City confirm Ade talks, more bad news for Hartson & Vieira must not go to Spurs 15 July, 2009

With the first pre-season friendly just three days away and all the breaking news about Man City’s interest in Emmanuel Adebayor it seems like the summer quiet period is officially over. Things are about to hot up, especially if Ade’s transfer does go through as it’ll leave us £25m in pocket with a striker and/or central midfielder to buy. It’s been a long and enduring summer but it looks as if those no-news days are over.

Yesterday Carlos Tevez was unveiled as a Manchester City player and at the press conference Mark Hughes confirmed there has been talks with Arsenal over Adebayor. It’s early days yet but the City manager has confirmed they are indeed interested:

“I think there have been discussions between ourselves and Arsenal but as is my usual response to questions about players we haven’t yet signed, it’s not really the right time or place to discuss it.

Yes, there has been contact. There is a deal to be done, possibly. But it’s not been concluded as we speak here. Until that actually happens it’s not really the time or the place.”

Since then, the BBC have told us Ade has passed a medical at City. Now the BBC are usually quite good at bringing football news, they do it quickly and accurately but I can’t help but think they’ve jumped the gun here. It sounds a bit early for the medical to be done and there’s nothing in that story more than the headline to suggest it has happened. I don’t know, we’ll see.

If they are correct though then we could see a deal being completed as early as today. If City are actually still interested then I see a transfer going through more realistically in the next seven days. I’ll leave all my final thoughts for Adebayor once a deal is announced sicne there’s other news to cover first.

I told you the sad news of John Hartson being diagnosed with cancer a couple of days ago, well I’m afraid I’ve got more bad news. It was initially testicular cancer that had spread to the brain, well today we’re being told that it has spread to his lungs, and he is having emergency brain surgery. Now I don’t know all the details but that alone does not sound good to me. Hopefully the ‘emergency’ brain surgery is to get in early to give him better chances rather than anything more serious.

His family have released a statement today thanking everyone for their kind words and that they are drawing strength from the support. I’m sure it will have been passed on to John how fans of his many clubs have reacted to the news and hopefully it will drive him on in his fight.

You thought the news of Birmingham’s interest in Patrick Vieira was wrong, well it’s gets worse. The Daily Mail have linked him with a move to Tottenham and even have the cheek to mock up a photo of him in a Spurs shirt and suggest he will take a massive pay-cut to ‘prove his commitment’. Fuck. Right. Off. I believe in Paddy that he would laugh off any offer from Tottenham. Alright he flirted with other clubs a bit whilst he was with us but I still believe he is an Arsenal man.

The Independent are even suggesting that he is interested in the move. I don’t believe it for one second but I would like to hear Redknapp say whether he’s interested of not. Just simply so PV4 can tell them to fuck off.

Arsenal.com have announced a bit of team news for the Barnet game this weekend. They’ve said the squad will include some players that returned to training on 7th July plus some reserves and youngsters. It’s pretty much what I was expecting really; in recent years it has been a strong-ish starting line up and ended up being a complete side of reserves, giving a bit of a run out to everyone. Vermaelen, Rosicky, Eduardo, Senderos and Traore could all be in the team and it would be nice to see them play, especially Tomas Rosicky who I think most people have almost forgotten about. On Friday if there’s not too much other news around I should be able to write the first official match preview of the season. Exciting stuff!

The club have also announced details of this years Member’s Day open training session which will be held on Tuesday 4th August. I think I missed it last year but I’m in London for the Emirates Cup the weekend before so I might try get a couple extra days off work and hang around for it.

Right then bit of a long one today but there was a lot of news, which makes a change. There’s bound to be more developments tomorrow so stick around. Thanks for reading.