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Thursday, July 26, 2007

It just gets better

First we pinch Geovanni from under the nose of Harry Redknapp, then we beat Spurs to the signing of Martin Petrov.

The Independent claims the £4.7m (€7m) fee 'is likely to rise towards the £6m mark', which fits with the Sky Sports story on Wednesday that claimed Spurs had offered £6m (€9m).

You can see his career stats at Sky Stats Centre (listed under Atletico Madrid). They show that the 28-year-old Bulgarian has a career-total 55 goals in 253 league games, including 12 goals in 30 games in his last season at Wolfsburg in 04-05.


Petrov missed most of last season after suffering a knee ligament injury in October, but returned in April and played the last seven league games, scoring once.


I'm also trying to remember the last time we signed a naturally left-sided midfielder. Riera was the last one we brought to the club in January 2006, though he was only on loan. I think I'm right in saying that the last true left-winger we bought was Mark Kennedy, who was signed from Wimbledon for £1m in July 1999.

~ There's some more detail about Petrov at this Atletico Madrid blog, which rates the player very highly.

~ YouTube clips; Wikipedia; Sky news archive.





The most politically incorrect team ever?



News that City are to give trials to three Thai internationals made me curious about what football was like in Thailand.

A bit different from ours, it turns out.

This year's league winners are the gloriously-named Thailand Tobacco Monopoly, who play in a 2,500 capacity stadium. I suspect the team might not even be allowed to play in the UK, given the restrictions on tobacco advertising.

There's something of a gap in wages, too. One of the players coming for a trial at City, 25-year-old right back Suree Sukha, earns 30,000 baht a month at his club Chon Buri, which is just under £100-per-week

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Best of luck with Petrov. I've always rated him higly and he was most unfortunate to suffer that horrific knee injury last season.

Do you think he'll be a regular starter? Or do City have another left-winger in their squad?

Anonymous said...

Sven has spent just over £17 million on four quality players thats about the equivalent to one Darren Bent.... I know which I would sooner have.....keep 'em coming Sven...

Andrew said...

atleti,

We desperately needed a left winger, so Petrov will be a certain starter this season