Who will be in at Old Trafford this summer?

With the sale of Cristiano Ronaldo adding £80 million to Sir Alex Ferguson’s usual £25-30 million yearly budget. A summer spending spree is surely on the cards. Looking at the side, it would appear to me a winger and some quality in centre midfield are needed, with possibly, a striker as the icing on the cake.

Looking at the players linked to Old Trafford, it would seem we have some familiar names.

Luis Antonia Valencia – £15-18 Million

Luis Antonio Valencia

A flying right-winger has player over 80 games for Wigan and looks a very tidy player. His premier League experience will mean he can fit right into the side and wont need much time to settle. Nominated for the Best Young Player at the 2006 World Cup it appears the 23 year old who has 34 caps for Ecuador has a bright future. Some downsides may be the size of the fee, and doubts as to whether or not he is better than what United already have. In addition, his goal scoring record is quite woeful with only 7 goals during his time at Wigan and only 4 for Ecuador, he does have potential, but I only see him as a squad player at most. Wigan Chaiman Dave Whelan will not stand in his way and Sir Alex is a long time admirer, this transfer is pretty much nailed on.

Franck Ribery – £40-50 Million

Franck Ribery

A world-class player, a player, who would be the ideal replacement for the departing Cristiano Ronaldo. Apparently United put in a £60 million bid a few months ago and Sir Alex is keen to have him as part of the Old Trafford set up. His abilities are unquestioned, great dribbler, pace and immense skill, he also added goals to his repertoire scoring 14 in all competitions this season. Bayern have stated they would not keep him against his will and he has stated his desire to play in Spain. United would have a fight on their hands to persude him his future lies in Manchester, added to the hefty fee; Barcelona and Real Madrid are also circling thus increasing the price further.

Karim Benzema – £30-40 Million

Karim Benzema

The next great French striker in my opinion, and at 21 years old has plenty of time on his side. A seasoned Champions League performer, 24 caps for France and over 50 goals for Lyon in two seasons. He is tall, powerful and strong yet possesses pace coupled with a deadly eye for goal. Lyon have said he is not ‘untransferable’ and Ferguson has had an eye on him for years. The only issue would be his intention to stay in France during a World Cup year to maintain his place for Les Bleus.

David Silva – £30-35 Million

David Silva

A player I like a lot, he has pace, skill, vision, great technical ability and a lethal shot on him. Part of Spain’s Euro 2008 winning team he can play on either flank and behind the strikers. With Valencia harbouring a mountain of debt and in dire need to sell, Silva’s days are numbered at the Mestalla. Ferguson bid for him last summer and another attempt appears to be on the horizon, but with Real Madrid, Barcelona and Liverpool all interested, competition will be fierce for el Chinito. For me he would be an excellent addition and should be pursued vigerously.

David Villa – £35-40 Million

David Villa

If a well-known brewer made strikers they would probably make David Villa. As with his namesake Silva, his days at Valencia appear to be numbered due to the moeny he would bring in to help clear debts. A fantastic goal scorer and leader of the Spanish front line, a transfer to Real Madrid collapsed last season and it could be the same again this season. Although it looks far more likely he will remain in Spain, Chelsea and Liverpool have both announced interest but United have apparently put in a cheeky bid. Villa would add some much needed goals previously brought to the Stretford End by Ronaldo. A transfer to United however, seems just out of reach.

Mirko Vucinic £20-25 Million

Mirko Vucinic

The 25 year old Montenegrin currently ply’s his trade for AS Roma. This season having established himself as Roma’s number one striker, he has scored a number of important goals including two against Chelsea in the Champions League. With an impressive record of 48 goals in 83 games for the Giallorossi, he seems ready to step up another level and play for a top European club. Along with his excellent finishing ability he is also versatile, playing as a left-winger, and behind the striker during his time in Rome. Coupled with Roma’s lack of Champions League football and huge debts, it may be time to cash in on a very saleable asset.

