Rumoured clear-out

For all the attention on the chase for fourth, rumour clouds are beginning to form regarding this summer. The details are unclear but we all know there is going to be wrenching upheaval at MCFC this summer: players, managers, coaches, captains - no-one is safe.

Today's report from Neil Custis in The Sun gives four names of possible casualties should Roberto Mancini remain in charge; Emmanuel Adebayor, Stephen Ireland, Shaun Wright-Phillips and Stephen Ireland Wayne Bridge.

It smells of plausibility. It is easy to denigrate the reliability of tabloid reports but Neil Custis was ahead of the curve on these two MCFC transfer stories before.

I can certainly see Mancini seeking to shed all four of those players from the squad. Ireland, Wright-Phillips and Bridge have all had very patchy seasons, and there are questions over the ability of all three to compete in the Champions League. Adebayor might feel unfairly done by - 13 in 22 in the EPL is a decent return, given everything - but there are grounds for his replacement; namely that Carlos Tévez is our best player and we should find a more natural partner for him than the free-spirited and fairly casual Adebayor. This could be Fernando Torres, but it wouldn't have to be - there are others who could do that job well.

On an emotional level I would be devastated to see Stephen Ireland leave, because I love him and am desperate for him to succeed at City. But Mancini has clearly seen what Mark Hughes came to recognise - that Ireland needs a side built round him, and that a team chasing honours cannot always afford that. I am fond of Shaun Wright-Phillips, too, for obvious reasons. But I have little to no emotional attachment to Bridge and Adebayor, beyond gratitude and respect for continuing to play well despite difficult (but very different) personal circumstances that they have endured this season.

Of course, this whole report is premised on the idea that Roberto Mancini will be manager throughout the summer. This can't be guaranteed. So let's wait and see who's boss next year before going any further with this.

Bridge out for a month

Disappointing injury news this evening: Wayne Bridge requires a shoulder hernia operation and will be out for a month. He'd found a bit of form since coming back from his knee ligament injury, and we need him for a crucial run of games in our sights.

None of the alternatives really demand inclusion. We know that Gareth Barry and Joleon Lescott can play there but as two of the pillars of the side I doubt they'll be moved. So it's between the two specialists - Javi Garrido and Sylvinho - and Pablo Zabaleta. Garrido is probably the man in possession, having played there during the winter when Bridge was injured. My hunch is he will go for Zabaleta, who is slightly more reliable, now that Patrick Vieira is available in midfield. Micah Richards will continue at right back.

Blues star in England win

Another successful night of international football for MCFC, as two of ours starred in England's not awfully convincing 3-1 defeat of Egypt.

Gareth Barry started, in his traditonal deep midfield role, and was one of our better performers throughout. His traditional combination of muscling people off the ball, never giving possession away, occassional breaks forward and 'winning' free-kicks were all on show tonight. England went 1-0 down in the first half - after a mistake from Matthew Upson, inexplicably in the side ahead of Joleon Lescott.

We drew level in the second half when Barry surged down the right and crossed low for substitute Peter Crouch to slot home. The ineffective Theo Walcott was hauled off for Shaun Wright-Phillips who put England ahead with a gentle volley straight at Essam El Hadari, which the veteran goalkeeper palmed into his own net.

The win was completed when SWP crossed from the same position as Barry had earlier, with the same result as Crouch grabbed his second and England's third. When Wayne Rooney came off with five minutes left Barry took the armband. Does anyone know when last a City player captained England? I have no idea at all.

It was a shame that neither Lescott nor Joe Hart got on the pitch but as City fans we can't complain with one goal, two assists and five minutes in the armband. Bridge might not be going to South Africa but Barry is a certainty and SWP's chances are probably just over 50%. Lescott's hang in the balance.

Mancini: No Ansaldi move

We should all calm down about this one:

When asked if he was interested in Ansaldi, he replied:"No, in that position we have Bridge.

"In seven days he will have recovered."

Four left backs is a bit much.

Bridge goes on the defensive

After Alan Hansen's Match of the Day demolition job:

He said: "I didn't watch Match of the Day that night but it's not going to hurt or bother anyone. I didn't need to watch it to realise I played badly that day.

"Alan Hansen said a few things but I'm not going to cry about it.

"I've come in since and trained hard. Since then I feel I've done well defensively and attacked as much as I could.

The shame with that Burnley horrorshow is that it has distracted people from the fact that Wayne Bridge has had a pretty good season to date. Calm and reliable in defence, and more incisive than people realise going forward - he's certainly a huge improvement on those that have gone before. And so I do feel sorry for him that there has been such attention on what was a very anomalous performance.

