Micah Richards

[P3te]

Richardson on 65k pw over a 4 year contract costs us 13.5m

 

Generic championship 4m defender on 35k pw over a 4 year contract would cost us 11.3m 

 

Really not that much of a difference all things considered

[lexicon]

I think a generic Championship defender would be better.

 

This smacks of Harry Redknapp.

[Texas_Mike]

God so depressing reading all the complaints on here.... I think it is a positive signing. He has several years ahead of him, played for England, won a league but then lost hos way in the Manchester City spending spree.

 

What do we expect? People act like we are top 4 team when we are a bottom 4. I remember him as a big powerful athletic defender.

 

Welcome Micah.... I will support you and assume you are a good until I see otherwise

Edited June 12, 2015 by Texas_Mike

[chunkyluke]

Seems a pretty divisive signing. Recent injury/form withstanding, I remember him as a very good RB, the kind that looked like a CB and added that strength, but had a lot of pace and was ok getting forward. I'm happy with this, he might not work out, but if he hits his old heights (and chances are good that he will considering his age and Tim getting the best out of under performers) then he will be a massive addition to us.

[villan_007]

I think a generic Championship defender would be better.

 

This smacks of Harry Redknapp.

 

Like Lowton or Bennett?

[aussievillan]

Would be a great signing imo, has great pace & experience for a 26 yo. 

[lexicon]

 

I think a generic Championship defender would be better.

 

This smacks of Harry Redknapp.

 

Like Lowton or Bennett?

 

 

Combined, those two are on less than 65k a week, I'd imagine - comfortably so. I think Richards will be added to the list of players who have failed here, so I'd rather take a punt on someone like Sam Byram, than Richards.

[ciggiesnbeer]

A 26 year old who has already won more than our club has in the past 30 years, signs for 4th from bottom Aston Villa, turning down more money from another club?

 

Yeah we should be bloody grateful and happy. I hope its true.

[lexicon]

A 26 year old who has already won more than our club has in the past 30 years, signs for 4th from bottom Aston Villa, turning down more money from another club?

 

 

That's absolutely meaningless - plenty of crap players have won trophies and league titles. Benteke's not won anything - does that mean he's bad?

[villan_007]

 

 

I think a generic Championship defender would be better.

 

This smacks of Harry Redknapp.

 

Like Lowton or Bennett?

 

 

Combined, those two are on less than 65k a week, I'd imagine - comfortably so. I think Richards will be added to the list of players who have failed here, so I'd rather take a punt on someone like Sam Byram, than Richards.

 

 

We've done nothing but take punts and that hasn't worked. By the looks of it we're in a position to pay premier league wages again, and although the injury concern bothers me, i think he is a better player than every punt we've had.

 

Everton, Newcastle, Westham and Sunderland all wanted him. His chosen us. I'm happy with that.

[NurembergVillan]

I think he's going to be a good signing, and I don't buy the millionaire bench-warmer line about his time at City.  This interview was in The Guardian when signed for Fiorentina and he comes off as an intelligent guy -

 

 

Late afternoon in Florence and the old vinaio around Piazza del Duomo are starting to fill up with the people leaving work. The queues around the Uffizi are finally beginning to subside and it has reached the point of the day when the stalls start coming down at Sant’Ambrogio fish market and the floors are soaked clean.

 

On a rooftop bar, with the Duomo one side and the river Arno the other, Micah Richards is looking over his new city and he is wearing the contented smile of someone who likes what he sees. Richards is only a few weeks into his new life with Fiorentina but it quickly becomes clear that he is embracing Italy and wants to stay in the city of the Viola beyond his season-long loan. So quickly, in fact, he has already said as much in the time it takes to meet at his hotel reception and wait for the elevator to take us four floors up to all that picture-postcard scenery.

 

Juventus had wanted him. Internazionale, too. Yet Fiorentina, fourth in Serie A last season, made him feel the most wanted. His debut came on Thursday night, setting up the third goal in a 3-0 Europa League win over Guingamp, and while Manchester City take on Chelsea on Sunday he will be preparing to face Atalanta.Ashley Cole, now at Roma, has already been in touch and it does not need long in Richards’s company to realise he has no plans to return to England, to use the famous Ian Rush quote, complaining that his time in Italy “was like living in a foreign country”.

