EPL Talk » Vedran Corluka

Is Today The Day The Premiership Changed Forever?

Paul Bestall — Mon, 01 Sep 2008 20:17:57 +0000

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.

Premier League Transfers On Deadline Day

The Gaffer — Mon, 01 Sep 2008 09:43:10 +0000

Stay updated on the latest transfers in the Premier League today on deadline day, which marks the end of the August transfer window (extended one day because the last day of August was a Sunday):

Fraizer Campbell (England) joins Tottenham Hotspur from Man United,
Dimitar Berbatov (Bulgaria) joins Manchester United from Spurs,
Martin Cranie (England) joins Charlton from Portsmouth,
Robinho (Brazil) joins Manchester City from Real Madrid,
George McCartney (Ireland) joins Sunderland from West Ham United,
Antoine Sibierski (France) joins Norwich City from Wigan Athletic,
Alexei Smertin (Russia) has had his Fulham contract cancelled by mutual consent,
Julian Gray (England) joins Fulham from Coventry City,
Danny Higginbotham (England) joins Stoke from Sunderland,
Carlo Nash (England) joins Everton from Wigan,
Albert Riera (Spain) joins Liverpool from Espanyol,
Collins John (Holland) joins NEC Nijmegen from Fulham,
Ryan Donk (Holland) joins West Brom from AZ Alkmaar,
Andriy Voronin (Ukraine) joins Hertha Berlin on a season-long loan from Liverpool,
Steve Bunn (England) signs for Blackburn Rovers from Northampton Town; amazingly this one of the very few transfers today involving English players in the Premier League,
Steve Finnan (Ireland) joins Espanyol from Liverpool,
Rachid Bouaouzan (Holland) joins NEC Nijmegen on a one-year loan deal from Wigan Athletic,
Peter Gulacsi (Hungary) joins Liverpool from MTK Hungaria as a backup goalkeeper,
Louis Saha (France) joins Everton from Manchester United,
Nadir Belhadj (Algeria) joins Portsmouth on a season-long loan from Lens,
Vitor Flora (Brazil) joins Liverpool from Botafogo,
Ignacio Gonzalez (Uruguay) joins Newcastle United on loan from Valencia,
Blerim Dzemaili (Switzerland) joins Torino from Bolton on a season-long loan,
Vedran Corluka (Croatia) joins Tottenham Hotspur from Manchester City,
Roman Pavlyuchenko (Russia) joins Tottenham Hotspur from Spartak Moscow,
Xisco (Spain) joins Newcastle United from Deportivo de La Coruna,

In a recent development, Manchester City’s new owners have reportedly put a bid in for Dimitri Berbatov in excess of £30 million.

Keep on returning throughout the day for the confirmations of the latest transfers.

Are Manchester City About To Go Into Meltdown?

Paul Bestall — Mon, 11 Aug 2008 13:50:36 +0000

When the Vedran Corluka story broke on Thursday, it seemed nothing more than transfer speculation hitting the news wires, stoked by the usual rumour mongers and agents, desperately trying to earn a bit of corn for themselves, pushing a transfer through. Manchester City denied it, Tottenham didn’t mention it and Mark Hughes came out and said that he had no interest in selling any of his first choice players. Another statement was released last night to the same effect.

Later on Friday, Hughes once again had to came out and said that the owner, Thaksin Shinawatra, had no interest in selling the club and was committed to Manchester City in the long term. Don’t forget it’s only 6 weeks ago they signed Jo for a club record fee of £19 million pounds, adding Ben Haim to the squad on the 1st August for a further £5million as well as chasing Ronaldinho most of the summer too. Surely Manchester City can’t really be facing financial meltdown?

Yet, on further investigation things began to unravel on Friday evening. Corluka was to join Tottenham for the exact amount that City had paid for him a year earlier and on Saturday afternoon, Corluka travelled to London to complete his transfer to Spurs. To all intents and purposes, Corluka is now a Tottenham player but the deal has yet to be announced to the stock market. Corluka’s agent has also confirmed the deal has been completed but City are refusing to release the players registration. Spurs are apparently considering legal action to force the release of the player.

Prior to the Saturdays match, rumours then broke regarding Stephen Ireland, who was nowhere to be seen in the build up to the friendly against AC Milan, was concluding a transfer to Sunderland. This was obviously against the wishes of Hughes who had only found out when he arrived at the ground that Ireland had been sent to Sunderland to discuss contract terms. He quickly called him back to Eastlands to discuss the situation further.

Sunday then saw stories circulating that Shinawatra was not going to return to Thailand to stand trial in the court case against him for corruption charges but nothing was concrete or official until Monday morning. Shinawatra has indeed released a statement stating that “He and his wife would be staying in the UK where democracy is more important”. The Thailand Supreme Court has now issued an arrest warrant for him, making him an international fugitive, which now causes issues with the Premiership’s fit and proper person test. The British Home Office has yet to receive an application for political asylum at present.

Add to this fact that all City’s new arrivals are being paid for in installments and payments have now begun to bounce, the club don’t own the Eastlands ground, so can’t use that as collateral to raise funds and the £200 million loan that Shinawatra borrowed on the proviso that his frozen assets would be released is also due for payment and the worries begin to grow for this great club. Any new buyer would have to pay at least £200 million immediately to clear Shinawatra’s debt’s and make the club secure and the current financial climate doesn’t make an immediate rescue package seem too viable.

How will Mark Hughes feel in this situation is anyone’s guess, but you have to feel sorry for him if this scenario is as real as some people are making out. He came to Manchester City to improve his standing as a manager and push himself on to a different level, this could force him into reconsidering his position as manager. Being in charge of an owner’s firesale didn’t appear on the application form.

Whilst this could all be a massive misunderstanding, under the surface, things do not sound good. In fact, things seem to be taking a similar route to that which befell Leeds United several years ago but Leeds had tangible assets to try and raise some funds. Other than the playing staff, some of whom they still don’t own, City don’t have anything to sell. With 5 days left to go until the start of the season, it seems bad things are afoot at Manchester City and I have heard that some people feel the club has two weeks left as a football club. Let’s hope that this isn’t true and City can hold on to what they have in these difficult times.