He argues that Kaká is not what City need. The main deficiencies of the side are in defensive midfield:
Kaka might be more tempted if he could see City competing with United, Liverpool, Chelsea and Arsenal. To do so, they must find a dog of war, someone to assist Vincent Kompany in seeing off the bullies in the Premier League playground, and building a platform on which the likes of Robinho and Kaka can perform.They need a young Gennaro Gattuso, an up-and-coming Patrick Vieira, a Claude Makelele in the making. Lassana Diarra’s decision to choose Real Madrid, still such a glamorous lure for footballers, was a grievous blow to Hughes. [So, so true. J] Yaya might be available, though possibly not until the summer.
I think he's right, in that we do really need a holding midfielder. Gelson is going to get owned by Palacios and Cattermole on Saturday, I'm afraid. But I don't see why buying a holding midfielder and buying Kaká are mutually exclusive. I mean, it's not like Sheikh Mansour can only afford to buy one of them and we've made the wrong either/or decision. Anyway, Winter makes some other good points too (including mentioning that unfortunate fact that Johnny Evans is better than Richard Dunne and Micah Richards, on current form) and is worth reading as ever. HERE.
5 comments:
Let's hope that there is something secret (like the Kompany deal) in the pipeline for a tenacious midfielder as there have been no solid links since Diarra slipped away. Personally, my number one choice would be Daniel De Rossi, but I don't see him leaving Roma any time soon. Frings is another maybe with Bremen not performing as well this season. I don't know enough about Veloso... Any other ideas because I can't see where the player we need is going to come from?
albiol
Jeremey Toulalan would be perfect. He's an oustanding passer and tackler, he's won leagues and cups with Lyon, he was France's best player last summer and he'd fit right in with Kompany. Two other reasons for signing hin - he's only 25 and he's good mates with Karim Benzema. Listen to the excellent Paul Doyle on the Guardian Football Weekly podcast sing Toulalan's praises if you don't believe me.
Read this in a Tribal Football piece:
Despite denials yesterday from Italy, Manchester City remain confident of landing Kaka in an £100 million deal.
City are so confident that the astonishing deal will go ahead that insiders suggest Kaka may be in their team for the home league game against Newcastle on January 28, says the Daily Mail.
The club have already been in regular contact with Kaka's father, having recognised from the outset that he has been very influential at every stage of his son's career. Meanwhile, City's current superstar Robinho has been in regular phone contact with his compatriot and has told manager Mark Hughes that Kaka is ready to come to Manchester.
City have been told that Kaka's sceptical comments on Wednesday were made in order to buy the player time.
Having been sold on the idea by Sheik Mansour and his chairman Khaldoon Al Mubarak,
... "City boss Mark Hughes has indicated he would play Kaka in a central role alongside Stephen Ireland, with Robinho on the left and Shaun Wright- Phillips on the right..."
That last paragraph is interesting - where is Kompany? From that I'd read into it that he is going to play in central defence, but alongside who?
If we are going to put out an attack minded midfield like that we need to seriously revamp our back five, with a 'keeper and at least one world class centreback to come in.
Hope Sparky's got something up his sleeve
If we were to play a midfield four of Robinho-Ireland-Kaka-SWP it could only be in a 4-1-4-1, with VK (or equivalent) behind. The harder it's proving to get a centre half, the more likely we are to buy a DMC instead and more Vince back.
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