A rare smile indicating happiness (maybe payday?)
Manchester City’s want-away forward Robinho may not be leaving Mancini’s team after all as the Italian is worried that he won’t have enough forwards.
Really? Not enough forwards?
Oh lord, Mancini could let Robinho leave and still call on Emmauel Adebayor, Craig Bellamy, Benjani, Carlos Tevez and Roque Santa-Cruz. Then he has Bojinov and Caicedo on loan, both of whom can be recalled in the face of a injury crisis. This is all without even mentioning that there is still a week left to bring in reinforcements after a sale.
Besides, will Mancini miss Robinho’s lackluster performances? The Brazilian hopes so; he thinks he’s off to Santos very shortly.
With Adebayor, Tevez and Bellamy fit, Robinho is not getting a good run in the team. That’s the source of his unhappiness, and if Mancini needs depth, then surely he can find that in a player who puts a little effort in, a player like Benjani (noting that Santa-Cruz is currently injured).
If Robinho stays then maybe he will become interested in winning his place back, but the player’s desired transfer destination tells you all you need to know. Santos in Brazil or Benfica in Portugal appear to be the two options Robinho has, a far cry from Real Madrid or another EPL titan. At 26 years old you would think he would be interested at playing at the best level possible. Apparently not.
Meanwhile, the Telegraph says that Arabia will have blown at least £42m on Robinho. His wages to date have cost a whopping £11.5m and they can hardly count the £32.5m transfer fee as a success. If my math is correct then each of Robinho’s 11 goals have cost City £3.9m. It’s unlikely that Santos has any money to buy Robinho and the player himself will be taking a huge pay cut to return to Brazil.
Any deal to Santos could include return flights for Brazilian youngsters Paulo Henrique Ganso and Neymar according to Santos President, Luis Alvaro Ribero:
“They want the first choice to buy the two boys. That does not bother us because we sell the players for the best offer. If City have the conditions to match the offer, they can have the players.”
A glimpse of the future, City fans? Paulo Henrique Ganso (oooo, Man City related music too)…
I take your point Ned, but I really don’t think our forward position is as packed as you make it out to be.
RSC can’t walk without being injured.
Bellamy, while great this season, has terrible knees, and will struggle to string two starts together.
Adebayor, unstable to begin with, now has had a team mate die in his arms, so who knows how that will affect him.
Benji works hard, but so what?
So I can see what Mancini is thinking about wanting to keep him, especially if – as I still maintain- he’s been given no money to spend in this window.
Who does Roberto think he is. . . Phil Brown?
@Ryan, lets compare, you have 5 expensive forwards totaling around 100 million in transfer fees. Adebayorm Tevez, Bellamy, Benjani and RSC
Man U have Berbatov, Owen and Rooney.
Arsenal have Eduardo, Bendtner, Vela and Van Persie (injured)
Chelsea have Drogba, Anelka and Strurridge.
Not looking so bad is it?
Ryan, maybe you could bid on John Utaka. He’s overpaid and under-performing, which, looking at that list of Citeh strikers, is a highly-coveted quality as Eastlands.
@JT
I thought Utaka played well last week, they used him as a winger last year to good effect. He gets a rough deal for being their most expensive player wages wise. Poor Pompey.
Utaka is rubbish.
He had a nice goals to game ratio for a winger before joing Pompey. I’d have him over Nick Barmby any day of the week.
@Ned I’m certainly not claiming our situation is dire, I’m just saying I don’t think Mancini wanting to keep Robinho around is such a ludicrous thing to do.
@JT I’m sure Garry Cook will be arriving at Utaka’s home shortly.
@Ryan, oh I agree, giving him away is just a waste of cash.
Garry Cook is anothe Kenyon, he’ll be sent packing soon.
[...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by Unprofessional Foul, Unprofessional Foul. Unprofessional Foul said: Example 1,230,301 of why buying Brazilian is bad business for English clubs: http://bit.ly/5XIfr5 Citeh have blown 42 million on Robinho [...]