 

His Italian lessons start in the next few weeks and, in the meantime, he is muddling through. He tells the story of one of his first team meetings under Vincenzo Montella. “There are tactics on the board. He’s telling us how he wants us to play. I’m just sitting there thinking [he puts on a blank face]: ‘I don’t know what you’re saying’. There are seven of us English-speakers sitting there [another blank face]: ‘What’s he just said there, then?’ I joke and say: ‘Come on, he played at Fulham once, surely he can tell us in English.’ So the other lads help out and it becomes: ‘You … player … shoot!’ And I’m going: ‘Yeah! Yeah! I’ve got you. Player! Shoot! I know shoot!’ So I suppose that could improve a bit.”

 

Italian, he has been told, is a difficult language to pick up but he is eager to give it a go. “It’s so touristy here a lot of people speak English anyway, but I do want to interact properly. It’s too easy sticking to English and I always wanted to learn another language anyway. I just imagined before that it would be French or Spanish.” Yet he is quite accustomed to needing the odd bit of translation from his latter days atManchester City where, at the last count, there were only four Englishmen standing. At City, Richards says, most of the dressing-room conversation was in Spanish. “Vincent Kompany tried to speak to the boys at one point and said they had to learn English but there are so many Spaniards and South Americans they just tend to slip into their own language. James Milner has actually been having Spanish lessons for a couple of years.”

 

Richards, 26, thinks it is “sad” that City have lost their English core. They had wanted him to stay, offering him a new contract. “But was that the right thing for me? Financially, it would have been. It would have been the easy choice to stay inEngland. I don’t speak Italian and I don’t really have any mates in Florence. I just thought it was the right thing to move here. It’s a good league, a beautiful place, the lifestyle is unbelievable – just look at the views – and the people here are so friendly.”

 

He is not here for the sightseeing, though. Richards nods with appreciation as he goes through his new team-mates: Guiseppe Rossi (“the star player”), Juan Cuadrado (“unbelievable”), Mario Gomez (“strong, a real handful”) and a Chilean he did not know much of before, Matías Fernández (“honestly, this guy is ridiculous”). “They finished fourth last year but they want to push higher and that was important for me. I’d say to any player to come and try it. But I’m enjoying it most of all because I think we have a team that can challenge.”

 

But it was a wrench. Richards’s association with City goes back to the age of 14, when he arrived for a trial from Oldham Athletic and remembers being blown away by Shaleum Logan “playing up front, dribbling around everyone, and I was thinking: ’Oh my God, he’s unbelievable.’ I wasn’t used to the pace of the game. It took me six months to catch up.”

 

Logan, five months his senior, made only one appearance for City while Richards, at 18,. took Rio Ferdinand’s record as the youngest defender ever to play for England and played almost 250 times for City. “I’m sure I’ll be there in some capacity when I’ve finished playing as well, maybe a coaching or scouting role. I don’t think the story is finished yet, definitely not.”

 

Yet there are glimpses of hurt. In 2012, when City won their first title of the modern era, Richards was nominated for their player of the year award and described by Gareth Bale as the hardest opponent he had ever faced. The following October, he went to clear the ball in a home game against Swansea, miskicked and knew immediately something was wrong. “I actually felt something move around in my knee. I thought: ‘Oh please no.’ I started running and five minutes later my knee just locked on me.” His damaged cartilage required an operation and a seven-month layoff gave Pablo Zabaleta his chance to cement his place as first-choice right-back. Roberto Mancini was sacked at the end of the season and Richards never felt he had Manuel Pellegrini’s trust.

 

“The lowest moment was against Watford [in the FA Cup in January this year]. At half-time we were losing two-nil. I really don’t want to pass the blame to other players but everyone could see I wasn’t the problem. But Pellegrini brought me and [Jack] Rodwell off at half-time. I thought: ‘I’m becoming a scapegoat here.’ I’ve not always played well for City, but I’d never been the scapegoat, coming off at half-time when in my head I thought I was having a decent game. It was weird, unnatural, it had never happened to me before and it felt like no matter what I did it wasn’t good enough any more. That was a turning point. The manager did try to explain it to me. He said he didn’t want to rush my fitness, but I wasn’t playing in the Premier League, I wasn’t playing in the Champions League, so at least, in the FA Cup against Watford at home, give me 90 minutes. After that, my belief was shattered.”

 

 

 

Sitting here now, he reveals that Juventus tried to sign him in 2012 only for Mancini to block the transfer, and it is very apparent he did not belong to the group of players who wanted the Italian out. “It’s a tough one with Mancini. He was hard. I’m used to that hard talking, that mentality, Stuart Pearce, people saying it how it is. I’m used to managers absolutely caning me: ‘If you don’t do this, you’re off!’ Now, though, it’s a different world. If a manager says something out of line to a player, they will sulk and moan about it. It’s ridiculous.

