a new deal until 2012, so is likely to cost more than £8m.
Daily Star
"Sparky's Bridge swoop - £8m tempter for Blues"
MONEYBAGS Manchester City boss Mark Hughes is determined to prise Wayne Bridge from Chelsea.
While
City’s financial fortune has soared with the takeover by Sheikh
Mansour’s Abu Dhabi Group, so Chelsea’s status as Britain’s wealthiest
club has gone.
The word is that Roman Abramovich says Chelsea
boss Phil Scolari must sell before he can buy this January – and City
aim to test that theory.
But Hughes has stated the new owners
will not be treated as a cash cow and if an offer of £8m is rejected
for the left-back he may turn to Bayern Munich’s Philipp Lahm.
Despite
being right-footed Lahm, 25, is considered one of the best left-backs
in the world, having been voted into the all-star team of the 2006
World Cup.
He is also nominated for Uefa’s current team of the year.
Hughes,
a former Bayern player, wants to move quickly when the window opens
tomorrow and aims to sign at least one striker, a central midfielder
and a central defender, plus a left-back.
And you can’t rule out the arrival of a goalkeeper.
Gianluigi Buffon of Juventus might be too expensive even for Sheikh Mansour, with reported wage demands of £250,000-a-week.
But Newcastle’s Shay Given, a target for Arsenal, is a possibility.
And
as Starsport reported yesterday, a £20m bid would land West Ham
striker Craig Bellamy and midfielder Scott Parker, while Blackburn’s
Roque Santa Cruz appears to be waiting for the call to rejoin his
former boss at Eastlands.
Defenders Kolo Toure, of Arsenal, Everton’s Joleon Lescott and cash-strapped West Ham’s Matthew Upson are on Hughes’ list.
The Independent
"Hammers tell Parker he must stay put"
West
Ham United have told Scott Parker that he will not be allowed to leave
and join Manchester City, even though the midfielder has indicated that
he would like the opportunity to speak to the club.
A combined
bid of £15m was lodged by City over the weekend for Parker and his West
Ham team-mate Craig Bellamy, who is also wanted by Tottenham Hotspur,
but was immediately rejected by West Ham, who are determined to hold on
to their best players in the January transfer window.
Parker and
Bellamy have been targeted by the City manager, Mark Hughes, who is
also keen to sign Chelsea's Wayne Bridge and the Arsenal defender Kolo
Touré, who appears the most likely of the quartet to make a move next
month after falling out of favour at the Emirates. He could command a
fee of around £10m.
Parker or Bellamy, although there have been indications that they will
lodge another within the next few days. Spurs, also, are weighing up
whether to offer more for Bellamy after having an initial £6m rejected
by West Ham on Christmas Eve. But they yesterday denied they have bid
£12m for the Welsh international.
ไม่มีความคิดเห็น:
แสดงความคิดเห็น