Milan rivals join the race to sign Adebayor

AC Milan’s great rivals, Inter Milan, have reportedly joined the race to sign Arsenal forward, Emanuel Adebayor. Adebayor has been linked constantly with a move to AC Milan over the last few days but new reports are appearing in the Italian media that Inter are poised to make a surprise bid to poach him from under the noses of their city rivals.

Jose Mourinho is thought to want Adebayor to link up with Zlatan Ibrahimovich in the Inter front line and create a striking partnership that could penetrate the defence of any team in Europe. Adebayor has been taunted by his own fans in the last couple of games that Arsenal have played, a lack of support that has resulted from all the reports emerging about his future.

It is unlikely that Arsene Wenger would want Adebayor to go to either side but this summer could well be the time for him to move on. Inter seem the better proposition, they are the best team in Italy and have proved they have a lot of fight for the European game. However, AC have been interested for a lot longer and are unlikely to miss out on a target they may have been preparing a bid for over a long stretch of time.

AC also have the added advantage of previous contact with Arsenal, they had an offer for Adebayor turned down last summer before an actual deal could be struck. It could simply be a case of picking up where both sides left the situation. Considering that Mourinho does not want to pay as much as AC Milan have already offered suggests that Arsenal could only be looking in one direction.

However, stranger things have happened in football and when you take into account the fact that Adriano has left Inter to go back to Brazil, it could push the Inter boss into forking out as much as is necessary in order to get his man.

From Arsenal’s point of view all they really have to do is sit back and wait. Wenger is happy to keep Adebayor who has flourished under his management and on the other hand they will quite happily let a bidding war develop between the two Italian clubs.

AC are just starting to get back the momentum they lost a couple of seasons ago when the corruption in Italian football was exposed and high calibre clubs were severely punished. The fact that Carlo Ancelotti is reportedly about to leave the managerial position there could risk the bid for Arsenal’s main striker. However, they will fight, as a number of other people involved in the original bid for him will still be at the club.

Arsenal would do well not to let Adebayor go anywhere. It is clear how far the club are from being as good as they once were and this is precisely the sort of player they need to hang onto if they are going to get back to the golden days. The booing by fans does not help and could well be one of the things that pushes this under rated striker out of the door.

Italian giants let Ranieri go

Italian giants Juventus have sacked their manager, Claudio Ranieri, after a poor run of results saw them make little progress in Serie A. Youth team coach Ciro Ferrara will replace him for the foreseeable future.

Ranieri will be known to most lovers of English football for the stint he spent in charge of Chelsea. It was in West London that he built his reputation as a great tactician and a character that many people found it hard not to fall in love with.

Juventus are fourth in the Italian league, which means the prospect of having to play Champions League qualifiers. The reason that so many teams are dreading the prospect of this is because the rules have been changed to create an open field.

Basically Juventus could get anyone from an established team like Arsenal to a not so established team from elsewhere in Europe. This decision proves the pressure that modern day managers are under in order to go and get high profile results on a consistent basis.

No doubt Ranieri will now have a spell out of the game to regroup all of his energy and passion in order to return better than ever before. There will be a host of clubs chasing his signature and one or two from the Premier League could make an enquiry as he does have the experience of the fast paced English game.

He also has a wealth of experience in European football and showed when his side met Chelsea in the Champions League that despite any gulf between the two sides in terms of quality, he could still work and inspire a team to give anyone a run for their money.

It is a shame he has been given the sack because many people in Italy would probably be the first to admit that he is the exact sort of person you could go for a friendly chat or drink with, without even knowing him. The decision has been made based on purely football reasons only and in a strange way this is a compliment to the Italians character.

Ranieri clearly got on well with the club, there were no rumours flying around for months before hand that he disagreed with the board or the powers at be at the club. All parties concerned just felt that the football was not moving forwards any more and for this reason the manager had to change. He had a good run but could not fulfil the ambitions of the club.

Ranieri will not be the sort of person that would want his next side to meet Juventus in a competition and stuff them out of sight, however satisfying this may be. He would want to meet them and display the gracious character for which he is so admired, proving that they were wrong to let him go and proving that he still has fire inside him to keep him fighting in a game that all so often throws up various injustices. Good luck to him wherever he now goes.