Douglas Maicon – £30-35 Million

Douglas Maicon

The Inter right back is arguably the best in the business. He controls the right side, from corner to corner, strong in the tackle and great positional sense; he bombs forward with consummate ease to deliver a phenomenal quantity of crosses. Athletic and agile, he could be the answer on the right side. Sir Alex tried to sign him in 2003 but was refused a work permit. Reportedly unhappy in Italy, a move appears ever closer for the Brazilian.

Honourable mentions must go to Victor Valdes of Barcelona and Douglas Costa of Gremio. Both have been on the radar but I don’t see any developments in the near future at least.

Every one of the above has been linked with Manchester United at some point over the last few weeks. For me a ball winning midfielder should be high on the list of priorities though the rumour mill seems obsessed with attacking players.

A very eventful summer could come into fruition very soon and you may well find a few new faces strutting their stuff in the Theatre of Dreams.

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What on earth is happening at Liverpool this week? There seems to some major leaking going on behind the scenes that seem to point to two camps eager to try and score points against each other. News has begun to circulate this morning that the chief executive, Rick Parry is to leave his position at Liverpool this afternoon after 12 years at Anfield. A statement is expected this morning to clarify matters. That sounds like he’s going to me.

After the Benitez leaving debacle on Wednesday, today the focus has shifted to Parry’s position in the Liverpool hierarchy. It’s an open secret that Parry and Benitez don’t get on at all, but once again, Liverpool’s dirty washing is being aired in public. After the news about Robbie Keane leaving Liverpool was revealed by the BBC pundit Mark Lawrenson in an interview with Irish Radio over Christmas, it’s been a constant stream of negativity leaking out of Liverpool.

Lawrenson made the cardinal sin of bragging about going for a drink with Steven Gerrard and that Gerrard had told him that Keane would be sold in the transfer window. Most of the British media picked this up and had a go at Lawrenson, though oddly the BBC ignored the story, and Lawrenson probably has been advised to keep things to himself in future by his Liverpool contacts.  The decision to sell Keane was seen by many as a sign of strength for Benitez, he’d wanted Gareth Barry and David Villa. Instead Parry went after neither target and signed Keane, against Benitez’s wishes. Once Keane had been sold back to Tottenham, the battle lines were drawn. The relationship has steadily gone down hill and Benitez may have made the point that if they’d signed who he wanted in the summer, they’d still be top. That alone makes Parry’s position weaker.

Now 4 weeks later, it begins to seem as if Benitez has won out but it also makes you wonder, just who was behind the stories about Rafa leaving on Wednesday. Surely it wasn’t a deliberate act by someone either at Liverpool or working on information supplied to them by a Liverpool employee was to try and destabilise the team ahead of the crucial Champions League game at the Bernabeu? Defeat for Liverpool would have made things very difficulty for Rafa to salvage anything from a season that promised so much but has run out of steam. It would have made the owners consider if it was worth offering him a new contract, or looking at other options.

Overall though, whoever has in charge of Liverpools public relations this week has had their work cut out dealing with all the misinformation flying around. Is Parry really going to be let go this afternoon or has the Benitez camp begun some mischief making of their own? Ferguson will be loving this, Hiddink will probably think Liverpool have the implosion abilities of Ajax in his native Holland, O’Neill and Wenger will see cracks they could possible exploit. The Blue half of Liverpool will be revelling in the continuing soap opera developing across Stanley Park.

Parry isn’t exactly Mr Popular with Liverpool fans, or the owners though he has always counted on George Gillette’s support. By all accounts though, that support has begun to evaporate leaving Parry isolated and alone at Anfield. The fans in general, have nothing but loathing for him, blaming him missing out on Villa and Barry in the Summer and seem to have no respect for him at all. If anything positive was to come out of this season for the Reds, Parry announcing he was leaving would probably placate a lot of them.

FC Copenhagen chairman Stale Solbakken suggests that Manchester City’s spending will ruin football.

“The amounts of money that have been mentioned are incredible,” Solbakken told Ekstra-Bladet.

“I think that such incredible sums will take part in destroying football.

“They are creating too big a mental distance between what we call reality and then Manchester City.”

