City return to pole position in race for Yaya Toure

City are once again favourites to sign Yaya Toure according to today’s Sport.es. City appear to be coming up with the cash in both transfer fee and player contract.

The accuracy of Sport.es can be questioned as they refer to City’s owner as Sulaiman Al Fahim! However it’s no great surprise to see this article. The quotes from Toure’s agent where he complained that City behaved like a “bankrupt club” always had the feel of brinkmanship. Arsenal are unlikely to match the wages offered by City. That would entail making Toure their highest paid player – something unlikely to go down well with Van Persie and Arshavin.

Sport.es concludes that the transfer could be completed in a matter of days. Let’s hope so, but don’t be surprised to see a few further twists along the way.

Elsewhere there’s another article indicating that Zlatan Ibrahimovic’s future lies away from Barca, with the club valuing him at 51 million euros. Let’s take that as a starting point for negotiations.

Intriguingly, they claim that Ibra’s agent, Raiola, has already starting negotiating with other clubs, and an English club with title aspirations would be considered. So long as they could meet his wage demands.

It concludes with comments from former Barca star Hristo Stoichkov, a Bulgarian who could give Martin Petrov lessons in moodiness. Stoickov reckons Barca’s signing of Ibra was a mistake and when asked who he thought the player would be sold to, answered Manchester City.