TRANSFER NEWS:MANCHESTER CITY have responded to David Moyes' public insistence he will not sell Joleon Lescott by trying to call the Everton manager's bluff with a first official offer for the player. The Eastlands club made a bid of €17.5m yesterday.
The offer is likely to be rejected but Everton are aware City have the financial muscle to follow up with an improved financial package. The biggest spenders in the English game have been encouraged to think Lescott is keen to join a club who seem determined to buy their way into the Champions League.
City have spent a total of €63m on Carlos Tevez, Roque Santa Cruz and Gareth Barry this summer and hope to continue manager Mark Hughes’s spree by concluding a €29m deal for Emmanuel Adebayor shortly.
The Arsenal striker has requested time to consider joining the “project” that is rapidly gathering momentum at Eastlands but City received positive indications from the player’s camp yesterday and he is expected to fly out to join Hughes’s squad on their 10-day pre-season tour of South Africa.
City will then seek to reinforce their defence with the acquisition of two centre-halves. The first official bid for Lescott underlines Hughes’s belief the England international is needed as a partner, rather than a back-up, for Chelsea’s John Terry, the club’s principal defensive target.
Hughes, who flew to Johannesburg after a day of public appearances with Tevez, Barry, Santa Cruz and Stephen Ireland in Abu Dhabi, shows no sign of relenting in his attempts to create a potential top-four team. There is a belief that Moyes’ insistence that Lescott is going nowhere will count for less if City go as high as €23m.
Even then, however, they may face opposition from Moyes, judging by the Everton manager’s robust words at a shareholders’ forum on Wednesday night.
“I have already said there will be no players sold at Everton and I do not feel I need to say any more,” Moyes said. “The board have never sold a player from me, it will only be at my discretion. I said it at the end of the season and I do not need to say any more.”
The Abu Dhabi royal family has underlined its long-term commitment to City by investing in a multimillion-pound warm-weather training facilityso that City can have a winter break each year.
City, meanwhile, have been “appalled” by a “fabricated” story that Sheikh Mansour presented their players in Abu Dhabi with a €200,000 watch each.
GuardianService
