City transfer talk: 8 July
With the World Cup coverage winding down, journalists are turning their attention back to the transfer window and today sees some fanciful stories in amongst the more interesting ones.
Portuguese site, A Bola claims City have offered 35 million euros for David Luiz, and a salary equivalent to 3 million euros per year. The Benfica chairman is thinking it over.
Luiz may be richly talented, but it seems a huge offer for a player we don’t really need. If it goes through, then it would appear the club are stocking up on talented young players ahead of Uefa’s Financial Fair Play rules which begin in two years time.
In Spain, both Sport and El Mundo return to Barca’s Ibrahimovic ‘problem’. On Barca’s troubled finances, the Swede is looking very expensive in terms of amortization. They rightly point out that no club is likely to come up with 50 million in cash so a player plus cash offer is the best solution if they want him off the books.
No surprise to see Robinho’s name appear here, along with 15 – 20 million euros. Very surprising is this El Mundo piece which claims cash plus Zabaleta and de Jong could be tempting to Barca. It adds that our Nigel can also play right-back. Really?
In Italy, the asking price for Aleksandar Kolarov appears to have come down slightly to 22.5 million euros (£18.7m). So says shy and retiring Lazio president, Claudio Lotito. Whether this is quite low enough remains to be seen. It seems a lot for a left-back who is good, but probably not in the class of Evra or Ashley Cole.
Back home, the Sun are touting Shaun Wright-Phillips with alleged interest from Arsenal, Tottenham and Liverpool. Whether any of these are willing to increase his £60k per week wages is a sticking point apparently. Unless we sign Krasic, it would be a surprise to see Shaun sold, even if he can’t agree a new deal with City.
Finally, congratulations to David Silva and commiserations to Jerome Boateng on the semi-final last night. It was good to see Silva get a few minutes on the pitch. He looked eager, as you’d expect, with bags of skill but no great pace.