The clearout

Where there is creation there must also be destruction. City are still inhaling the thrilling vapours of the transfer window but soon we must exhale, and expel all the used and unnecessary players from the lungs of the club.

And stories are emerging this week of the club's plans. There seems to have been a concerted briefing of journalists, and the headline name on his way out is Craig Bellamy. Daniel Taylor reports in The Guardian today that Bellamy is allowed to leave if we find a buyer:

That leaves Bellamy facing a decision about whether to stay and fight for his place, having effectively won a similar battle with Robinho, or leave a club where he is not expected to feature prominently. If the latter is the case, he might also have to consider taking a pay cut to help engineer a move. Bellamy, who turned 31 this week, earns £95,000 a week and when the Tottenham manager, Harry Redknapp, was asked about his admiration for the Wales international he suggested it would be out of his club's price range. "City bought him for £12m and the player must be on considerably high wages," he said. "I just don't see it happening."

While this is big news in the sense that Bellamy was one of our best players last season, it's no real surprise. Yes, he was the icon and talisman of Mark Hughes' Manchester City, but it is for precisely that reason he should go. Everything that made him so good under his compatriot: his personal loyalty to Hughes and Bowen, his questioning his team-mates' work ethic, his rage and fire against those around him - makes him destructive under Roberto Mancini. After their repeated clashes last season a departure is likely if Spurs, Everton or Villa can find the money.

Some of the other names likely to go are obvious. Taylor mentions Roque Santa Cruz, Robinho and Stephen Ireland. James Ducker tweeted two days ago that Jô, Nedum Onuoha, Felipe Caicedo and Javi Garrido were also allowed to leave.

One area of disagreement is Micah Richards. He was included on Ducker's list but today both the Guardian and The Sun said that the club were keen on keeping him. This is a surprise, given the arrival of Jérôme Boateng. (There is literally nothing that Richards can do on a football pitch that Boateng cannot.) Mancini clearly likes Zabaleta so I can't see Richards playing too much football this year. But then he has only just turned 22 and so we still might hope for some more development out of him yet.

Ireland and Onuoha are both 24, though, and at the age where we can't hang on to them for much longer. The decline of Ireland over the past year has been very sad but a move is right for him. Onuoha has never quite looked established in the side and this move could well have come at any time last summer or the summer before.

It's sad to see players to whom I am attached depart, and the Academy players certainly are part of that. (I don't desperately care where Jô or Santa Cruz play their football to be frank.) But then I'd rather see Ireland and Onuoha have successful careers elsewhere than play for our reserves and further stagnate. It's all part of the natural processes of a club.

Džeko update

We do not look much closer to signing Edin Džeko. He has spoken of his enthusiasm for a transfer but until we can convince Wolfsburg that he is worth less than £34million we won't bring him to City.

Džeko said this week:

"I want to clarify that it is not a matter of money, but of ambition. I feel I have to take a leap in quality and play for a big club. It is an important moment of my career and I also explained that to the leaders of Wolfsburg.

This would sound like what the tabloids call a ''Come and Get Me' Plea' to Garry Cook but for the fact he is known to be keen on a move to Italy as well. Juventus and Milan have long-standing interests in him and so Džeko has to choose between them and us he'll be off to Serie A. This means that we ought to be wary of news that Juventus have bid. Their new transfer director Beppe Marotta has confirmed their move:

'Dzeko? It's the dream that I'm working on,' said Marotta. He is one of the best strikers in the world and clearly he is an object of our desire.

It's true that we are negotiating and I have spoken to them (Wolfsburg) but they are asking for a lot and we are trying to follow the cheaper option. They like some of our players but we know that what you buy is not always better than what you sell.'

Of course, however far away from reaching an agreement with Wolfsburg we are, Juventus will only be further. But it's another obstacle in what is not an easy transfer to complete. And I can't see our offer to throw in Roque Santa Cruz being the dealbreaker.

City to sign Colombian keeper

Apparently City are on the brink of signing Boyaca Chico's Cristian Bonilla, the 17 year old Colombian 'keeper that everyone no-one is calling 'the new René Higuita.' Bonilla has said:

'Besides the fact that I may be loaned to another team, this is a very important door that gets opened for my career, so I will have to start to take English lessons very soon.

'This is a very important step forward in my career, everything has been arranged and according to what the (Boyaca Chico) president Eduardo Pimental has said to me, the transfer has been confirmed.'

