Kevin De Bruyne appears to be openly touting his availability to potential suitors, while Manchester City play the long game in their intensifying courtroom battle. Gary Lemke highlights a few talking points ahead of the weekend’s football.
£300K A WEEK NOT ENOUGH FOR DE BRUYNE?
We knew that “silly season” starts as soon as the final whistle blows at the end of the last playing season, but even by these standards, it’s getting ridiculous. Kevin De Bruyne (or/and) his agent are openly touting their availability to leave Manchester City at the end of 2024/25 and play in Saudi Arabia for “more money in one year than all the last 15 years combined,” he apparently said.
“His wife gave the OK,” screamed another headline this week. Let’s see how she enjoys life in Saudi Arabia. And De Bruyne himself? He’s into the last season of a 300k-a-week deal at City.
THE MANAGERS’ CASHING IN TOO
We mentioned last week the improbability of Chelsea’s new manager Enzo Maresca seeing out his five-year contract, which suggests that while Todd Boehly is a billionaire, there’s no fool like an old fool. But, the £10m that Chelsea paid to Leicester for Maresca only ranked fifth on the list of most expensive payouts.
The top ones are (by club to former club): Julian Nagelsmann (£21.7m Bayern to RB Leipzig, Graham Potter (£21.5m Chelsea to Brighton), Andre Villas-Boas (£13.2m Chelsea to Porto), Vincent Kompany (£10.2m Bayern to Burnley), Maresca, Arne Slot (£9.42m Liverpool to Feyenoord) and Brendan Rodgers (£8.8m Leicester to Liverpool).
CITY PLAYING THE LONG GAME ON CHARGES
Man City themselves have tabled a 165-page legal document in response to the 115 charges relating to Financial Fair Play breaches labelled at them. From Monday, the next fortnight involving City and the Premier League will be dedicated to a hearing whereby City will be arguing that they’re being discriminated against being a club owned by Middle East investors.
The breakdown of City’s 115 charges include: Failure to provide accurate financial information from 2009 to 2018 (54), Failure to cooperate with the Premier League investigation from 2018 to now (35) and Failure to provide accurate financials of players and managers 2009-2018 (14).
HAALAND GOES PAST KANE ON HAT-TRICK LIST
Erling Haaland bagged a hat-trick for Norway as they beat Kosovo 3-0 in a friendly this week. It’s bizarre that Norway aren’t one of 24 qualifiers for the upcoming Euro 2024. However, that hasn’t stopped Haaland from continuing his form for club and country.
His hat-trick was the 22nd of his career, which is one more than Harry Kane has hit for club and country. Nine of Haaland’s hat-tricks have come for Man City. Stats are inconsistent when trying to establish who has the most career hat-tricks (at a top level), but Cristiano Ronaldo must surely be up there?
DARTS STAR OFFERS TEN HAAG VERDICT
Much of the past while has been the discussion around Man United manager Erik ten Haag’s future. At best, one would think it’s up in the air and many “reliable sources” were flooding social media saying that his sacking was imminent. But, with so many experts around, let’s consider the opinion of darts sensation Luke Littler, a United fan.
“I just think we should keep him. Because we’re getting these managers for a year or two and they’re not doing anything. So if we give them time things might change. I like what he does. Just give him time. Give him next season and if he doesn’t do ought, let him go.” Littler is, after all, 17.
WILD TALES OF LATE EPL PLAYER’S ‘DOUBLE LIFE’
With the winter closing in, if you’re looking for an intriguing time on the couch with some popcorn, find ”The Footballer, His Wife and the Crash”. It’s a jaw-dropping account of the life of former Aston Villa and Bolton player Jlloyd Samuel.
He died in a car crash in 2018. A month later his wife of his three children was told that he had also converted to Islam and was also married to an Iranian singer. Filmed in 2022, the documentary is now available. For seven years Samuel lived a double life. Despite converting to Islam, which he practised while in Iran, the coroner ruled that he had twice the legal amount of alcohol in his system after dying in the car crash.