It’s not exactly been the best of seasons so far for the plethora of experienced Premier League defenders who hotfooted it to Italy in the summer.
Ashley Cole did not even make the bench for Roma’s crucial Champions League tie against Manchester City on Tuesday, while Patrice Evra has been restricted to just six appearances for Juventus in Serie A so far. Micah Richards, meanwhile, has played for just 162 minutes in Fiorentina’s rather fetching purple shirt and was last spotted endorsing a Manchester-based electrical firm on Twitter.
But if you want evidence that Italian football these days isn’t the soft touch everyone says it is then spare a thought for poor Nemanja Vidic. After giving away a penalty in a 4-1 defeat on his Internazionale debut, the former Manchester United captain has only been on the winning side twice in his nine appearances so far and was dropped by new boss Roberto Mancini last month.
So the Daily Star’s claim that the tough-tackling Serbian with a penchant for picking up red cards against Liverpool could be set for a shock move back to Old Trafford is perhaps not that surprising given Louis van Gaal’s defensive woes at the moment. Having declared in flawless Italian on his unveiling at Internazionale back in July that “I should have arrived to Italy many years ago,” Vidic may have some serious backtracking to do if he does swap the San Siro for Salford.
If United are struggling to find a space in their squad for him then friendly old Gus Poyet may have a solution. The Sunderland manager has kindly offered to help £250,000-a-week Radamel Falcao build up the strength in his dodgy knees by turning out for the Blacks Cats until the end of the season. How considerate.
Liverpool look like they could face a struggle to keep Raheem Sterling after the England winger reportedly turned down a new £70,000-a-week deal to stay at Anfield. Real Madrid are waiting in the wings and hope that the promise of sitting next to Javier Hernández on the bench will be enough to persuade him to leave Anfield.
Elsewhere, Charlie Adam has been honest enough to admit that yes, he would actually quite fancy swapping a winter in Stoke for the delights of San Sebastián. David Moyes is reportedly desperate to snap up the Scotland star for Real Sociedad and having been something of a peripheral figure so far this season, Adam clearly has his reasons for looking overseas.
“There’s better weather than here,” he told the Stoke Sentinel. “I would love the experience of playing abroad because it’s certainly something different. Hopefully, more British players will go and do it.”
Away from the big-hitters and with Leicester’s defence looking leakier than a sieve, Nigel Pearson has identified Hull’s Curtis Davies as the man to help the Foxes move away from trouble. Steve Bruce will not want his captain to leave without a fight, mind, and with that man Poyet also interested in the former England Under-21 centre-back, things could get nasty should push come to shove in January.
Three grown men fighting over one slightly younger grown man? Now that the Mill would pay to watch.
