17 hours left: New Johnson bid

It's being widely reported that we have made a new bid for Adam Johnson. Having failed to get Victor Moses it would not be a surprise if we doubled our efforts for Johnson tomorrow. The Times reports that we bid £4m on Friday and £5m on Saturday evening. I don't know how much will be enough - possibly £6m, probably £7m, but the chances are that we will offer it some time tomorrow. And we know that Johnson is keen to speak to us. Don't be surprised to see him in blue.

Still no confirmation on McDonald Mariga, although it seems to be done, and we can presume that Marco Motta is not going to happen.

But one other move is being reported again: Fernando Gago. According to the Mirror we're due to bid £20m for him tomorrow. Sounds like a lot of money for yet another midfielder.

48 hours left: Mariga linked, Johnson unlikely

Two stories this afternoon. The first is that we are said to be getting closer to a deal to sign Parma's 22 year old Kenyan midfielder McDonald Mariga. Stories on this have been doing the rounds on the internet for the last few days, without anything too concrete to get stuck into. Danny has more of the details, and two of his commenters give us an informed opinion on Mariga's abilities.

I'm not sure we need another destructive midfielder. It wasn't very obvious to me when we signed Patrick Vieira that he was what we needed. But having signed Vieira the idea of signing a player who is, by all accounts, similar to Vieira strikes me as rather needless. Stephen Ireland isn't having a great season but do we want to freeze him out entirely?

On Adam Johnson, he started for Middlesbrough today and played the entirety of their 0-0 home draw with Bristol City.

And if we're going to sign Marco Motta we ought to get on with it.

More on Marco Motta

A regular reader (hat tip to Phil) pointed me towards this article in FourFourTwo which serves as an introduction to Marco Motta:

Motta, who began his career as a winger, is a direct, explosive player with a sense of adventure. But the 6ft tall full-back doesn’t shirk defensive duties, relying on wonderful aerial ability and a tough streak. Some consider him calcio’s Sergio Ramos. Thanks to his idol Paolo Maldini, there is little chance of Motta going off the rails should he shine in the World Cup: “Maldini has always been my role model because of the person he is and how he is off the pitch.”

More on Marco Motta

Skysports.com understands that we are 'closing in on' Marco Motta.

And an article on MailOnline.co.uk claims that Motta said this yesterday:

'I want to thank everyone for the months I spent with the Giallorossi. See you soon,' he said.

This looks likely to happen.

So what do we know about Motta? Not much really. He's 23, he plays at right-back and has 31 caps for Italy U-21s. He started off at Atalanta and had spells at Udinese and Torino before joining Roma, where he hasn't really won a place in the side.

It's interesting regarding the team. We have two right backs already, although they have both been used out of position recently - Micah Richards at centre-back and the woefully out of form Pablo Zabaleta in central midfield. Motta provides another option but whether he's much better than Richards or Zabaleta we'll just have to wait and see.

Marco Motta linked

Apparently we're close to making our second signing of the window - Roma's defender Marco Motta:

Manchester City have opened formal talks with Roma about signing their out-of-favour defender Marco Motta on loan for the rest of the season. Motta is a 23-year-old right-back who has lost his place at the Stadio Olimpico since Claudio Ranieri replaced Luciano Spalletti as coach.

Negotiations are at advanced stage and Roberto Mancini, the City manager, confirmed to Italian journalists yesterday that he was keen to sign a player who used to captain the Italy Under-21 side as well as representing the full side in the last Olympics.

Sounds good. More if and when it goes through.