"I want to make sure that I am always ready; that if I step off the bench I will make a contribution then be given my chance," he says. "If I do make my mark I expect to be given a chance...."I am 30 and this is my last opportunity to be part of a special club," Bellamy says. "First and foremost, I am concentrating on staying fit. If I'm fit I can challenge. If I ain't fit, I can't challenge. What you live for is to wake up in the morning looking forward to training. If any players are having a bad time, I want to be knocking on the door."
And he is surprisingly forthright in his support for our big spending:
"People are grumbling about City spending all this money. But that's what the top four have been doing for years – paying big fees and the highest wages," he says.
"This is the best thing that's happened to football, a chance for another club to break into that elite. It's going to take a while, because the major clubs have been in that position for a long time. I suppose that's why we are spending a lot of money quickly, to try to close that gap as quickly as possible."
There's also interesting stuff about Bellamy's long standing interest in Carlos Tévez and his charity work in Africa. But the fact that Bellamy is so enthusiastic about our summer spending tells us something that Mark Hughes has long known: that despite his repuation, Craig Bellamy is a genuine team player and a total professional. And that is why, unlike other players who are now on the fringes, I am convinced that he will stay.
When we signed Bellamy Mark Hughes mentioned that as good a striker as he was, he was also being signed for his commitment on the training ground and around the football club. His attitude since the introduction of Santa Cruz, Tévez and Adebayor is a vindication of that judgement.
2 comments:
"CB39"?! Please. ¬_¬
really good interview. As long as he doesn't lose a yard of piece he will have a big role to play no doubt, certainly in difficult away trips and perhaps even more, assuming one of the three strikers we've signed doesn't fit in. But the larger role he has to play means surely that the 30-game season that Bojinov has spent two years waiting for is further out of reach. That's simply not going to happen, just like when City fans dreamed of Hart playing 500 games for the club, Richards becoming City and England captain, Wright-Phillips and Petrov on the wings together or Jo becoming the 20-goal a season man we haven't had since anelka.
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