It is pretty clear by this point that the man Roberto Mancini wanted to bring in this January was Roma midfielder Daniele De Rossi, however convincing him to leave his boyhood club was always going to be difficult. It would now appear that the Italian international will see out the rest of his career in the capital after he signed a new contract, effectively ending our interest. Clearly this suggests that Bobby has identified a new midfielder as being crucial to the sides ongoing development and according to reports in recent days the club are now ready to put plan b into action.
The man they are apparently looking to is Spanish international and incredibly highly regarded Javi Martinez. The Spaniard began his career at Osasuna but never appeared for their first team, he was snapped up by Athletic Bilbao for €6million in the Summer of 2006 at the age of just 17. The defensive midfielder became a regular in the team from his debut season and has been more or less an ever present.
The Sun (as well as numerous other media outlets) are claiming that we are ready to offer £25million for his services, now that might sound steep but when you consider that the 23 year old already has a World Cup winners medal and that he has been courted by the likes of Real Madrid, Liverpool and Manchester United it begins to look a little more realistic.
There are however a couple of stumbling blocks, there is the competition from other clubs, but it is thought that the presence of David Silva (an international colleague) could help persuade him to move to the blue side of Manchester. The other issue is the price, it is said that the money men at Eastlands are unwilling to offer more than £25million despite Bilbao expecting a figure closer to £34million which is stated as the release clause in his contract, it remains to be seen whether there is any chance of meeting in the middle.
In footballing terms, Martinez would be a great addition, the box to box player would be able to take some of the strain off the shoulders of Yaya Toure and clearly he is of the very highest quality and for that reason, he would be a superb acquisition. It is always interesting to note that this season the Spanish international has been deployed as a central defender on a fairly regular basis and that is another quality that should make him an attraction proposition.
In many ways I would prefer to have Martinez than De Rossi, he might not be as good as the Italian yet, but at 23 he has the vast majority of his career ahead of him and I believe he would have a better understanding of our style of play and for that reason I think he could be the ideal man to supplement our midfield.
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