Mariga books ticket to Madrid

More news from the one that got away: McDonald Mariga played the last few minutes of Inter's thrilling Champions League semi-final contest with Barcelona at Nou Camp.

With four minutes left of normal time Inter were 1-0 down on the night but 3-2 up on aggregate; one mistake away from going out on away goals. So Samuel Eto'o was withdrawn for Mariga - who was a Home Office decision away from becoming a Manchester City player in January. Mariga played on the right of a 5-4-0, and - as far as I can remember - won one header on the half-way line, and then bought a free-kick off Jeffrén Suárez in stoppage time. Inter hung on and progressed.

Thiago Motta is suspended for the final. Muntari and Stankovic are more likely to play, but another Mariga appearance is possible. How he must regret not joining City.

The one(s) that got away

Those watching the fascinating (and fairly funny) events from Stamford Bridge last night will have seen McDonald Mariga come on for Inter with five minutes remaining. I was never too enthusiastic about his potential signing but when you see that José Mourinho is willing to trust him with seeing out Inter's progression to a Champions League quarter final you realise the level of player we missed out on.

Because Mariga was the breadth of a Home Office rubber-stamp away from joining City in January. As soon as that move fell through Inter pounced. And I'm not sure Mariga has too many regrets with the way things turned out:

"I need to improve and play more at this level, but to play for one of the biggest clubs in the world is a fantastic experience.

"Manchester City? Yes I almost join them, but it did not happen because of my work permit.

"But now I am at Inter with the best manager in the world."

Quite.

Interestingly enough, there was another one that got away triumphant last night. Mark Hughes tried very hard to sign Diego Milito in August 2008, but he chose to re-join Genoa as he abandoned relegated Real Zaragoza. A goal-laden season followed, and he went to Inter last summer, and is second top scorer in Serie A this season. Ouch.

Those failed midfielder moves

There's been quite a lot of fall-out recently on our failed attempts to bring two new central midfielders (well, first one, then the other) to Eastlands on deadline day.

First there was McDonald Mariga - formerly of Parma, almost of City, now, frustratingly, of Inter. He failed to get a work permit. We learnt on Wednesday that the Kenyan Prime Minister himself was involved in our attempts to get McDonald the permit on Monday. Raila Odinga said:

"I would like to assure soccer fans and all Kenyans that with the British High Commissioner, I've done what I could to get Mariga into Man City," Odinga said.

"I spent a minimum of three hours on phone talking to Gordon Brown's office, the Africa Office, office of Culture and Sports, the Home office, the FA president Lord Treisman and to Mariga himself," Odinga said.

Clearly it would have meant an awful lot to Kenya to have one of their own playing for our very own. And so it is genuinely disappointing that it collapsed as it did. Roberto Mancini was clearly far from impressed when he discussed it earlier today:

The City boss told his club's official website: "We had two or three targets but our main aim was to bring Mariga to the club.

"We couldn't see any problems so to have the panel rule against granting him a work permit is, I believe, an incredible decision.

"He is a young player and Kenya's most important footballer and considering he's played in Sweden and Italy for the past six years and with relations between Kenya and Britain strong, I just cannot understand why he had his application refused."

Having failed to land Mariga we swiftly returned our attentions to Real Madrid's Andrea Pirlo tribute act Fernando Gago. It was too late in the day, though, and nothing could be done. This does not quite explain, though, the reaction of Real's sporting director Jorge Valdano:

"They had nothing prepared, not even one document signed," Valdano told El Pais.

"They had not reached an agreement with the player and they would have had to have done everything in 40 minutes."

This is strange. Of course I know that dark arts go on in transfers, and that we have been quite prone to using them in the past. (There was clearly more to the Joleon Lescott saga than met the eye last summer.) But Valdano's criticism seems to be that we didn't talk to Gago before agreeing a fee - that is, that we did things by the book rather than taking the short-cut which might have squeezed the transfer through before 17:00 GMT on the Monday.

I can see why he might be frustrated - he was hours away from getting his hands on €18m, and now has a very disgruntled player still on his hands. But I don't see that we've done too much wrong here.

Anyway, as I've said before I'm not quite sure how glaring a gap this is. We've got some good central midfielders at the club, and some good full-backs who can play there too. Even without new additions, we should be fine for the rest of the season.

Mariga escapes MCFC

This is the one that got away. On Monday morning it appeared that while the Adam Johnson deal was in the balance, McDonald Mariga would certainly be joining from Parma.

All that remained today was his work permit hearing. But in what must be a real surprise to club officials, Mariga was denied. Kenya were too far down the FIFA rankings, and so the move was off.

We clearly wanted Mariga, and so this is a disappointment. I must admit that I didn't really see the need for another defensive midfielder. So I was pretty ambivalent at first. But then I saw that after our bid failed, Inter signed him. And José Mourinho has a pretty good eye for defensive midfielders. We could well see more of Mariga again.

On the plus side, we still have Valeri Bozhinov on the books.

BBC on Mariga's permit problem

The BBC's football reporter Chris Bevan tells us about McDonald Mariga's failed work permit application via Twitter:

Man City move for McDonald Mariga has fallen through. They could not get a work permit for the 22-year-old Kenyan international. (link)

Man City appealed over Mariga work permit at hearing at Wembley this morning. Attended by reps from club, FA, Prem Lge, PFA & ex-pros (link)

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.