Manchester City Forums

Perhaps Bianchi was right about the club being full of pissheads.

Johnson under threat as Hughes begins City shake-up
Daniel Taylor
The Guardian,
Saturday June 7 2008

Mark Hughes's determination to bring in a stricter regime at Manchester City will place two of his more influential players under scrutiny amid the first concerns within the club about the lifestyle of Michael Johnson and, surprisingly, Elano. Hughes's early inquiries have led him to believe there is room for improvement with both players.

Johnson, Hughes has learned, has become a familiar face on Manchester's nightlife scene and, after an impressive breakthrough season under Sven-Goran Eriksson, it is suggested that everything has started to go to his head. If so the England Under-21 midfielder may be in for a rude awakening.

The former Blackburn Rovers manager is unlikely to be impressed that Johnson apparently believes he should be earning £1m-plus a year. City believe a player of 20 should be satisfied with £20,000 a week, but there is a feeling within the club that Johnson and his advisers believe he could earn more elsewhere. With everything added together, well placed sources have indicated that City would give serious thought to selling him if one of his admirers, notably Liverpool and Tottenham Hotspur, made a £12m bid.

Liverpool, however, have made it clear that Aston Villa's Gareth Barry is their first target. Hughes, moreover, is unlikely to want to sell one of his better players, but it has become clear that City do not regard Johnson in the same way as Micah Richards, whom they will fight vigorously to keep. In the case of Elano, there are concerns about his alleged fondness for late nights out. A delegation from City is in Brazil this weekend trying to persuade his compatriot Ronaldinho to join the club.

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Manchester City - No longer a "hole-in-the-sock" sort of club.

Hmmmm...interesting.

Perhaps he's just saying it all to try and pull better performances out of the them both? They know they can do better?

Who's saying what? There are no quotations in the whole article, which tends to hint that it's a load of crap.

Elano has only ever seemed down-to-earth to me. He has his wife and children over here, his mum visits regularly and never wants to leave - doesn't sound like the lifestyle of a party animal to me really!

Johnson is definitely worth keeping, It would make no sense if we sell him to Liverpool, when they are probably the team most likely to drop out of the top four - exactly where we want to be. I think the article is probably trying to stir things up. Probably a Tottenham-or-Liverpool-supporting-journalist who wrote it.

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And we'll die in the class that we're born, but its a class of our own my love

Yeah just what i was thinking, he doesn't seem the type

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When i get sad, i stop being sad and be awesome instead.....true story.

I know Johnson is hearted a lot by people here, but if city were offered anywhere near 12 million, I'd rip their fucking hand off.

I really wouldn't. I think he's got the potential to be the engine of our side for years to come. I know it's still potential but he is one I'd desperately want to stay.

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[color="DimGray"]
I been a star since Pat Benatar[/color]

Why though? We don't need the money. I don't see where you are coming from with this, we can afford to keep hold of our best players now.

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And we'll die in the class that we're born, but its a class of our own my love

I know you feel that way. And I must be missing something if he's being coveted by the clubs that we're led to believe and for that amount of money. I just dont see the impact he has that would reflect him being talked about in those terms. I'm quite prepared to be wrong though. Eager even.

He's our Scholes, our Gerrard. We can be great with him in the team. Every great team needs one. I wouldn't sell him for 20mil. Could set us back years.

Mental

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A double-bed and a stalwart lover, for sure
These are the riches of the poor

Concur he's the heartbeat of the team when he plays, 12 millions a joke, Anderson was 20 million and johnson has the potential to be far better than him

It's too much to expect him to sustain an impact throughout the whole season at this stage, he's only just broken through. Not many players make that much of an impact straight away, it's all about potential. He has shown enough when he has had good games to suggest that as he matures and gets more consistency he can be a really good player for us. Providing he doesn't actually turn into Billy-Big-Bollocks as that article suggests.

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[color="Red"]Keeper of the heretic's fork of doom [/color]

These are the cries of the carrots.

Concur unless he wants to go we should keep him at all cost plus if by some miracle this 6 plus 5 rule goes through he'll be one of the most valuable players in the league

I was thinking the same thing. If the rule does go through our academy would make us serious challengers for the title, and certainly make us a shed load of money.

Top player.

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I raped myself once. My mind was telling me no but my body, my body was telling me yes.

That said though, I still wouldn't want that rule to come in.

HHmmm I was really against this rule and think sepp blatter and platini are twats but when you put it like that go Sepp, Surely wont go through the quality of our league would go down considerably and its illegal

I was trying to decide if it would be good or not. Would it even up the league somewhat, or just mean that the very best players went to the top clubs anyway? My guess is it would benefit the lower division teams who tend not to have foreign stars anyway and would make more money out of their youth systems, but wouldn;t make a huge difference to the prem.

They do get in the way a bit though, and often they are offside all by themselves.

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[color="Red"]Keeper of the heretic's fork of doom [/color]

These are the cries of the carrots.

ive met Elano and his wife and she isnt a bimbo or anything and they seem really nice. however i know elano gets with other girls on nights out. my girlfriend is brazilian and often finds herself at the same parties as the south american footballers and she told me about him, he was there with nani and nani's brother at a VIP party at Tiger Tiger with another woman, which i dont like.

also i saw Johnson out last season. It was the day before the first game he missed due to abdominal problems and was out drinking in the Birdcage. Which i thought was a bit strange.