Manchester City's top January transfer target Edin Dzeko has taken the remarkable step of writing to the club to say that he wants to join them.
As City consider how much they can afford to offer German club Wolfsburg for the striker in January, Sportsmail can reveal just how desperate Dzeko is to come.
It is understood that the 24-year-old Bosnia star wrote to City in August and outlined his interest in a move to Eastlands.
News of his extraordinary move will not please Wolfsburg manager Steve McClaren, but it will hearten City fans currently angry at the transfer request handed in by Carlos Tevez.
Tevez returned to City's training centre on Tuesday as requested after a four-day break in Tenerife.
The South American seemed in decent spirits as he trained with the club's second string - the team who won without him at West Ham on Saturday were given the day off.
Club sources revealed last night that Tevez had a conversation with coach David Platt but the bulk of discussions about his future will take place with Mancini when City get back from Italy on Friday.
On Tuesday night, Tevez’s representative, Kia Joorabchian, claimed it was City’s failure to continue ‘in the same direction as he (Tevez) imagined’, and also address certain unspecified ‘issues’, that led to the striker demanding a move.
‘At the end of last season Carlos was very disappointed and upset City didn’t qualify for the Champions League,’ said Joorabchian. ‘He’d seen things which had gone on in the season and made his feelings known. He felt maybe the time had come to move on but City wanted him to stay.
‘Carlos believes that he had certain promises and personal assurances made to him, which had nothing to do with money and he was let down.’
Joorabchian added: ‘They made him some promises, he made them some promises. In his view, they didn’t keep theirs and he kept his.’
Another player who will not travel to Turin is City's Italian striker Mario Balotelli. The 20-year-old is not needed for what is essentially a dead rubber and has been spared the possibility of a repeat of the recent racist insults he received when playing for his national team.
Balotelli is relieved not to have that problem in England.
He said: 'The day I arrived at City it was three black boys who asked first for my autograph, and I presented them with my white cap.
'I am proud to be black and Italian. I've learned from my family that no-one is "upside down" simply because he speaks, prays or thinks differently.
'I do not know what more I can say about these things.
'Maybe these people came to the game because they do not even have a television set at home.'
Balotelli added: 'I have learned through experience that it is better to ignore them and pretend nothing has happened but thank God I do not have to know the people who are insulting me.'
Balotelli is relieved not to have that problem in England.
He said: 'The day I arrived at City it was three black boys who asked first for my autograph, and I presented them with my white cap.
'I am proud to be black and Italian. I've learned from my family that no-one is "upside down" simply because he speaks, prays or thinks differently.
'I do not know what more I can say about these things.
'Maybe these people came to the game because they do not even have a television set at home.'
Balotelli added: 'I have learned through experience that it is better to ignore them and pretend nothing has happened but thank God I do not have to know the people who are insulting me.'
(source : daily mail)
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