 The idea of City’s fiscal force frightens, but its tangible affect has been negligible.

City have not upset the competitive climate in the Premier League.  They sit just 9^th in the table, with 31 points from 25 matches, and that represents improvement from winning three of their last five in the league.  Before they were flirting with relegation.

Aside from the odd Robinho, City have not fleeced the world’s biggest stars from their clubs.  Kaka rejected triple his current salary.  David Villa and Gigi Buffon turned down deals as well.  The only financial flexing City have done thus far is overpaying for Craig Bellamy and Wayne Bridge.

City’s main hindrance signing players has been their perception as an unsuccessful club.  This also seems to be their critics’ point of contention.

Manchester City are not deemed a threat because they distort financial reality.  Clubs already do that.  Nothing divides the gods from the clods in European football more than the Champions League. 

There are also disparate television and merchandising deals on the continent.  Barcelona and Real Madrid operate under different financial considerations than the rest of La Liga.  Ditto for Bayern Munich in Germany and for AC Milan, Juventus and Inter in Serie A.

Spending obscene money disproportionately doesn’t bother football people.  It’s the notion of an upstart Manchester City doing it that is the problem.  Criticism of City is not censuring the rich, but the nouveau riche.

Perhaps, it’s not football that’s going to be destroyed, but a complacent aristocracy.

Manchester City’s new ownership sent chairman Garry Cook, brimming with billions, to build a super-club capable of Champions League qualification.  The club’s £91m bid for Kaka was a noted fiasco, but, as details have emerged, that’s hardly been their only activity.

City reportedly made an equally irresponsible bid for Spain and Valencia star David Villa, in the range of £100m.  The club then cancelled the deal “on principle,” after Valencia countered with £135m.

Gigi Buffon was probably the target of another record bid, although Manchester City again withdrew when Juventus started asking for nearly £100m for Buffon.  They will hold firm for £6m for Shay Given, yet be willing to part with ten times that for Buffon?

Man City also tried to raid Barcelona’s bench, offering a combined £49m for Thierry Henry , who may be a possibility next summer, and midfielder Yaya Toure.   They had a £10m offer to Arsenal for Yaya’s brother Kolo as well.

The club also have offered £18m for Roque Santa Cruz.  They are so eager they’re willing to throw Tal Ben Haim into the deal, which surely has nothing to do with him being Israeli.

This excludes the £40m already spent on players in January, bringing in a competent left-back (Wayne Bridge), a diminutive striker who doesn’t score much (Craig Bellamy) and a midfielder good enough to be rumored but never to be bought by a big club (Nigel de Jong).

Tallying things up, City have put forth a ludicrous amount of money, with ludicrous ambition.  So, it seems only fitting they get ludicrous responses.

City have been content scouring the continent for spectacular Brazilians, but, if they want their spending to be effective, sound they consider throwing their money around closer to home?

Manchester City’s transfer budget dwarfs that of England’s big four combined.  There are reasons for that.

Manchester United sit on a mountain of debt.  They bought their two Serbians and they’re out.  Roman Abramovich, after losing a few billion wants Chelsea to run a tight ship, allowing only £12m in January.  Liverpool face an uncertain financial future, should the Americans not be able to find a buyer.  Even profitable Arsenal must repay their debt.  And these are the well off clubs…

If Garry Cook is willing to offer nearly £100m to continental giants, why not test the resolve of the domestic ones?

Would the Liverpool board allow Rafa Benitez to turn his nose at such a mega-offer for Mascherano or Fernando Torres?

If City offered £50m for Adebayor or Van Persie could Arsenal afford not to listen?

With players at Chelsea paying for their own lunches, could they entice one of Chelsea’s stars up north?

Even moving down the table, Villa may be able to reject a great transfer bid.  But, could cash-short Everton reject a gobsmacking offer for Arteta?

Perhaps, these transfers may be inconceivable for January.  But, if the economy begins to effect the boffo Premier League revenues – and that probably should be a when not an if– these speculations may be a crude reality.

