But even when you flee for a week away with the family there really is no getting away from the game in general, and City in particular.
Especially in Northern Italy where, upon learning about my occupation from a loose- tongued fellow guest, the owner of the family-run hotel where I was staying punctuated his spells between reading `Gazzetta dello Sport' and filling up his carafe of wine with the words `Ronaldinho for Milan'.
He didn't speak much English but it was clear that the sports mad proprietor expected his favoured Rossoneri to sign the Brazilian ahead of the Blues.
At which point I found myself saying - under my breath - that I just wish the former world player of the year would quickly join someone and stop the saga of his drawn out departure from Barcelona slowly going around in ever-decreasing circles.
Maybe my wish could be about to come true. A report in the La Stampa yesterday quoted AC Milan vice-president Adriano Galliani as saying: "Ronaldinho has rejected the offer of Manchester City despite them offering twice as much as we can."
But he followed that by adding: The problem is the wages. For us to be able to afford him, the transfer fee would have to be close to nothing."
Ronaldinho's future has become a soap opera to rival those other hardy summer staples Ronaldo and Adebayor for its diminishing boredom threshold.
Let's be clear that City's owner Thaksin Shinawatra and executive chairman Garry Cook should be praised for setting their sights so high and reaching out for the best that is available.
But at some point, and surely that time is drawing ever nearer, they must say enough is enough.
Decision
The wooing and cooing has to cease its seemingly endless loop and Ronaldinho has to be told to stop fluttering his eyelashes and make a decision.
The Blues have made it perfectly obvious to the extraordinarily talented World Cup winner that they see him as the talisman for a new dawn at Eastlands - the exciting, effervescent hub around which the Blues could mount a sustained bid for a place at English football's top table.
If that kind of respect and adoration, coupled with wages that would make Croesus blink and then rub his hands in anticipation, aren't enough to persuade Ronaldinho to immediately move to the North West of England, then it is surely time to call it quits.
All the stalling and dallying only leads one to assume that City have been used a stalking horse and if so that's a shame because the Blues are better than that.
There are more pressing issues that need addressing in the squad and the Ronaldinho money could be spent elsewhere plugging the obvious gaps in a group that is top heavy with strikers and lacking the depth and balance it will need to fight on four fronts with any degree of sustained success. A dashing right winger to balance Martin Petrov and supply new record signing Jo is a priority with the shortlist containing the names of England internationals David Bentley, Aaron Lennon, Shaun Wright-Phillips and Turkey's Colin Kazim-Richards.
Recruits
There is also the little matter of a couple of holding midfielders. In the second half of last season, the Blues became too much style and not enough substance. They were brittle and teams battling for their lives took advantage by knocking them out of their elegant style.
Boss Mark Hughes must be allowed to get to grips with that and inject some more steel into the engine room. Once that is done he can set his stall out to bring in more defensive recruits with the full back positions needing cover and an experienced goalkeeper required to complement the youthful brilliance of Joe Hart and Kasper Schmeichel. All of those positions should become a higher priority than signing Ronaldinho.
His signature should be the icing on the cake not the contents of the whole baking tin and while City have given him a deadline to say `yes' or `no' to their offer. It might help everyone get a clearer picture if that was brought forward so that everyone can focus on the good of the team as a whole.
City is bigger than any one player even if he was once the best on the planet. Make your mind up Ron - sharpish! Tweet
Comments
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Well said Mr Bailey. Good to see that you have been taking note some of the better comments made on these threads.
The thing is though it needs someone from the club to publicly state this. If Goofy is coming then get him to say so by Wednesday. If not then plan B which in all honesty should be better than Plan A.
Clearly Milan can't afford and we are the only bidder therefore let's play hardball with his transfer fee. That is assuming the new president of Barcelona wants rid of him.
If the new president of Barcelona still sees Goofy as an integral part of the team and coach Schuster doesn't then it opens a whole new can of worms at that club.
And we thought that we had problems!
Agreed....we should give him an ultimatum and then move on, making it official that we were no longer interested.
He is obviously not interested in us so i don't see a problem.
I personally don't think he would be a type of player that Hughes (being a disciplinarian) would get on with.
Agree totally with this article. The squad is hopelessly unbalanced and will struggle with or without Ronalddinho unless some real bite is introduced into midfield. I'm sure MH appreciates this although whether he is given the wherewithal to deal with it is another matter.
Maybe we should sign this Croesus dude instead.
Some good points,I think this just shows Mr cook how far he has to raise our profile before we can tempt players like this.Lets just put this to bed now,its mindblowingly numb.Lets go all out for Bentley or wright phillips and a decent leftback
At the moment he is more like 12oz of butter than the icing on the cake.
One other thing has not changed since you have been away Mr Bailey - the complete inability of the muen to write an original story or one which does not involve regurgitating old news or stories already published elsewhere.
Extremely interesting and illuminating to hear about your holiday - maybe the snaps will be published in tomorrow's ground breaking muen?
I hope he says no. I just feel he would be an expensive disaster.
Helloooooooo!!! He HAS made his mind up. He does not want to play for us. Best for all to just stop goin' on about it. It's just boring really, and has been for at least the last month.
