A move to Anfield just may well suit Merseyside club and Eastlands wideman down to the ground.
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The Daily Mail reports that Man City boss Mark Hughes has faced up to the fact that Jo is swanning off to the Olympics and just witnessed Benjani get himself crocked, so he’s planning a bid for Craig Bellamy. [Read the rest of this entry »]
Out of all the Premier League football managers that should lose their jobs in the summer, would Sven-Goran Eriksson have been on anyone’s top three list? You could argue that Paul Jewell has done nothing to halt Derby’s depressing run of form (if anything, he’s made it worse), you might even say that Alan Curbishley has done little more than keep West Ham ticking over and may have taken the club as far as he can go.
However, the Swede wouldn’t have featured too strongly, especially with Manchester City achieving a creditable top-half finish, which included home and away wins against Manchester United. It’s with an air of disbelief that one picks up a copy of today’s Daily Telegraph to read that agent Athole Still has made his top client available for work to the highest bidder. Form an orderly queue gentlemen…
“He is unlikely to continue but it is still not 100 percent sure that he will leave Manchester City,” Still said.
“After the last game of the Premier League, in two weeks, it will be definitively determined if he stays or not. But If any club wants to talk with Eriksson, call me. All the people have my number.”
When the story broke two days ago that Sven was likely to leave Eastlands in the summer, it was met with almost universal incredulity by supporters of Manchester City. After all, the former England manager has been a vast improvement on Stuart Pearce, making City of Manchester Stadium something of a fortress and bringing in some top talent, such as Elano, Petrov, Corluka and Benjani. There’s only so much that can be achieved in a season – it takes time to build an impressive squad, even with a stack of dirty money.
The events of the next two weeks will be interesting for us neutrals but are likely to be deeply disappointing from a City perspective. Do Manchester City fans wish that Shinawatra had never bothered buying the club in the first place?
The answer is probably not, judging from some of his comments on the BBC website. Owning a Premier League club is very much a status symbol for Thaksin Shinawatra, who has done very little to confirm that he’s happy with the efforts of manager Sven-Goran Eriksson, despite speculation about the Swede’s future at the club.
Furthermore, the deposed Thai Prime Minister appears to know little about where the team need strengthening in the summer. It’s commonly regarded that City’s main problem has been the lack of a front man holding the ball up and someone to slap the ball in the onion bag over twenty times a season. Not according to the man affectionately known as ‘Frank’.
“We will look at it at the end of the season and assess the club and the people involved.
“We’ll probably have to sell some players and buy some new ones. We need some defenders, midfielders – midfielders are the key.”
Not strikers then? Despite only managing 39 goals in 34 matches, less than Tottenham, Liverpool and Manchester United have managed at home this season? Benjani is simply the latest in a long line of strikers who have failed to cut it at Eastlands this season, while the defence is widely acknowledged to have been City’s strongest department.
Whoever Shinawatra has in charge as manager, this is someone who seemingly wants a direct say in team affairs, will Sven be bothered to stick around even if he’s given the chance?
Come on, let’s settle this Portsmouth-Benjani-Manchester City circus once and for all! One day it is reported that the Zimbabwean striker never wanted to leave Fratton Park and the other day it is reported that he is happy to have left Pompey.
Today it is reported that Benjani is happy to be at Manchester City. The 29-year old says:
I was surprised because it was two days before the deadline. Sometimes you hear that clubs are looking at you two weeks before. Obviously I was happy. As I’ve said before Manchester City are a big club. That is why I drove to London to catch the flight.They didn’t have flights from Southampton so I had to travel from Southampton to London. Then the first flight was delayed, that’s why I was late. I don’t think there was any truth (in the reports) because I signed all the papers before the deadline. I was ready. I was shocked when I was reading all this news, I was always cool, and I was relaxed. It was always through before the deadline, no problem.
Okay, Mr.Cool. Let us stop this fiasco here and now.
Come on Benji boy, stop the crap game. You yourself said that you would love to play for Manchester City and now you say that you never wanted to leave Portsmouth. Come on, give us a break, will you!
ESPN Soccernet’s reports that Benjani, now a Man City after a much talked about deadline transfer fiasco, never wanted to leave Fratton Park. He is said to be actually shocked at being sold to an City.
Benjani says:
It was never my choice to leave Pompey because of the special relationship that I had with the supporters, with my team-mates and with the coach. I was very happy at Pompey and I think this season I showed that I had settled down well and I was beginning to produce the goals for the club. There are some things in football that are more important than money and one of those things is a special relationship a player can enjoy with the supporters and the coach. I had all that at Portsmouth and I was really enjoying myself playing football in a very good environment and knowing that everyone was happy with what I was doing for the club.
Now stop all this, okay. You are now a Man City player. So focus on that!
Many people are calling it the bargain of the January transfer window. While it cost around £9 million for Portsmouth to sign Jermain Defoe from Tottenham, Manchester City have acquired Benjani from the Hampshire club for an initial fee of less than £4 million. The Daily Mail report that City’s star performer this season is delighted that this club have landed a decent striker at last. Step forward Martin Petrov…
The Bulgaria winger said: ‘Benjani looks a very positive player. We have had some problems with goal-scoring but hopefully we won’t have too many more problems in that area for the rest of the season. He can make a big difference to us.’