Nonetheless, it will be interesting to see who plays in his place for the next few weeks. I think the most likely scenario is Sylvinho, although he may just use Gareth Barry there as a means to partner Nigel de Jong and Stephen Ireland in central midfield. One other option is Joleon Lescott with either Vincent Kompany or Nedum Onuoha alongside the captain at centre half, but I think Hughes would be loathe to break up what is an increasingly functional partnership. And I'm not sure Javi Garrido has recovered from his shameful Stretford End coining is up to it either.

Hughes defends Bridge

After our left back was crucified by Alan Hansen on Match of the Day on Saturday evening:

"The pundits on Match of the Day just have an opportunity to nail individuals in the public domain," he said. "That process involves looking at incidents in games but not taking it as a whole. That's the role in life that they have decided to follow. There's a frustration, though, from our side when they don't go into particularly in-depth analysis. I'd question how many games they actually watch live, from the start to the conclusion of games. Everybody knows that's the case...

"Wayne is an experienced player who has won Premier League titles and been part of a Chelsea team at the top end," Hughes, right, said. "He understands what it's all about. At times individuals will make decisions that affect the team and sometimes you have to hold up your hand.But we're not going to do the same as the pundits because that's not what we're about. We look to analyse our mistakes and make sure, in future, we are better in similar situations. We won't single out individual players; that job is done by pundits."

Fair enough, I suppose. It's Hughes' job to defend our players in public. It's good for morale and part of the whole seige mentality that Hughes is keen to build. Hansen was right, though - Bridge was woeful on Saturday. And Lescott wasn't much better.

SWP scores for England

Fabio Capello played an experimental eleven against Belarus this evening, which meant that City stars Wayne Bridge and Shaun Wright-Phillips paired up down the left hand side. (Gareth Barry also played, but he's a regular now.) None were particularly impressive, Barry was the best of the three, breaking down play and firing passes all over the pitch. He got a pre-assist after three minutes, sliding through Gabriel Agbonlahor who crossed for Peter Crouch to put us 1-0 up.

It was Wright-Phillips, though, who got on the teamsheet scoresheet (thanks Dominic). Roughly half way through the second half a David Beckham corner broke to him on the edge of the box and he fired a long, low shot into the bottom corner. He had worked hard all evening but I am not sure that he did enough to convince Capello that he is a serious option for the left wing, given that Joe Cole and James Milner can both play there too.

We could see four City players in the World Cup squad: Barry, SWP, Bridge and Lescott. Not to mention Micah Richards. But the only one whose place is assured now is Barry. The others are all 50/50 shots or worse.

Ladyman: Micah, Zab, Bridge, Robinho under threat

With just under three months to go until the opening of the January window, transfer rumours deserve credit for edging in ahead of Christmas decorations in being the most premature arrival of the autumn. City's rumours started in earnest today, with an Ian Ladyman article in the Mail. He reports that Hughes is interested in bringing in a new left back, a new right back and a new creative central midfielder:

This tangible shift in status spells bad news for the rest of the Premier League and also for the current City full backs - Micah Richards, Pablo Zabaleta and Wayne Bridge.

As Sportsmail revealed last season, Hughes has harboured doubts about former England defender Richards since becoming boss and he has now lost patience with the 21-year-old's average training efforts and failure to understand the tactical and positional side of the defending art.

Ladyman goes on to write that Hughes has been unimpressed with Wayne Bridge, that Pablo Zabaleta is not a long term solution at right-back, and that we will listen to offers for Robinho. This possible overhaul - our fifth major turnover in players since summer 2008 - comes as Hughes and the board decide that Champions League football is within reach this season, and therefore to accelerate pre-existing transfer plans. Remember how Hughes said there would not be recruitment like last summer again in the future? Well that may have gone out of the window.

I must say I'm getting rather tired of these constant changes in personnel. Building up relationships with particular player is such a central part of fandom, and having to get used to a whole new team every six months is rather grating. Particularly given that our current full backs and creative midfielder (Bridge, Zabaleta and Stephen Ireland) are probably good enough to get us into fourth place.

But the sixteen months of Mark Hughes' reign have taught us two important things about his transfer policy. First, he is always willing to bring in new players to improve the side, always keen to twist rather than stick. I would rather we had stuck with Kompany and Onuoha rather than buy Lescott. I hoped that we would stick with Roque Santa Cruz (never mind Valeri Bozhinov) rather than buy Emmanuel Adebayor. So it's quite possible he feels the need to upgrade on Zabaleta, Bridge and Ireland. The second thing that we have learnt, and more importantly, is that Hughes tends to get these decisions right. How happy were City fans with spending £10m on Craig Bellamy? Or £16m on Nigel de Jong? I even had my doubts about Adebayor. But Hughes has a track record now that he really should be given the benefit of the doubt on these sort of calls.

