How long is the spending spree at Manchester City going to last and what implications will it have, asks Phakamisa Ndzamela.

City’s new owner Sheikh Mansour stands among men with the biggest war chests in England.

They have spent millions signing players like Carlos Tevez, Emmanuel Adebayor, Roque Santa Cruz, Gareth Barry, Kolo Toure. The list goes on and the spending does not stop.

In a clear sign that purse strings are still loose, Everton rejected an improved 18 million pounds offer from City for defender Joleon Lescott, having turned down a 15 million bid two weeks ago.

For now the only thing that can stop the spending is when the transfer window closes next month.

Then what? Can the flurry of signings yield immediate results or will manager Mark Hughes be looking over his shoulder again after a lacklustre season?

PHOTO: Manchester City’s new signing Carlos Tevez and Roque Santa Cruz (L) shakes hands after a news conference at the Emirates Palace Hotel in Abu Dhabi July 16, 2009. REUTERS/Mosab Omar

You would think ex-Inter Milan striker Julio Cruz and former AS Roma defender Christian Panucci might be panicking about not having a club just a few weeks before the start of the season.

At 34 and 36, there surely is no time to lose.

In reality, they seem quite happy to bide their time and wait for the right offer like other top players released by their clubs.

Waiting until the season starts to find a club means their ageing limbs don’t have to be put through the torture of full pre-season training after years of running up hills and playing meaningless friendlies in bizarre places.

By leaving a decision until the last moment, a bidding war could ensue between interested clubs and wage offers could sky rocket. Argentine Cruz, a saviour for Inter so many times with late goals, has been linked with Roma, Lazio, Napoli and now Bologna.

The end of the transfer window on Aug 31 also does not apply to out-of-contract players, meaning there is no artificial rush.

In one sense it pays too for clubs to wait until just before the season rather than snapping players up in June. They don’t have to shell out two months of wages…

PHOTO: Inter Milan’s Julio Cruz celebrates after scoring against Lazio during their Italian Cup semi-final, second leg in Rome May 7, 2008. REUTERS/Giampiero Sposito

Manchester United said on Thursday they have received a world record 80 million pound ($131.2 million) bid for forward Cristiano Ronaldo from Real Madrid.

“At Cristiano’s request - who has again expressed his desire to leave - and after discussion with the player’s representatives, United have agreed to give Real Madrid permission to talk to the player,” a statement on the United website said.

“Matters are expected to be concluded by 30 June. The club will not comment until further notice.”

So Florentino Perez isn’t just stopping at Kaka. It’s shaping up to be one of the most amazing transfer windows ever. Will he go for Franck Ribery too or will United want him as Ronaldo’s replacement?

It’s not a done deal yet, Ronaldo wanted to go last year and it didn’t happen, but this seems pretty definite. How much money has Perez got?

PHOTO: Manchester United’s Cristiano Ronaldo is seen celebrating after scoring his second goal during their English Premier League match against Aston Villa in Manchester, April 5 2009 REUTERS/Phil Noble

Since Roman Abramovich arrived with his millions from Russia, Chelsea have been used to shopping in the transfer market’s version of Harrods for glitzy new players.

Monday’s deadline day snaffling of Ricardo Quaresma, a player recently voted the worst performer in Serie A, suggests Chelsea are suddenly hunting in the thrift stores with the rest of the struggling population, self-consciously sifting through the bargain bucket.

Chelsea fans have become accustomed to arrivals such as Didier Drogba, Michael Essien, Ricardo Carvalho and Michael Ballack in recent years, players at the top of most clubs’ shopping lists.

How things have changed. Quaresma, unwanted by Chelsea’s former boss Jose Mourinho at Inter Milan, has signed on loan until the end of the season but hardly looks equipped to revive the club’s fading title hopes. (more…)

The end of the transfer window is fast approaching and so far it has been fairly quiet (if we exclude the Manchester City-Kaka saga as it didn’t go through).

The deadline this year is February 2 given January finishes on a weekend so there is a little extra time for some late deals.

What transfers do you expect to see and which wacky moves would amuse you in an ideal world?

After Jermain Defoe and Pascal Chimbonda came back, will Tottenham Hotspur continue buying up their old players and target Liverpool’s hit-and-miss forward Robbie Keane? If they really want to roll back the clock, what about Sergei Rebrov?

Real Madrid made two hasty signings in Klaas Jan Huntelaar and Lassana Diarra, but could they pull a rabbit out of the hat late on. Kaka and Cristiano Ronaldo have committed themselves to Milan and United, haven’t they?

Didier Drogba to Inter Milan is a favourite for the tabloids while where will Andrei Arshavin end up? Arsenal, Hoffenheim, Zenit?

Barcelona probably don’t need reinforcements but I’ve felt for years they needed a really top class goalkeeper, with the greatest respect to Victor Valdes. Juve’s Gianluigi Buffon has said he would leave if a fantasy football bid was made.

Have some fun and tell us your top transfer picks.

There’s a knack to spending large amounts of money, and Manchester City just haven’t got it, have they?

The names mentioned by the media as City’s current transfer targets represent a lack of imagination reminiscent of the post-title winning days at Blackburn Rovers, when Jack Walker’s millions were spent on players like Lars Bohinen, Billy McKinlay and Garry Flitcroft in a futile bid to build a team capable of challenging for the Champions League. 

