TRANSFER NEWS: MANCHESTER CITY have made a formal, €30 million bid for Barcelona striker Samuel Eto'o and put together a "stratospheric offer" to make him the highest-paid player in English football.

Eto’o, one of the most prolific attackers of his generation and the scorer of the first goal when Barcelona beat Manchester United in last season’s Champions League final, will earn a weekly salary in the region of €210,000 if he can be persuaded to take part in the next phase of City’s relentless and financially-driven campaign to be recognised as one of Europe’s elite clubs.

The capture of such an acclaimed player would be another significant coup for City, but it also tells only part of the story, with manager Mark Hughes on the verge of taking his spending through the €230 million mark by signing Carlos Tevez to play alongside Eto’o.

Both have told City they want to join the revolution and, if everything goes according to plan, City will have taken their summer spending to €94 million by the time the players report back for pre-season training a week today.

“Eto’o has a stratospheric offer from City, which would convert him into the best-paid player in the world,” Barcelona’s president, Joan Laporta, said. “It’s starting to become clear that he has this monster offer.

“He wants to stay, but an offer like this is very difficult to refuse. If Eto’o accepts this stratospheric offer, we will have to bring in someone. If Eto’o accepts Manchester City’s mammoth offer, we will need another striker.”

The man Barcelona want is David Villa at Valencia, once a target of Hughes until it became clear he wanted to stay in Spain, while Laporta said a deal for the 20-year-old Keirrison of Palmeiras was close to being agreed, the reported fee being €15 million.

City have remained determined to bring in another established superstar and a €30 million offer is worthy of Laporta’s superlatives, given that the player is 28 and in the final year of his contract.

Over a five-year contract Eto’o would earn around €53 million which, contrary to what Laporta says, is not as lucrative as some of the salaries on offer at Real Madrid. But it would see him replace Robinho as the best-paid player in the Premier League and might make up for any misgivings the Cameroonian has about joining a club that will not be involved in Europe next season.

City have already signed Roque Santa Cruz for €20 million from Blackburn Rovers and, with Tevez, Robinho, Craig Bellamy, Stephen Ireland and Shaun Wright-Phillips all on board, Hughes would then have legitimate claims to boasting one of the most exciting and dangerous attacking line-ups of any club in the world.

Tevez’s two-year loan agreement at Manchester United officially expires tomorrow and the Argentine has provisionally agreed a €165,000-a-week contract to move across the city.

Ironically, the first-team place he craves may now be anything but guaranteed, but Tevez must also be impressed by City’s ambition at a time when the club’s billionaire owners in Abu Dhabi are living up to their promise to back Hughes’s judgment in the transfer market.

Meanwhile, Fernando Torres has revealed he has recommended three of his Spanish compatriots to Liverpool boss Rafael Benitez.

The Spain striker believes the club need “small players with quality” to finally wrest the Premier League title from Manchester United and would like Benitez to sign David Silva, Juan Mata or David Villa from Valencia.

“English football is very difficult because it’s very physical and played at a high tempo,” Torres said. “We have a fantastic team to play against the big teams and we are competitive. But maybe against those teams lower down we are not good enough. We have to improve that and I think we can.

“I think we can definitely be stronger at home. We have some very good players but maybe we need other players. I hope Liverpool will bring people like Silva, Mata or Villa. These are small players with quality like United had with Carlos Tevez and also with Paul Scholes.

“They are clever players and maybe they can make the difference. Yossi Benayoun plays like these kind of players and I hope we can bring more like that so then we have different options to play against all the sides.”

Guardian Service