5/11

A quick point. There has been much media attention this week on England 2 - 3 Croatia from almost two years ago: one of the lowest points in the recent history of the national side.

Take a look at the team: Carson, Richards, Campbell, Lescott, Bridge, Wright-Phillips (Beckham 46), Gerrard, Barry (Defoe 46), Lampard, Joe Cole (Bent 80), Crouch.

Anything stand out?

McGivern joins Leicester

From the Leicester City site:

Nigel Pearson has bolstered his Leicester City squad with the loan signing of Ryan McGivern from Manchester City.

The 19 year old left-back joins the Foxes until January from the Premier League side and City are waiting to hear back from the Premier League for Ryan to receive clearance to play in Monday night's clash against Newcastle United, at St. James' Park.

Unlike most of our loaned-out players, there might just be a future at City for McGivern. With Sylvinho on a one-year deal and Javi Garrido on his way out a good year for McGivern could well see him become our first choice back up left back in 2010/11.

Team mates

Wayne Bridge and Shaun Wright-Phillips were on Soccer AM's teammates this morning. They revealed that the worst trainer was Tal Ben Haim (because he kicks people), the jokers were Bridge and SWP themselves along with Nigel de Jong, hardest was Kompany. Robinho won best dancer and most skilful, Micah Richards was worst dressed, Nedum Onuoha most intelligent, Stephen Ireland best trainer and Shay Given had the worst music taste.

Craig Bellamy was the biggest moaner, not that we needed that confirmed.

McGivern moved up pecking order?

From mcfc.co.uk

Full-back Ryan, who has signed a new three-year deal at the City of Manchester Stadium, was a target for Hartlepool but is needed by Mark Hughes for the Premier League run-in in case Wayne Bridge is ruled out by injury...

Hughes said: "Ryan is progressing really well and I'm delighted we've signed him. The initial idea was that he would go on loan before the end of the season or we'd possibly get him out there next year.

"But it's better now to keep him closer to the first-team squad until the end of the season and see how he does. There may be more of an opportunity for him than he thinks, because he's a promising player who's doing really well. Next year we'll be looking to get him a decent loan period with a good club, but for now we'll keep him close."

Does this mean that he is close to taking Javier Garrido's place as understudy to Wayne Bridge? He has just signed a new three year contract, so he can't be too far from Hughes' plans. And Javi Garrido is rumoured to out in the summer; Bridge was injured against Sunderland and Zabaleta played there instead. May we even see McGivern in the first team before the season is out?

City 'offered €20m' for Clichy in January

I was reading about Gaël Clichy on FranceFootball.fr earlier and was very surprised to read that City bid for him in January.

Cet hiver, Manchester City avait mis 20 millions d'euros sur la table pour tenter de s'attacher les services du « frenchy ». Sans succès.

In English, 'This winter MCFC had put €20million (£18.7m) on the table to tempt Clichy to the club, without success.'

If true, it's an interesting insight into our January targets - suggesting that Wayne Bridge was not always our top target. Although given that we agreed a fee with Chelsea on January 2 we must have moved swiftly on to him after Arsenal's rejection.

Zabaleta as a left back

Here's something I picked up on the Guardian Chalkboards. Pablo Zabaleta stepped in for the injured Wayne Bridge at left back on Sunday, for the first time this season. And while I'm a huge fan of Zabaleta, the chalkboards suggest that he offered nowhere near the attacking threat that Bridge does from the role.

This graphic is a comparison of Zabaleta's and Bridge's attempted passes in the Sunderland and Aston Villa home games respectively. The main difference between the two seems to be in their attacking play: due to both a difference of caution and in success of crossing. Bridge regularly advanced into the final third of the pitch (within 30/35 yards) down the left hand side, attempting sixteen (by my count) passes from within the final third. Zabaleta however, attempted only one pass from within the final third. There was also a difference in success of balls into the box: Bridge made four successful passes (from ten attempts), while Zabaleta didn't make a single successful pass into the box (from three attempts). I guess this is to do with Zabaleta being less proficient with his left foot, and therefore less confident in getting down to the byline and crossing with it. In Zabaleta's defence, he made more successful passes than Bridge - most of them in the middle third of the pitch. But as an attacking left back, Bridge is demonstrably superior. The question for Hughes, then, is where to play Zabaleta now that Vincent Kompany and Nigel de Jong are fit?

 by Guardian Chalkboards