It might sound harsh to describe Scott Parker, Roque Santa Cruz and the like as mediocre but in international terms that’s exactly what they are. Craig Bellamy and Matthew Upson have also been mentioned to add to the Roll Call of the Quite Good. Who next? Jermaine Pennant? Stewart Downing? Wayne Bridge? What was that? Well, there you go…

If you had, basically, all the money in the world to spend, which players would you go after? Would you set your sights on the likes of Parker, talented but with no real track record of achievement, just because they were easily attainable, or would you set your sights a bit higher? (more…)

Join Owen Wyatt and Jon Bramley as they take the opening of the transfer window all too literally and pick out a couple of players who should be among the top targets this January.

Owen reckons Juan Arango of Mallorca and Fulham’s Brede Hangeland could be among the bargains to be had, while Jon has his eye on Serie A…

Do you have other ideas? Let us know in the comments, or send us a video of your own and we’ll happily host it here.

(And it’s good to see they’ve found the best lighting for Jon at last…)

After all the newspaper talk leading up to the January transfer window, you might expect it to open with a bang and a flurry of moves.

Instead it always seems to open with a whimper and only a few minor deals going through.

If clubs are so keen for players, why don’t they fix up moves in December which go through as soon as the window opens?

David Beckham’s loan from Los Angeles Galaxy to AC Milan was agreed months in advance as was Manchester United’s purchase of Partizan Belgrade duo Zoran Tosic and Adem Ljajic. Klaas Jan Huntelaar also joined Real Madrid from Ajax early.

The main reason this doesn’t happen often is that the selling club wants to hang on until January 31, hoping the buying club’s desperation will up the price.

The credit crunch and the falling British pound are other factors in the limp start to the transfer window while the fact the German and Italian leagues are still on holiday also slows things up.

Trying to get an Italian club director away from his Christmas panettone and New Year’s Eve prosecco is harder than agreeing terms with any prima donna footballer.

PHOTO: New Manchester United winger Zoran Tosic in action for Partizan Belgrade. Nov. 12, 2008. REUTERS/Ivan Milutinovic

In quiet weeks there always used to be transfer news to mull over but now with the advent of ‘the window’, we have been deprived of major gossip until January.

Silly season, when the media make the most of the slightest hint of a story to fill pages and airwaves, is traditionally during the lazy summer months yet it is currently in full flow in November.

The lack of Champions League or international matches this week has led to a host of bizarre stories.

Apparently Manchester City’s mega-rich Arab owners are throwing loadsa money at Inter coach Jose Mourinho to tempt him back to England.

This is despite the fact the owners have backed boss Mark Hughes, ‘Mou’ has only just started at Inter and last month the media said he was destined for Manchester United (a story which also came out during a quiet week).

The lead story on some websites in Italy on Tuesday was earth-shattering news that Reginaldo, (a Brazilian who plays for Serie B side Parma if you didn’t know) was splitting up with Christian Vieri’s ex-girlfriend Elisabetta Canalis….

El Mundo Deportivo broke the story of Thierry Henry cooking and playing Cluedo on his nights off while Britain’s Sun, the place to go along with Germany’s Bild for the real top stories, is genuinely worried for the safety of Man Utd’s players.

“FOREIGN birds are driving Cristiano Ronaldo wild again . . . after Manchester United’s training ground was invaded by Canada geese. The fowl keep dive-bombing Ronaldo and team-mates including Rio Ferdinand and Ryan Giggs as they practise.”

Sepp Blatter should abandon the transfer window…if only to give us some proper news!

PHOTO: Yes they are geese and they are flying over Manchester, returning from the north to their winter feeding grounds. Oct 2006 REUTERS/Phil Noble

Michel Platini makes a perfectly reasonable point about the transfer system when he points out the absurdity of a player scoring against a team one week and for them the next.

It is patently daft that a club can buy a player from one of their rivals halfway through the season and put him to work for them. It distorts the competition in several ways and is clearly unfair.

And yet… I think it would be a shame if we threw out the current system entirely, or failed to come up with another version that would still give clubs the option of buying a ‘get out of jail free’ card once it’s clear things are going wrong.

There’s just something immensely comforting for fans at the thought of your whole season changing if you make the right signing during the transfer window (or before deadline day in the old money).

More often than not the clubs get it wrong — think Real Madrid spending five million euros on Antonio Cassano in 2006 – but Liverpool fans will remember Ronny Rosenthal coming in to inspire a title charge in 1990 and more recently Henrik Larsson, Emmanuel Adebayor and Patrice Evra have done well after arriving in the January transfer window.

If we do away with the transfer window clubs will still have the lifeline of their youth teams as the season reaches its climax; indeed, it may even give homegrown talent more of a chance.

I still think it would be a shame, though. If your team is bottom of the league with half the season gone at least there’s a chance, however small, that a couple of astute signings could make all the difference.

And that feeling that there is still hope is a large part of what being a football fan is all about. Don’t you reckon?

PHOTO: Real Madrid’s Antonio Cassano reacts after missing a chance against Real Betis at the go Bernabeu, March 19, 2006. REUTERS/Felix Ordonez