What we need

I should have done this a while ago but just to briefly sketch out what I think we need this summer, in order of descending priority:

• A creative, goal scoring midfielder. It's one area where we have been seriously lacking compared to last season, with the decline of Stephen Ireland and no one to take his place. Of course our 4-2-4 formation requires our two central midfielders to play fairly cautiously, but I think that our use of this system is itself a function of paucity of options. Too often last season we looked one or two dimensional - firing the ball out to the wide men, or hoping that Carlos Tévez could conjure something up himself, without having any real creative presence. We could sit tight and hope that Stephen Ireland becomes the player he was threatening to be in 2008/09, but with all that's riding on our 2010/11 campaign I think we will invest here. The names are familiar by now: James Milner, Marek Hamsik, Steven Gerrard, Mesut Özil, but I'm sure this is the number one priority of the Player Acquisition Group.

• A competent left back. I'm afraid I don't think Wayne Bridge is up to it. Coming to City from a fairly successful Premier League career he should not have needed time to bed in. And so the fact that, after eighteen months in blue, he still can't really tackle or cross that well can only be a matter of concern. I know we're not going to get Patrice Evra or Ashley Cole - we may have to look abroad to upgrade - but I'm sure Mancini knows of someone in Serie A or elsewhere who can do this better than Bridge. There's talk of signing David Luiz and, exciting as that is, I'd rather have a specialist.

• A better partner for Tévez. As I've kept on saying all season, I don't think Emmanuel Adebayor is a particularly good partner for Carlos Tévez. His hold up and link up play is patchy, he drifts in and out of the game, he gets literally sidetracked and starts popping up in wide positions. That's not to say I don't think he has his uses, but I do think we need someone who can bring the best out of our best player. Someone who can bring the best out of Tévez is Roque Santa Cruz, who is a much better partner, such is the quality of his hold-up play (c.f. Craven Cottage, March 2010), but his body cannot be relied upon. I don't know what the answer is to this - I think Mancini thinks it is Zlatan Ibrahimovic, but expect to see the usual names linked: Edin Dzeko, Óscar Cardozo etc etc.

• Cover across the defence. I don't think we can improve on Micah Richards and Pablo Zabaleta, with only Europa League football to tempt players with, but I do sometimes feel we could do with a third option given Zabaleta's occasional midfield deployment and Micah Richards' fitness issues. Preferably someone who can play at centre back, too, given our patchy record there last season. This is solved entirely by Jérôme Boateng, who can play right back and centre back, thus relegating this to the bottom of the priority list.

Hamšík, Balotelli, Luiz all linked

I've written before about the 'Boateng plan', and how our long interests would be best served by the recruitment of players who are young, hungry and who would like to win things with City - rather than those players falling under 'the Torres plan.' The last few days have seen transfer rumours suggesting that Mancini and the Player Acquisition Group feel this too. We have been linked with moves for 22 year old Marek Hamšík, 19 year old Mario Balotelli and 23 year old David Luiz.

First Oliver Kay wrote in The Times of Hamšík and Balotelli:

After several weeks of discussions over his transfer strategy with the club’s hierarchy, Roberto Mancini, the City manager, has urged his board to proceed with bids for Hamsik and Balotelli as he looks to reinforce a squad that narrowly missed out on a top-four finish in the Barclays Premier League.

The challenge for Mancini will be in convincing the players that they can fulfil their ambitions with City. after the club’s failure to qualify for next season’s Champions League.

Then there was this by Stuart Brennan in the Manchester Evening News regarding Luiz:

The Blues have been tracking the 6ft 2ins Benfica star for some time, and face stiff competition from Real Madrid and Barcelona.

But manager Roberto Mancini has identified the 23-year-old as a major star of the future - and he likes the fact that Luiz, principally a central defender, is also comfortable at left-back and as a defensive midfielder.

These three are all plausible: they fit into the strategy laid out in the Jérôme Boateng transfer - young, talented, playing for a good side in a good foreign league. It's a nice change from the Hughes approach of established Premier League stars, and not just from a novelty perspective either.

To take the three rumours one by one: I haven't seen Hamšík play too much but he's certainly very highly rated. He is a goalscoring midfielder, which is what we need - Gabriele Marcotti has said he could be the new Frank Lampard. I think we might struggle to tempt him though. He will be playing Europa League football with Napoli next season, and apparently could soon agree a new contract. But if he doesn't there is an opening there.

Balotelli is a move that makes sense. He has fallen out with almost everyone at Inter, having enjoyed a warm-enough relationship with Roberto Mancini before Mourinho's arrival. A summer departure is likely. His agent has since denied that he might move to City, but this is a fairly resilient rumour. I'm not very enthusiastic about this move. He's clearly talented, but also troubled. This is not what we need right now. That's not to say that it won't happen, though.

Finally Luiz. He looks very good when I've seen him; he's big, quick, and technically excellent. But if he came to City he would be denying himself Champions League football next season, something he earnt by winning the Liga Sagres this year. Had we got fourth it might just have been plausible. Not anymore though.