City hatch plan to offer Robinho as bait for Chelsea's Terry
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City hatch plan to offer Robinho as bait for Chelsea captain Terry
• Club exasperated with Brazilian's problematic attitude
Manchester City's Robinho is substituted by manager Mark Hughes after performing poorly against Portsmouth.
Manchester City are giving serious consideration to selling Robinho at the end of the season and have hatched a remarkable plan to offer him as bait in a player-plus-cash exchange for the Chelsea captain John Terry.
Robinho joined City only seven months ago but the club have begun to think of him as a problem player and intend to use the Brazilian to try to pull off one of the most remarkable pieces of transfer business in the modern game.
City's information is that Terry, despite his public statements to the contrary, is not as settled at Chelsea as supporters of the London club would like to believe. City have the financial power to double his weekly £135,000 salary and their inquiries have convinced them that the England captain wants to hear about the plans of the club's owners in Abu Dhabi.
The involvement of Robinho, City's so-called 'marquee signing,' will shock the club's supporters but prominent figures in Abu Dhabi are confident that disappointment will be offset by a planned £200m recruitment programme in the summer, with David Villa, Yaya Toure, Kolo Toure and Roque Santa Cruz also on the extensive list of targets. The chairman, Khaldoon Al Mubarak, is aware that Hughes is exasperated with Robinho because of his attitude off the pitch and his perceived lack of effort on it. The matter has been discussed at length both in Abu Dhabi and Manchester and it has been decided that Robinho should leave unless he shows a significant improvement between now and the end of the season.
Hughes was impressed with Robinho's performance in the defeat of FC Copenhagen but his relationship with his most talented player has been deteriorating for some time and, if City cannot persuade Terry to leave Stamford Bridge, the club will explore the possibility of a swap deal involving Franck Ribery, the Bayern Munich player and France international, who could replace Robinho on the left side of attack. Thierry Henry, the Barcelona striker, is another confirmed target who could play in the same position.
Robinho cost £32.5m, breaking the British transfer record, when he signed from Real Madrid on the Abu Dhabi United Group's first day in power last September, and is the club's leading scorer with 12 goals in 27 appearances. The Brazilian is hugely popular with the club's supporters but his time at City has also been punctuated by a series of disciplinary issues and arguments behind the scenes, most notably when he was fined two weeks' wages - roughly £320,000 - for sneaking out of a mid-season training camp in Tenerife to fly back to Brazil before his 25th birthday.
Since then, senior figures at Eastlands have begun to view Robinho in a different light and increasingly question his commitment. Robinho, whose time at Madrid was tarnished by various disciplinary matter and clashes with authority, has repeatedly clashed with members of the coaching staff and received numerous warnings for refusing to adhere to City's dress code.
There is also evidence that some of the other players have begun to take exception to his attitude. A lot of his younger team-mates are said to look up to him but in the last couple of months some of the senior players have complained to City's management about the way he tends to disappear for long spells in away games.
One has accused him of "showing a complete lack of effort" and, at a recent team meeting, the players were taken aback when Robinho effectively told them they should do more running on his behalf so that he could score more goals. It was pointed out to him that he needed to start trying more himself and that, in the Premier League, teams could not carry "passengers". Hughes is said to be frustrated by his inability to get through to the player and, increasingly, there is a feeling that Robinho has to shoulder some of the blame for why City, who play at West Ham tomorrow, have taken only eight away points all season.
Information has also reached City that Robinho may be questioning his future in Manchester anyway. There have been persistent reports that he was keen to join Chelsea before Luiz Felipe Scolari's sacking as manager. Senior figures at City have heard likewise.
Hughes, who built his success at Blackburn Rovers on bringing together a group of hard-working players, partly attributes City's problems this season to a lack of leadership on the pitch. He has deliberately brought in more vocal players such as Craig Bellamy and Nigel de Jong and Terry has been identified as the ideal captain for a club with ambitions to challenge for the Champions League within three years. City first approached Chelsea in December and have not been put off by the insistence that Terry was not for sale.
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siao, robinho should stay man
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what for when scholari is gone? a little bit late.
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lolx Terry for Robinho , crazy
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this boy is starting to think he's the king.
really getting out of hand.
seems like most top brazilian soccer players have such problem.
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terry is like a 50m star.. robinho.. attitude problem chelsea still want?
=.=
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Robinho wasn't really that good, just that in a team like current ManC he looked like a star, who can almost do no wrong, no doubt he is pretty talented but not as good as he is made to be in ManC, for ManC to become much better and potentially be with the big boys the whole team needs to be replaced, having a "huge" star player wouldn't help them much, but my take is that the Arabs wanna show their entrance to the EPL with a big bang, hence, at the very last min try to lure in someone who is big enough to "wow" the football world, with the money they are willing to spend there will be more to come and i'll bet will be more on their potential to make ManC a much better team then for the rest to "wow' about..