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Is Adebayor enough to placate Mourinho?
Jose Mourinho got the birthday present he had been pestering Real Madrid for on Tuesday when the La Liga club landed Manchester City striker Emmanuel Adebayor on loan until the end of the season.
The Portuguese, who turned 48 on Wednesday, has been pressing for a centre-forward since the start of the season when Real set out with Gonzalo Higuain and Karim Benzema as their two recognized frontmen.
A long-term injury to Higuain and Benzema´s failure to impress saw Mourinho up the ante and the club compromised by going for a loan signing.
It is an unusual move for Real Madrid and perhaps reflects some of the tensions at play between Mourinho and president Florentino Perez´s trusted number two, director general Jorge Valdano.
It was never going to be an easy relationship between Argentine Valdano, the immaculately turned out gentleman intellectual, and the more combative Portuguese, with tie at half-mast and a cheeky glint in his eye.
Valdano opened Mourinho´s presentation back in May with an apology for a scathing article he had written in the past about the way the new coach´s teams had played, saying they had put it behind them, but the pressure of chasing down a sparkling Barcelona side has taken its toll.
Mourinho has complained about a lack of support from the club on a number of issues and consistently sniped about his side´s ´limitations´ – this is in a team which has had over 300 million euros spent on it over the last two years.
Real’s search for a striker — who fits the bill?
Jose Mourinho’s constant pressuring of Real Madrid for another striker has finally paid off, with director general Jorge Valdano saying they were in the market for a number nine.
In the past, many top clubs would have been worried that the world’s richest club by income according to the Deloitte’s Football Money League, would be turning the heads of their prize assets.
This time, however, Real have set themselves an even tougher task. They only want to borrow a striker on loan until the end of the season when Gonzalo Higuain should have recovered from the back surgery he underwent on Tuesday.
Their only other recognised striker, Karim Benzema, “lacks a hunger for goals,” Mourinho said after another disappointing display from the Frenchman in the King’s Cup on Thursday. He has only scored once in La Liga this season.
The Spanish media quickly cranked into gear with a shopping list of possible targets.
1. Manchester City’s Emmanuel Adebayor leads the betting at present, ticking all the right boxes. A powerful target man in the mould of former Mourinho favourites Didier Drogba and Diego Milito, he is surplus to requirements at City and eligible to play in the Champions League.
2. Bayern Munich’s Miroslav Klose is out of contract with the German club at the end of the season and spending most of his time warming the bench. He is an experienced goalscorer, but he would not be able to play in Europe.
I’m suprised if Jose didn’t try to prise Drogba away from Chelsea.
David
http://www.keelbyunited.co.uk
United beware: City look ready to make a lot more noise
Rarely can a defeat, and such a heart-breaking one at that, have been greeted with so much enthusiasm by the losers as Manchester City’s 4-3 reverse at Old Trafford.
Sports professionals are forever banging on about “taking the positives” from setbacks but for everyone connected with City, their performance and the whole occasion on Sunday showed that they really will be a force to be reckoned with over the next few months and years.
Despite being shorn of several of their best players and going behind after two minutes, City hung on to United like a terrier with a mouthful of trouser.
Every time United shook them off with a goal, they came back with a tighter bite. Even when the champions were peppering their goal during a period of dominance in the second half, City stayed in the game.
They were felled by Michael Owen’s 96th-minute winner, sparking wild scenes on the touchline and some enjoyable jousting from the managers.
Current England rugby manager Martin Johnson has said that he felt sure England would win the 2003 World Cup final after seeing how Australia celebrated their semi-final win over New Zealand and United’s joy, even allowing for the dramatic nature of the finale, was a few notches up on anything seen in a derby win for decades.
“They seemed quite excitable at the end which shows you what this win means to them,” said Mark Hughes. “It was reminiscent of some of the scenes with Brian Kidd and Alex Ferguson in days gone by and I saw Gary Neville running on the pitch like a lunatic.”
Wee said Dan United. Their noise is a losers’ rant because Hughes would have hardly complained had somebody scored a winner at the other end. Blatant and outright hypocrisy.
Panel predictions: how low can you go?
The best and brightest here at Reuters Soccer Blog continue to show they’d struggle to tip their own hats in a stiff breeze, let alone a correct score in the Premier League.