Imagine an all-star team of footballers featuring the top names in the sport. Cristiano Ronaldo, Kaka, Cesc Fabregas, Fernando Torres, Thierry Henry, Robinho and David Villa. Now imagine all of these players on the same team, Manchester City.

Before yesterday, that notion sounded ridiculous, but now that the Abu Dhabi United Group is in charge of Manchester City, it seems very plausible.

“We are going to be the biggest club in the world, bigger than both Real Madrid and Manchester United,” said Al Fahim. “We’re not just going to spend money on anyone, but if we can get the biggest players in the world, and of course if the manager wants them, then we will get them.”

The ramifications from such an ambitious move by Manchester City will change the entire sport. When you have an investor with seemingly unlimited funds that makes Real Madrid, Chelsea and Manchester United look like poor cousins, you know that the rules have changed.

With all of the money flooding in and out of England yesterday, expect FIFA and UEFA to sound the alarm bells within the coming days warning that money is ruining the game and is shifting the balance of power to Premier League clubs.

Both FIFA and UEFA should be worried. If the Premier League continues at this pace and more Middle East investors purchase English clubs, the Premier League will become the defacto world leader. The Champions League, while a massive revenue generator, will be less appealing when clubs such as Manchester City buy the trophy. And when you compare what the Premier League could be versus the World Cup, the Copa Mundial will seem far less appealing especially when club football is bigger and more powerful than playing for your country.

The danger of what’s happening within the Premier League is that the league could explode just as quickly as it’s growing right now. If in 2-3 years from now, the Middle East owners decide to sell the clubs, there are very few — if any — investors in the world who would be able to pay the inflated player wages that an all-star team would demand. The only option would be to declare bankruptcy.

I’ve said this before and I’ll say it again. The Premier League is now the world’s soccer league and has little, if anything, to do with England anymore. England has simply become the fields of grass where the matches are being played. The only thing missing from the Premier League becoming truly the world league of soccer is playing matches overseas, and the wheels are already in motion for this to happen. Just wait.

Marca, the daily Spanish sports newspaper, is reporting that Real Madrid has accepted a £32.5 million bid for Robinho. The audacious bid by new Man City owners Abu Dhabi United Group was made at the last minute, and now we await whether Chelsea is willing to match or exceed the bid with less than 90 minutes remaining in the transfer window.

By the time the transfer window closes, it’s possible that Man City may have secured the transfer signings of Dimitar Berbatov, Robinho, Mario Gomez and David Villa.

Manchester City has increased its bid for David Villa, but according to Valencia, they have no interest in selling the player. Let’s see if that changes by 7pm ET/midnight UK time tonight.

I got up this morning expecting another tense, dull day to be spattered with the occasional factual transfer as the transfer window creaked shut getting excited about nothing much in particular. A day spent scouring the BBC and Sky Sports transfer vidi-printers and tutting at bored 14 year old’s just texting and e-mailing rubbish to fill the gaps as the frustration grew as the day shortened, the last couple of transfer windows have been very dull affairs, so I was not expecting much. Silly me.

What I didn’t expect was that Manchester City would, as of 9.30am, became the richest football club in the world with the end of Thaksin Shinawatra’s short reign as owner and start throing money around like water. I never expected the Royal Family of the United Arab Emirates to buy any club, never mind Manchester City and immediately tell manager Mark Hughes to spend, spend, spend in an unprecedented scenario. The new owners, Abu Dhabi United Group are the investment & financial arm of the Royal Family and have almost 1 trillion pounds available to them, or 10 Roman Abramovichs. This is football investment on an unbelievable level and has completely changed the entire landscape of world football in a few short hours.

If that wasn’t enough, they then offered a British record transfer fee of £35 million pounds for Dimitar Berbatov, which Tottenham accepted, then announced they’d bid £30 million for David Villa and a further £25 million for Mario Gomes. As I type this, Marca in Spain is reporting that they’ve also bid for Robinho and several other high profile signings but other than the 3 strikers that ADUG spokesperson Sulaiman Al-Fahim confirmed earlier today, nothing is concrete fact. Manchester City can now afford to buy anyone at any club with no worries at all, but the one thing that holds them back is the lack of Champions League football, a key point that will probably see Berbatov choose the red side of Manchester over the blue. Ferguson will be determined to finalise the transfer he sees as vital to enabling United to try and become the first club to win back to back Champions League titles and I expect Berbatov to be a United player by midnight.

