
Why is it that even with us not having signed Robinho this summer, neither him nor his agent are willing to just get on with the choice they’ve made quietly?
We’ve just had City’s new playmaker spouting off about making Chelsea regret refusing to offer silly money for him on deadline day – not that he’s bitter you understand? And now we’ve got his agent suggesting Chelsea were a mere pawn in his little game for the duration of the summer.
According to Wagner Ribeiro, who you’ll remember voiced his displeasure throughout the summer at Real Madrid’s treatment of his client, Chelsea were simply used as leverage to get the best possible deal, irrespective of where or what that was. Maybe not so surprising, seeing as he’d already given the game away to an extent when initially attempting to get his player a better deal at Real.
However, with Real making it blatantly clear they couldn’t care less about the 24-year-old, Ribeiro claims he used Chelsea’s ongoing interest in his client to get him away from the Spanish club one way or another. Having secured Robinho a contract at City, Ribeiro says “I went to London to plot a get-out strategy with Peter Kenyon. I filtered out the details of the Chelsea offers to the media – I was just playing according to the rules of the game.”
So, pretty much as we all knew anyway, Robinho probably hadn’t even heard of Man City before deadline day, much less considered signing for them, and yet the minute the amount of money registered with Ribeiro, the deal was done. Indeed, the player’s agent confirms this, stating “Kenyon was desperately phoning me to find out what was happening but I’d come to the conclusion that Chelsea and Real were not going to reach an agreement so we said yes to City.”
No doubt City fans are overjoyed to have signed such a committed player?