Our leader, Paul Radford, managed an unhappy three points this week … and look, who’s that chap who has sneaked through to replace him at the top? That was not the most impressive display of the week, however … for that look at one Julien Pretot, our new signing from the Paris bureau who leapt in with a 14 in his first week!
I expect to see him racing down the entire length of the Channel Tunnel, sliding to his knees and celebrating in front of Reuters Soccer Blog in Canary Wharf.
Remember, you get one point for predicting the right result, and make that five if you hit the nail exactly on the head. This week, I’m giving an extra point to Mike Collett for cheekily predicting Adebayor to score against Arsenal, even if he was a way off on the score. No other points for style as yet, but I expect there’ll be some pleas coming in.
Here are the latest standings:
Reuters Soccer Blog: Kevin Fylan 35, Paul Radford 34, Patrick Johnston 34, Simon Evans 32, Miles Evans 30, Mitch Phillips 24, Mike Collett 18, Neil Maidment 14, Julien Pretot 14, Asia Sports Desk 10, Mark Meadows 8
The Rest of the World: Insert your score in the comments, please. We’ll believe you. Thousands wouldn’t.
Kevin
I presume, working of your ever changing points system, you have docked yourself points for being the only man to predict a Burnley victory?
Since when did football’s baying mobs occupy the moral high ground?
Many Arsenal supporters spent half of last season, and most of Saturday’s match, screaming abuse at Emmanuel Adebayor. On Saturday, he scored and dared to run the length of the pitch to celebrate in front of them.
“Outrageous” and “shocking” screamed just about everyone. Obviously he should take the blame for the visiting fans’ subsequent eruption of hatred and vitriol. It was clearly his fault that some of them threw missiles on to the pitch and he is obviously culpable for the City steward being knocked unconscious in the melee.
He got booked for his troubles – for “incitement” – and now there is talk of him being banned.
What tosh.
Crowds abusing players, whether it is the polite booing of a former member of their club or the increasingly nasty attacks of recent seasons, has always been part of the game. When a player has the temerity to reply with a “shush”, or a finger on the lips, hand cupped to ear etc those same fans appear outraged.
Look at the photographs from Saturday’s game as Adebayor slid towards the visitors’ section. The furious hatred, the hand signals, the abuse shown by some fans – ground bylaw offences by the bucketload and enough to have the perpetrators thrown out of the ground should the stewards have chosen to act.
I would like to say that I completely agree with the senitment of this article and am pleased to see that such a counter arguement is being published through a well-regarded news channel like Reuters.
It is all too often implied that, if a footballer player pulls a “ner-nicky-ner-ner” type gesture and blows a metaphorical rasberry at a group of fans (who have usually been hurling varying degrees of aggression and abuse at the player in question), they are therefore entitled to get so angry that they look like their heads will explode before committing what is ultimately common assault. They are then, apparently, entitled to blame subsequent outbreaks of mob violence on the player (and sometimes even the police), instead of getting in trouble themselves.
I’m sorry but many of these guys are animals and should not be sympathised with in any way whatsoever.
The point is that far too many media institutions take a stance that implies that the fans are not at fault because they were provoked – presumably because the media channels do not want to alienate or side away from a group of people they ultimately see as their ‘customer’ – but I argue that they are (1) entirely at fault and (2) human beings who should take responsibility for their actions.
These guys are ruining football almost as much as the overriding ‘general consensus’ that persistently takes their side (“the fans make the game what it is!”, “the fans pay the players’ wages!”, “the player provoked the fans!”) and ultimately only serves to support, justify and excuse their thuggery.
Wenger’s unrivalled Midas touch
Liverpool’s Rafa Benitez may feel he got a good price for Xabi Alonso but he is in no danger of dislodging Arsene Wenger as the Premier League manager with the Midas touch.
Wenger has received criticism of late for not ‘spending big’ on replacements for departing first-teamers. He should be receiving credit for earning a huge pile of cash for players no longer in his plans. Does anyone in football generate as much money from transfers as Wenger?
The wily Frenchman has built a career on signing young prospects for small fees and selling them for gigantic ones when he feels the time is right.
Most recently Emmanuel Adebayor and Kolo Toure moved to Premier League rich boys Manchester City for a reported combined fee of 39 million pounds after being brought to Arsenal for much less.
