Reports in Italy are claiming that Roberto Mancini has nipped in ahead of Jose Mourinho to sign Kenyan midfielder McDonald Mariga from Parma.
The 22-year-old is 6′ 2″ and unsurprisingly has been hailed as a “new Vieira”. He joined Parma in 2007, initially on loan from Helsinborgs in Sweden. Following Parma’s promotion to Serie A he continued to impress and could now be set to move. He appears 1 min 28 secs into this video and scores twice.
The deal is said to be 7 million euros plus Bojinov, who is currently on loan at Parma. Although it’s hard to gauge the accuracy of any figures at the moment.
Mancini has openly been looking for a midfield alternative to de Jong and Barry. With Flamini set to stay in Milan and City refusing to pay over the odds for Gago, it looks like we may have switched targets again as the transfer window draws to a close.
It is stated policy at City to ‘work through a list’ of targets if the top one becomes unavailable. It happened in the Summer when we switched from Eto to Adebayor, and last January when Lassana Diarra became Nigel de Jong.
Having seen Robinho and Weiss leave on loan, it would be nice to see players arrive in the next couple of days, if only to ensure the squad isn’t weaker at the end of January than it was at the start!
If I had to speculate on who we might end up with, I’d currently say Johnson from Boro, Motta (loan) from Roma and a midfielder, who now could be Mariga. Cassano is a long shot, but would be interesting. Benjani is the only senior player looking likely to leave, with Sunderland the latest to show interest.
- I confess my knowledge of Kenyan midfielders recently playing in Serie B isn’t all it could be, so any additional information on Mariga would be appreciated. Please comment below.