A rare peek at a £19 million Premier League striker currently training at Teresopolis before Brazil’s games against Chile and Bolivia in a World Cup 2010 qualifying soccer match next week. You can have a bet on it here. This is the other Brazilian that Manchester City bought, although he has been used sparingly as a sub at the Olympics and City have generously alloweed him to to be playing on September 10 which is just five days before Chelsea slip into Eastlands, so he may be a a shade jet lagged. La Paz is only a 14 hour flight to London plus four hours check in at Heathrow…

Bet on Manchester City v Chelsea

After a hard day’s negotiations between United and City, Dimitar Berbatov is back with his national side Bulgaria at Vassil Levski stadium in Sofia  training for their World Cup Group Eight qualifying soccer match against Montenegro on Wednesday. Manchester United’s expensive new acquisition will be a new dimension in Alex Ferguson’s arsenal, althouhg it was intrioguing that Manchester City said they would have paid for both Berbatov and Robinho had the bids been accepted which is a partnership that might have produced some free flowing football, but alas will be unlikely to happen now.

In Madrid Robinho’s sale will be met by whistles not for the players of the coach but the club president Ramon Calderon. He leaves a gap on the left side of the team that Arjen Robben will be expected to fill but as both Chelsea and the Holland national team Robben is injured too often to be counted on to sign for his supper each week. It was Robinho who supplied the exctra magic that brought enough 1-0 wins to ensure the Liga title. What the Madridistas expected was striker because both Ruud Van Nistelroy and Raul are the wrong side of 30. What they got was Van der Vaart in midfield.

Calderon seems to have offended everyone. By courting Ronaldo and using Robinho as a make-weight he engineered the outcome he got without getting his star buy. By selling to Manchester City, he has offended Chelsea.

As for Robinho, it will be fascinating to see if he can integrate into the Premier League. For a Brazilian unhappy in Madrid, hopefully his agents will have pointed out that where Manchester has great clubs it is also miserable, cold and rainy and not just in November. Will he cope with Carling Cup nights at Barnsley and Bolton, although significantly he has said that the teaming up with fellow Brazilians Jo and Elano was a deciding factor. Although was it not Elano who went missing after the clocks went back last October?

Two goals on your homecoming to manchester City and then what happens, they go and splash out £32 million on Robinho. There were more than a few echoes of Roman Abramovich’s early spending on his arrival at Chelsea because surely Wright-Phillips and Robino are very similar styles of player? Except one can control the ball.

Al Fahim holds up the City shirt

Every time you fill up your pretrol tank you can be glad that you may be funding Manchester City’s future purchases in the January transfer window. Literally the name means the Father of the Gazelle. The city is modern, over populated, dynamic and the country is desserrt and oil perched on the Sahara. Oil was found in 1958 and helped by the British the present dynasty was founded. Before that the main industry was camel herding. The actual city itself is built on an island in the Persian Gulf and most of the population are immi8grant workers brought in vfrom across Asia to build the new city.