The Rumour Mill, Season 2011-12
City's Johnson linked again
The winger is apparently disillusioned with his first-team prospects at the Etihad Stadium — they'll only get worse if Eden Hazard joins City in the coming week — and that has "alerted Sunderland and Everton".
Johnson was snubbed by Roy Hodgson for Euro2012 and could be on the move before next season to improve his international chances.
His reported £70,000 a week wages could be a big stumbling block for Everton, as would the fee required to land a player the Blues were heavily rumoured to have tried to sign on loan in January.
Original Source: Daily Star
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Add Pieanaar on the left.. Johnson flying down the right.. Jelly banging them in from all angles...
Deep breaths...
:-(
The one slim chance it could happen would be in a trade. Inter is widely reported to be in for De Jong. If City starts to sniff around Fellaini as a replacement and Felli wants to go, those numbers could be made to match up.
Also theoretically possible: City loses Kolarov to Inter (also widely rumored) and comes after Baines. Don't know that even the loyal Bainesy could turn down that kind of money. Johnson would certainly ease the pain of that loss.
It concerns me that the richer teams around and below us may have a plethora of good players to target. Imagine if qpr start throwing some cash around and bought hoilett, pienaar and Johnson to supply Zamora and cisse....the board must work out some way to have us competing financially at least with the likes of qpr, Sunderland, Newcastle and stoke if we are not going to drop down the table.
If that is true I see a significant risk in buying someone on high wages who Moyes is going to fall out with.
Does he want to really play week in week out ( have a word with Pienaar on that topic ) or is it just raking in the money.
It must be terrible to contemplate the abyss of poverty that a mere 40K-50K brings.
Apparently we are the team he wants to come to. Depending on the price (and if he actually leaves) I think he could be a very good signing.
He's an old school rough and tumble striker who would offer bot only a real physical presence, but also an excellent touch and a real eye for goal.
Although I would rather work on getting Hoilett and Diame in on frees, the idea of Holt and Jelavic combining is very appealing!
Regarding Johnson, I would take him on loan but I think we will struggle to get him permanently.
...Surpassed only by the two Manchester clubs.
(See: Method / madness, etc....)
As much as it kills you to see it, Moyes is a shrewd manager.
(See: Big picture, rather than selected defeats, etc...)
..So with all due respect..
Case. Fucking. Closed.
While multi million pound crowd pleasers like of Johnson, Berbatov, Defoe Sturridge were all being left out towards the end of the season for not tracking back,
Our boys were scoring for fun at the "Strikers Graveyard"
Both true. I was suprised by the defensive stat as we seemed to concede a lot of poor goals early on.
We scored 50 and only conceded 40. I think it's fair to say if we start anything like we finished we could score another ten and concede 10 less?
That would give us a goal difference of +30, something a Moyes side has never been near before.
That's only bettered by both Manchester clubs with Arsenal and Spurs both on +25.
Probability rating 2/10.
Also with trying to secure the return of Pienaar who is also the wrong side of 30, to sign 2 players over 30 for probably a combined fee of £10 million would border on madness.
We could spend £20m and it would probably be enough to move us up 1 or 2 places only,it would cost anything upwards of £50m to get us in the top 4 where the real money is.Spending our way out of trouble isnt the answer.
The league is terrible. We went 2 games without a shot on target, we sold the star man, had no strikers, and still finished 7th. What oes it say about the rest of the league.
I know,as much as we dont want to lose our best players i'd rather still have a team to watch in 10 years.Getting the club in the black should be our priority.
Being skint is rubbish. Paying for a training ground and loan interest, costs a new player every season. Compared to others. Whilst the old lady has been left behind in generating cash.
What argument was that?
Johnson on the other hand is definitely worth a shout - he'll definitely be on his way out of City in the summer either sale or loan as the Sheikh starts to show willing to UEFA in terms of chipping away at wage bill, and if the latter I think we might have a shot.
I can't see Johnson being high on the shortlist of Spurs, Liverpool, etc anyway and City won't want to loan to anyone who they see as a threat anyway.
So ultimately it'll come down to wages and £70K though high might not be impossible (Drenthe must have been on £40K+ and combined McFadden, Straq etc), then again maybe even £40-50K towards wages would do it?
Johnson is a right poser, not popular with Manc players or supporters.
Early signings will be a goalkeeper and centre half no-one has heard of.
It took how many years for RVP to have his "breakout" season? Can he repeat this season's performance or is he even staying at Arsenal? Wenger dumped fucking Henry himself at about the same age. How's that worked out for the Gunners?
£20 mil would make all the difference to us. Our owners have the money. They HAVE the money.
Even though it's hard to believe, but if we can squeeze at least another 10 points out of Jelly at the start of campaign... we're in for a shout.
Why disect everything we have been raving about for the past 5 months in order to bring in players. Nobody near our first 11 should be leaving for anything other than silly money.
In order to progress we need the current squad to be added to, not taken away from. We have a decent batch of kids coming through so if nobody comes in start introducing them slowly in order to eventually reduce the age of the squad. We played the second half of the season without a player who in February was a certainty to go the Euros with England, another lad who is 'the best talent in the country' according to Stuart Pearce and a winger and a forward who seem to be slowly adapting to the English game.
A clever use of the loan and free market and we shouldn't be that far away.
We droped points at home last season to Stoke, QPR, Bolton, Norwich, an in form and current Everton sqaud would be hard pressed to do that again (especially as Bolton arent around now), theres 10 points straight away!
Hypothetically it all seems well and good, and i have a bit of optimism at present that decent business will be done. If Pienaar is going to cost anything more than we sold him for i'd seriously consider putting tht money and wage packet towards Hoilett and let a tribunal settle it!!!
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084 Posted 19/05/2012 at 00:37:39
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