• 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.