Indeed, there have been too many occasions this season where the Bulgarian has served up some quality crosses on a silver platter, only to find nobody converting these chances. Let’s just hope the Zimbabwean isn’t caught napping at the back post!
There’s no doubt that the 2008 January transfer window will be remembered for the Benjani fiasco, with the striker failing to complete his transfer from Portsmouth to Manchester City before the Thursday midnight deadline last week. However, The Times today reveal the reason why it’s taken nearly another week for the deal to be completed, you just couldn’t make it up!
“In his own inevitable, wonderful way – and we all love Benji so much – he falls asleep at the airport and misses two planes,” Pompey chief executive Peter Storrie said. “You couldn’t write the script. The next plane at 7 o’clock got cancelled and the 8.30 was delayed. It just made the whole situation a fiasco.”
We’ve heard of players caught napping on a football field but this is surely a first of its kind? Manchester City have paid just £3.87 million to Portsmouth for the striker and, although this could rise to £7.6 million, the Hampshire club must be concerned that their books haven’t exactly balanced after splurging £9 million on Jermain Defoe last week.
Man City have actually managed to get themselves a bit of a bargain, whittling down the initially agreed £7.7m fee for Portsmouth striker Benjani to a much more palatable £3.87million (increasing after Benjani completes a whopping 75 senior starts).
Manager Sven Goran Eriksson seemed pretty chuffed with the deal, saying:
“I am delighted that we have signed such a quality player and I am looking forward to working with him straight away.”
So now Man City have a striker who actually knows where the oppositions goal is, will they be pushing even harder for the Chapions League spot that Liverpool have so generously left up for grabs?
It appears that Benjani will be unveiled as a Manchester City player today, with The Independent reporting a deal has been agreed with Portsmouth. The price tag will comes as a surprise to many, with the striker rumoured to be exchanging hands for roughly £3.8 million, despite Pompey’s valuation being nearer the £8 million mark.
All that’s left is for the Premier League and FA to confirm the agreement and City will bolster their strikef orce, which has been firing blanks for much of the season. Indeed, it’s testament to their solid defence and goalscoring midfielders that Sven-Goran Eriksson’s team have stayed in the top half of the league all campaign without a forward of any note.
The deal was thought to have fallen through after the confusion surrounding the submission of the necessary paperwork before midnight last Thursday. City were then rumoured to have been disappointed with the Zimbabwean’s lack of punctuality, although seemingly not enough to remain practically striker-less for the remainder of the season.
While uncertainty remains over whether Benjani will remain at Portsmouth or sign for Manchester City, The Guardian report that Pompey have not yet signed Jermain Defoe permanently. The striker, who was yesterday called up by Fabio Capello as a replacement for Gabriel Agbonlahor, was initially signed on loan from Tottenham due to the time constraints in processing the necessary paperwork, with the south coast club expecting to make the deal permanent later in the week.
A Portsmouth spokesman explained: “The Defoe transfer was done as an initial loan because of time restraint. The full documents will be signed and registered this week and this is a standard method when you have little time.”
Defoe got off the mark on his Pompey debut on Saturday, scoring against Chelsea. The diminutive striker must hardly be able to believe his change of fortune; last week he was warming the subs bench for Spurs and seemingly nowhere near the England squad, now he’s the flavour of the month.
The farce that is Benjani’s transfer from Portsmouth to Man City continues; firstly there were doubts that the requisite forms had been submitted by Man City which made Pompey sweat because they had already spent the Benjani moolah on Jermain Defoe. Next up were rumours that Benjani had a gammy knee and Man City big wigs wanted to pull the plug on the deal, despite manager Sven Goran Eriksson’s continued interest. And so both parties awaited the decision of the Premier League overlords to sort out this mess; the Prem’s answer? You should both come to a compromise lads…
The Times reports that:
“An intermediary is understood to be working on a “compromise” that would mean a renegotiation of the original £7.6 million deal, but while the Premier League expects such an agreement to be reached either today or tomorrow, differences of opinion behind the scenes at City mean that nothing can be guaranteed. A legal challenge is feasible if the club are forced into a deal with which they are not happy.
“Although the transfer window is closed, the Premier League would in theory be prepared to ratify a revised deal, given that all parties had previously reached an accord and submitted the relevant forms in time. Portsmouth are confident that the league will turn a blind eye to the missing signature, given that the deal appeared to have been concluded “in spirit”.
“If the deal is to be renegotiated, though, there are differences of opinion on how this will happen. One source indicated last night that the projected fee would be “comparable” with the £7.6 million valuation that the clubs agreed on Thursday, but with a larger portion of the fee contingent on appearances that he may make for City. However, another source suggested that the entire deal would have to be renegotiated, even raising the possibility that it be turned into a loan move if the Premier League would agree to this.”
So will Benjani ever be rescued from his limbo?…
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