Manchester City scramble to offload stars of yester-week

Seemingly the fat cats at Manchester City awoke this morning and a moment of clarity dawned on them. They have too many players.

Muffled voices were reportedly heard from behind the doors of executive offices at Eastlands this morning “we need to sell, not buy, we’ve got to many players” they could have said, as they struggled to open the door wedged shut by an excess of money.

So far City have been happy to embrace the opportunity to add to their bulging squad and wage bill, by signing Yaya Toure, Jerome Boateng, David Silva and Alexsander Kolarov.

In order to comply with Premier League’s new rule though, of only allowing 25 players over the age of 21 in every squad, City will have to trim their bulging roster that currently tops and impressive 33 money-hungry stars.

A report in the poor man’s Sun suggest that former signing Jo could be on his way out and the poorer man’s Sun has claimed that Craig Bellamy, Roque Santa Cruz and Stephen Ireland all face the axe.

With further additions expected to be added the roster before the end of transfer deadline day, City face the prospect of offloading up to ten experienced players from their squad.

Priced at £10m Stephen Ireland will tempt many clubs, but his excessive wages of £70k-a-week will put off just as many, as teams are simply unable to throw many at players with such reckless abandon as City do.

Such is City’s desire to get shot of players who have become surplus to requirements in a remarkably short space of time, they are willing to let them go for considerably less than they paid for them.

Santa Cruz was bought for £18m but the poor man’s Sun suggests he could be off to Marseille for a smaller amount and Jo will certainly move for less than was paid for him.

Wheeler-dealer ‘Arry Redknapp has also been quick to spot a bargain and has eyed some of the City squad as part of potential loan moves.

He told the BBC “I think there will be a few loans. Clubs like Manchester City will have too big a squad as you can only have 25 players on your roster.

“They will have a problem and there will be players that clubs will want to loan out that will be good players that are earning good wages.

“Clubs will have to cut their wage bills and they don’t want players sitting around doing nothing.”

Even if City successfully manage to farm out enough of their squad they will surely have to supplement the wages of their players as they had to do to facilitate Robinho’s move to Santos and they could eventually find themselves counting the cost of their wealth.

Home-grown over-21s: 15
Given, Hart, Taylor, Lescott, Bridge, M Johnson, Onuoho, Richards, Barry, A Johnson, Ireland, Wright-Phillips, Bellamy, Etuhu, Logan

Foreign over-21s: 18
Gonzales, Nielsen, Boateng, Garrido, K Toure, Zabaleta, Vieira, Y Toure, de Jong, Kompany, Silva, Adebayor, Santa Cruz, Tevez, Caicedo, Robinho, Jo, Kolarov

Total over-21s: 33

Posted By Dan Mobbs - Wednesday July 28, 2010.
Tags: Manchester City, Premier League