I still don't get this "give him an ultimatum". As has been said before this will probably be his last big move so the guy wants to get it right. Even the most ardent City fan has to admit we don't have the cachet of a Milan or other big European club and the guy is used to playing in Europe so coming to the prem is a risk for him and coming to a prem club not in the CL would be a bigger risk. Frank, GC and MH aren't fools and they will have in place in any offer the premise that he doesn't just turn up here for the money. Lets just leave the offer on the table, if he turns it down in favour of less money at Milan then fair enough or if the change of president means he says where he is then OK. City have at least made the offer which no other club seems to have at the moment and at the end of the day if it's the only offer he gets then he has to seriously consider it.
CTID
I was under the impression that he had already made his mind up and he had rejecte city. Not too disappointed to be honest and do agree re the "icing on the cake" statement.
On the right sided winger as I've said before I think that the three English players (with the exception of SWP possibly) are overpriced. Kazim-Richards had a few good games and would be a good squad player but no more.
Honest enough article Chris but most of your info happened whilst you were in Italy reading Gazzetta dello Sport and forgot to log on. I wouldnt worry too much as we all managed moan about the usual issues that we read elswhere the day before MUEN decided to post them!!
Welcome back, now go out and get some solid info!!
How many other City fans have had more than their fill of Ronaldinho linked waffle on this site.Tell us how Bojinov,Bianchi,Stephen Ireland and others are surviving under Mark Hughes's training regime in Austria or hopeful new deals
Chris Bailey
You say you are getting bored of this whole transfer, Well may I point out that its you lot in the media who are making it boring with your endless speculation and the regurgitating of all this drivel. Just wait like the rest of us for him to say ya or nay. All this article seems to me is the re-hash of most of the comments posted by us city fans over that last several weeks. You need to get off your backside and go get a real story for once.
P.s. Hope you had a nice holiday
CITY1SCUM0, SCUM1CITY2, IMPECCABLE, MANCHESTER
That's a bit harsh, besides, they'll be on other sites later today so why wait until tomorrow??!
woolleyback blue, Heart of the City
I dont think we have the option to "leave the offer on the table". That money will be needed elsewhere. There's not much in the pot and if he's going elsewhere then they should say as from Friday the offer is withdrawn. Then they can focus resource and money elsewhere.
I dont think we ever had a chance of signing him because he wants to play in Italy, but the good thing to come out of all this, is that people took City very seriously and didn't laugh and joke at us..... this quite clearly shows just how far we have come in the last couple of years.
I think City should concentrate on more managable signings. Bentley would be good, but i get the impression he wants to go to London, but if not Bentley, why not SWP.... surely he would love to come back to City instead of going to Pompey or Villa.
Apparently all will be revealed on the 17th July at 13.30.45674 SECONDS.
“Alright I made the second half up !!!”
According to Skysports News the presidential elections at the Camp Neu mean that the status quo remains the same until 2012. Since the president has said that Ronny does not figure in his plans, that means that he is going to be transferred. So give him 48 hours then move on City.
I would sooner get 4 good players in on £50k a week
We could let Giles have a word is ear,the silver tongued cavilier will be able to sway the most reluctant to see the
light .
Ha ha well said CITY1SCUM0, SCUM1CITY2, IMPECCABLE.
Now that Ronny has give us the brush off here's my ideal (in reasonable terms)
team to start the first game of the season:
HArt
Corluka
Dunne
Richards
Garrido*
Petrov
Johnson
Annan
Lennon
ELano
Jo
SUbs (From)
Castillo
Bianchi
Fernandes
Ireland
Hamman
Onuoha
Etuhu
Evans
Sturrige
Schemeical
I'd like to see us make Annan and Lennon our strict priorities.
*I still think Garrido has a future - until he had a mare in the CArling cup ant home v spurs (caused by Lennon I may add) he'd had 1 poor game which was away at Chelsea. After the Spurs game he seemed to fall out of favour but put in a couple of great left midfield performances in cameo sub appearances and will be all the better for having 12 months under his belt.
...and I forgot BOJ!!
I would have thought the first people to be told about any rejection of an offer from City, would be the City hierachy, and not Milan's. What is coming out of Milan smacks more of them trying to negotiate down a transfer fee they both a). cannot afford, and b). are dubious about paying for a player who has maybe doubts over fitness/attitude.
With that in mind, and bearing in mind Milan are only in the Uefa Cup, as are City, I dont think its as cut and dried that he is going to Milan as is now being touted.
I am at the point though where I am not overly Arshavin'd where he ends up. I would much sooner see more of the deadwood being shown the door over the next ten days or so, and the club cracking on with addressing the obvious lack of balance in the squad.
Personally i don't think City have anything to feel embarrassed about.
At least we are showing that we mean business and we want the best. OK at this early stage we will get a few knockbacks because we haven't got the all important track record of success and you can't buy that.
It's inevitable and we've got to take it on the chin.
But for every two or three world class players who turn us down there will be one who takes a chance on us and we'll build a squad on that basis. As someone on here said the other day, you've got to speculate to accumulate and you don't win the lottery without buying a ticket etc etc....
I'm sure it was the same for Chelsea in the early days of their metamorphosis. I'm sure they made approaches for players, who thought, "Chelsea? Ugh no, who are they?"
Its going to take time. We've got to walk before we can run.
But hopefully the day will eventually come when everyone wants to play for us.
Sod the rags. Anyway, all the piss taking will make it all the sweeter when we do start throwing it back in their faces.