Manchester City are too good for restless Robinho

By Oliver Holt

Published 23:00 17/11/09

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This is how I think Robinho operates. He goes with the flow.

He allows people to think what they want to think.

If they want him to stay at Manchester City, he tells them he wants to stay. Says he’s never been happier.

If they want to get him a move elsewhere, he tells them, sure, why not. Says he can’t stand to stay another day at Eastlands.

He lets things drift. He exists in a vortex of uncertainty and rumour, of claim and counter-claim and senseless distortion.

He’s a study in the Kafkaesque intrigue that surrounds so many modern footballers, a world of petty and impenetrable complexities.

No one being able to pin anything down. No one knowing what’s happening. Everyone assuming he wants to leave but not knowing for sure.

Like a lot of players, he’s got so many hangers-on clinging to him and sucking at his cash, no one quite knows who to trust.

In Doha last week, Robinho said that only his father was authorised to speak for him, that his father had never given an interview and that all others purporting to speak for him should be disregarded.

 Robinho added that he loved it at City. Garry Cook, the City chief executive, said Robinho loved it at City. Mark Hughes, the City manager, said he assumed the same.

Others dismissed what Robinho said about his father as a statement that only the most gullible would swallow.

They were adamant he has retained middle-men like Chris Nathaniel, who is also Rio Ferdinand’s adviser, to conduct his affairs.

A friend of mine met Nathaniel in Abu Dhabi last week. After the meeting, he wrote that Robinho was desperate to get away from Eastlands.

Nathaniel was apparently in Abu Dhabi, where City were on a winter break, to meet a delegation from Barcelona.

Cook was supposed to have been attending that meeting, too. When I asked Cook, he denied all knowledge of it.

 The other side said that was laughable. They said City had bottled it when they realised news of the meeting had leaked out.

City said the entire soap-opera was fabrication. They blamed mischief-making. They said it was agents trying to make money.

No money in it for the agents, City said, if Robinho saw out his contract. No story for anybody, then.

Cook and Nathaniel were supposed to have had a row at the seven star Emirates Palace, where City were staying. I don’t know it that’s true. I didn’t see it.

I don’t blame Cook or Nathaniel. I don’t know which of them is telling the truth and which one is lying.

It’s even possible they’re both telling the truth. Or, at least, what they believe to be the truth.

What I do know is that this is how the modern transfer of the big-name footballer is often played out.

No one takes responsibility. No one levels with the fans. Least of all the player, who just sews confusion.

I put it all down to Robinho. This uncertainty and this intrigue, it all stems from him, from what he has allowed to develop around him.

It all stems from a guy who blew his chance at Real Madrid and left amid what appeared to be a reasonable amount of acrimony.

A guy who seemed to be on his way to Chelsea but pitched up at City in haste, without appearing to know exactly who he’d signed for.

A guy who has got great ability but who put in some of the laziest, most disinterested performances I have ever seen from any player anywhere at City last season.

This is a man who is wasting his talent, who is letting it dissolve in this web of lies and double-speak.

The irony is, I’m not even sure he’ll get back into the City team when he’s fit again. He’s getting awfully close to being surplus to requirements.

He’s got to the stage at City already where he’d be a good player to have coming off the bench when you’re chasing a game.

And if he does move to Barcelona, he won’t last there, either. Something will happen. There’ll be trouble. That’s the way he is. Restless. Rootless.

Robinho gives the impression he thinks he’s too good for City but I think that balance of power is changing all the time.

City will move relentlessly forwards. Robinho? I don’t think so.

And when the rumours and the speculation stop and the fog clears, people will begin to realise that, actually, City are too good for him.

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