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'City may take Drogba off Chelsea's hands'
Scolari's continued interest in Robinho raises intriguing prospect of swap deal
Didier
Drogba is set to see out the season at Chelsea and will leave the club
in the summer, unless Manchester City can construct a deal to take the
30-year-old striker to Eastlands before the end of the month.
There
has been no official dialogue between the two clubs, although it is
known that the Chelsea manager, Luiz Felipe Scolari, remains desperate
to sign Robinho, who is unsettled at City and who has returned to
Brazil without the club's approval. A swap deal is possible, if
difficult.
The Independent revealed in November that Chelsea were
considering whether to renew their interest in Robinho, having lost out
to City in the race to sign him on the last day of the summer transfer
window.
Scolari, who is one of the 24-year-old's mentors, has
stayed in contact with the striker and is aware of how unsettled he is
in the North-west, despite a series of public denials which included
Robinho posting another message on his website yesterday.
The
Chelsea manager has urged the club's directors to explore the
possibility of some kind of swap deal involving players such as Drogba
moving to City but, so far, there has not been any official discussions.
However,
agents and representatives have talked and one said yesterday: "There
is a lot of logic in it but it appears, at present, unlikely that
anything will happen this month. Robinho is not happy there and Drogba
has been told he can go, but not until the summer."
The major
stumbling block would be City's attitude to losing Robinho, a £34m
trophy signing, after failing to land Kaka from Milan this week, which
has been a significant setback in their plans to assemble a squad of
world superstars.
It is also understood that Drogba would prefer
a move back to France, and ideally Marseilles, should he leave Chelsea,
where he has struggled this season. He has scored just one league goal
and was dropped from the last two squads after a dalliance with
Internazionale last year that did not lead to an official bid from the
Italian club.
Drogba's asking price and wage demands are a
stumbling block, although not for City, of course, who are desperate to
sign a powerful striker in his mould and have been trying to secure
Roque Santa Cruz from Blackburn Rovers without success. City's bids
have still not reached the original asking price for Santa Cruz, which
has since been increased.
City are also after another central
defender and Vlado Borozan, the agent of Chelsea's Serbia international
Branislav Ivanovic, claimed yesterday: "There is something going on
with Manchester City, but Chelsea already refused a £15m offer from
Milan." Ivanovic arrived from Lokomotiv Moscow last January for £9m but
has barely featured in the Chelsea first team.
Scolari has some
funds at his disposal following the £11m-plus sale of Wayne Bridge,
also to City. He is keen to sign another attacking player and has
looked at a series of strikers, plus Wigan Athletic's Luis Antonio
Valencia, who is also interesting Manchester United.
Mark Hughes,
the City manager, said that Robinho – who said he had to return to
Brazil for family reasons, although these are primarily thought to be
to celebrate his 25th birthday at the weekend – had apologised for his
actions.
The Times add...
'Mark Hughes to lay down law with Robinho over Manchester City absence'
Mark
Hughes, the Manchester City manager, will hold talks with Robinho on
Sunday — the Brazil forward’s 25th birthday — after summoning the
player back to Manchester in the wake of his unauthorised departure
from the club’s training camp in Tenerife this week.
Although
an apologetic Robinho contacted Hughes via telephone to explain his
decision to go AWOL on Monday evening, the manager is determined to
restate his authority in a meeting with the player, who will be fined
two weeks’ wages, in the region of £300,000, for a breach of club
rules.
Hughes and the City squad are due to return from
Tenerife this evening and Robinho is expected back from Brazil tomorrow
night. He has been told to return in time to prepare for the Barclays
Premier League match against Newcastle United at the City of Manchester
Stadium on Wednesday, but Hughes admits that there are still issues
between the pair that must be resolved.
“Robbie left our
training camp without permission,” Hughes said. “He felt he had
personal issues he wanted to address and he made the decision to leave
the camp and go back to Brazil.
“He will be back at the
weekend, ready to train in Manchester at the first available
opportunity and, once he is back, I will sit down with him and explain
my feelings. Decisions will be made after that. He rang me and we had a
brief chat. It was difficult with the language constraints, but he
understands that we need to address this and we will. I will make my
feelings clear when we sit down together and I am sure I will get a
more detailed explanation then.”
Robinho declared on his
website: “I have a good relationship with Mark Hughes and have always
respected his decisions. He is the boss!”
Hughes and City are
determined to leave no room for doubt in Robinho’s mind that any future
breaches of discipline will be treated in similarly punitive fashion.
The club flew members of the local media to Tenerife on a private jet
on Wednesday so Hughes could offer his side of the story.
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