The majority of players they need to push on to go for a top four spot would seem to be loathe to swap Champions League for a season of UEFA Cup football so they may not get the players they need by the time the window shuts at midnight but don’t rule out some massive deals being prepared for the next transfer window. Also key to their forward recruitment though is that City are in a position to attract these players in January when they’ll need them, so Hughes knows he needs to keep City in and around the top 8 come the turn of the year. Additionally, the due to Manchester City deal, I expect this to push DIC forward to purchase Liverpool, now that their royal rivals have trumped them to buying a Premiership club first, something that will not be going unnoticed back in the U.A.E.

One man who won’t be a Manchester City anymore is Vedran Corluka who confirmed his protracted move to Tottenham, originally completed on August 10th, this morning to join Pavlyuchenko at Spurs Lodge. It’s been probably the worst kept transfer in football so no surprises that he now joins up with his best friend, Luka Modric. A canny pair of signing for Ramos to add a bit more depth to the squad. All in all, today could be the most important day in the history of the Premiership so far and with 3 hours to go until the window closes, who knows who else is going to switch sides and which football club is going to be bought next by midnight.

Manchester City has placed bids to capture the signings of David Villa and Mario Gomez before the August transfer window deadline ends in less than six hours at midnight UK time.

“We have bids in for three players,” said Dr Sulaiman Al-Fahim, head of the Abu Dhabi United Group (ADUG). “There is Berbatov, but there is also David Villa and Mario Gomez. We have bids in for Villa and Gomez and I am waiting to hear whether we have been successful with those (offers).”

Man City has already had a bid accepted by Spurs for the signing of Dimitar Berbatov, but the Tottenham Hotspur striker has to decide whether he wants to play for Manchester City, stay at Spurs or wait to see if Manchester United can meet or beat City’s bid for the Bulgarian international.

Villa is one of the top strikers in Spain having scored 59 goals in 100 appearances for Valencia. He has 36 caps for Spain and has scored 18 goals for his nation.

Gomez, meanwhile, is currently at Stuttgart where the striker has scored 41 goals in 92 appearances for his club, and has scored 6 goals in 15 caps for Germany.

Without a doubt, this may turn out to be the maddest day in the history of Manchester City with the club being taken over by an Abu Dhabi group, having a bid accepted for Berbatov and putting in bids for two of the top strikers in Europe, David Villa and Mario Gomez.

Portugal manager Luiz Felipe Scolari stirred the footballing pot when Chelsea announced an agreement with him to become their next manager, at the termination of his Portugal contract after Euro 2008. Throwing even more chum into the water, are the ever truthful transfer magicians, who now have just about everyone available linked to Chelsea.Big Phil supposedly will start his reign with an audacious £60m bid for AC Milan star Kaka, which may or may not include Didier Drogba and/or Shevchenko as bait. He may also set his sights on Andrea Pirlo, with a £7m per season contract.Additionally, he may look to bring in Portugal and Barcelona midfielder Deco, who is free to discuss terms with other teams. Barcelona will also shed longtime Chelsea target Ronaldinho, who played for Scolari when he coached Brazil. But, they may include Samuel Eto’o with Deco in a £43m deal.Scolari may convince Frank Lampard to stay with a lucrative new contract, or, alternatively, be the factor that forces him to go to Inter Milan.Cristiano Ronaldo’s flirtations with Real Madrid may be the work of Scolari, who wants the player to move away from potential rival Manchester United. However, Big Phil may fancy the lad himself and jump into the bidding with Real Madrid.Big Phil may nab Robinho and David Villa as well just for the hell of it.Tyler Duffy has been a contributing blogger to EPL Talk since 2006.  His work can also be viewed as a weekly soccer commentator for TheBigLead and on his blog at Odds and Sods.