They follow the likes of Nicolas Anelka, Emmanuel Petit, Marc Overmars, Thierry Henry and Patrick Vieira in enjoying great success and form under Wenger before moving on to pastures new to the benefit of the Arsenal bank balance.
Success-starved Arsenal fans, frustrated by the absence of a trophy since the FA Cup in 2005, may look upon the departures of such players as a defeatist approach but Wenger has a bunch of hungry youngsters waiting to come in and yearning for success.
Between them they should be able to replace Toure, Adebayor and, if Everton get their wish, the Swiss defender Senderos, shouldn’t they?
I agree that Wenger has made some excellent signings for peanuts during his Arsenal career. However, the same can be said of Dave Jones at Cardiff. He has made a number of great signings (Chopra) and brought through the youngsters (Ramsey), then sold them in a couple of years for huge profit.However, this has resulted in Cardiff hovering around the top of the Championship. In a similar way Arsenal hover around the top of the Premiership. If either want to realise their ambitions and reach the top of their leagues it is the time to stop selling and keep hold of their best players. Or don’t they want to?
Can Manchester City win the Premier League?
Fuelled by millions of petro-dollars from the apparently bottomless pockets of their Abu Dhabi owners Manchester City have spent the summer accumulating what is beginning to look, on paper anyway, a squad that will challenge for the title.
Significantly, the players bought by manager Mark Hughes are tried and tested in the Premier League which augurs wells for City’s chances of shaking up the established pecking order in English football.
Opposing managers must have watched with a growing sense of awe and no doubt a little envy as Roque Santa Cruz (Blackburn Rovers), Carlos Tevez (Manchester United), Emmanuel Adebayor (Arsenal) joined to form a formidable looking strike force while defender Kolo Toure (Arsenal) was recruited to beef up the back four and England midfielder Gareth Barry signed from Aston Villa.
Consider the likes of Robinho, Craig Bellamy, Shaun-Wright Phillips, Wayne Bridge and Micah Richards, who were all part of last season’s team, and City already boast arguably the strongest squad in the Premier League with the transfer window nowhere near closing.
But can they win the league? Are the new recruits going to bridge the 40-point gap between champions Manchester United and City last season or eben the 20-odd extra points they will need to challenge for a Champions League spot.
Aston Villa manager Martin O’Neill certainly thinks so.
“City might not be favourites to win the league, but they should be,” O’Neill said last week. “They have as good a chance as anybody of winning it.”
Tevez is a game changing signing for Manchester City
Manchester City are finally shopping at the luxury end of the market, as befits their status as the richest of the rich, and as a result the fans can start to get excited about the new season.
Back in January I blogged about the depressingly familiar rollcall of mediocre players being linked with City: the likes of Scott Parker, Roque Santa Cruz, Craig Bellamy and Matthew Upson.
I suggested they aim a bit higher and sure enough they went in at the nosebleed end of things with a bid for Kaka. As we all know, it didn’t come off, and no one of that quality came in in January, but with the arrival of Carlos Tevez (and to a lesser extent Gareth Barry, who was wanted so badly by Liverpool) things have changed.
Now Tevez is there, I’d expect more big names to follow. Togo striker Emmanuel Adebayor may be among them, and there’s still an outside chance that John Terry could fellow.
Whether those moves come off or not, things are already looking up for City fans. The arrival of Tevez means they are players at last. Watch out Real Madrid!
PHOTO: Argentina’s striker Carlos Tevez smiles as he leaves after a training session at the squad’s camp on the outskirts of Buenos Aires, June 4, 2009. REUTERS/Marcos Brindicci
United did not offer Tevez the salary that City did(5 million euros per season)
But I believe that, as Tevez said in the City press conference, the move was not about the money, he now has a manager that wants him.
What player does not want to feel respected, wanted and supported by his manager?
Tevez has every right to feel the way he did, the fact is that he spent too much time sitting on the bench this past season.
I think the final straw for him was not being in the starting lineup for the Champions League Final.
A player of Tevez’s caliber should not put up with such treatment from a manager.
United fans looking to place blame should direct it at their club’s manager.
I think Adebayor there might work. The club is so huge even he cant get too big for his boots.