 

“That was Mancini, though. He would say exactly what he was thinking, rather than the best thing to say. He called me ‘Swarovski’, the crystals, because he said I was made of glass. I was coming back from injury and someone asked him in a press conference if he was happy with how I’d done. ‘No!’ he said. ‘No! He didn’t play well at all.’ He was never happy enough and, to a certain extent, that’s what helped us win the league. He was always wanting better. It’s a good thing and a bad thing and maybe it was part of his downfall but I can say only positive things about him because, for me, he was great. That was the best football of my career.”

 

He is staying at a hotel just a curve of the Arno away from Ponte Vecchio and it is a steady stream of people who want their photograph taken with “Meesta Richards”. A few days ago, Richards popped out to buy an iPad. By the time he returned, he had been weighed down with several bags of welcome gifts. The locals, he says, could hardly have done more to help him settle in.

 

Mario Balotelli has been on the phone, too. Richards sums up his friend as “crazy, but one of the nicest guys ever” and he can laugh now about that infamous training ground scrap at City. “We were playing five-a-side and losing because Mario, being Mario, wasn’t tracking his runner. I was like: ‘Mario, ****’s sake, track your man.’ But you know what he’s like. He started swearing in Italian and waving his hands. I said: ‘Mario I’m not in the mood today.’ I lost my head, he lost his, and it was just bonkers. You couldn’t get away with anything at City because there were always photographers everywhere.”

 

And the Mancini-Balotelli fight? “People say it started because of a late challenge but it wasn’t that. Mancini wanted to explain something. Mario wasn’t interested and then it was just madness. I just left them to it because they were like father and son, rather than manager and player. My favourite Mario story is when he went into the school to speak to the bully. He just does what he wants, doesn’t he?”

 

 

‘Until Roy Hodgson has gone I don’t see myself getting in for England again.’ Photograph: Michele Borzoni/TerraProject

 

Richards has 13 England caps but he does not envisage any way back into Roy Hodgson’s thinking. That boat sailed when Hodgson overlooked him for Euro 2012 and Richards was so upset he did not want to go on the standby list. Hodgson has never considered him since and Richards is convinced that “until he’s gone I don’t see myself getting in”.

 

But what if Gazzetta dello Sport is giving him nine out of 10 every week and Fiorentina are having another strong season, would he expect Hodgson to come over to watch him? “No chance,” he says. “Has he even been to Swansea? The England manager should be going around every ground but I read he hadn’t even been to Swansea.”

 

He is talking about Nathan Dyer. “I’ve played with him at under-19s, I know him really well and I’ve talked to him. He’s gutted. It’s a pleasure to play for your country, an honour, but then you see players who are not performing well and not getting picked on merit but because they are his players.”

Richards also wonders if Hodgson is guilty of double standards when Ben Foster “can retire for a year then ‘if you want to come back in, here you go, feel free, even though there are other keepers.’”

 

To clarify, he is laughing as he says that, and it is without malice. But he does have a serious point. “He [Foster] is one of Hodgson’s players, isn’t he? He had him at West Brom and every manager has his favourites, so there is no point moaning or being upset about it. The only thing that hurt me was 2011-12 was my best season. Kyle Walker had broken his toe and I thought – and the majority of people thought – I would be the right choice if I could win the league and potentially win player of the year at City, maybe the hardest squad in the league to do that. I’ve dealt with it now but at the time it was tough.”

 

Tuscany, they say, is the birthplace of the Renaissance. Richards is hoping for one of his own.

 

http://www.theguardian.com/football/2014/sep/19/micah-richards-manchester-city-scapegoat-fiorentina

[ciggiesnbeer]

 

A 26 year old who has already won more than our club has in the past 30 years, signs for 4th from bottom Aston Villa, turning down more money from another club?

 

 

That's absolutely meaningless - plenty of crap players have won trophies and league titles. Benteke's not won anything - does that mean he's bad?

 

 

But he isn't a crap player. Its not like he was sat on the bench. He was pivotal in at least one of those league wins. 

[NurembergVillan]

Recently there was this interview in the Mail too -

 

 

 

Micah Richards talks about his rollercoaster year on loan at Fiorentina: 'Italy has made me a better player but I'll be moving on'

 

By MATT LAWTON FOR THE DAILY MAIL

PUBLISHED: 21:31 GMT, 1 June 2015 | UPDATED: 08:25 GMT, 2 June 2015

 

Micah Richards could get used to life here in Florence. He wakes every morning to a view of Ponte Vecchio. After training with Fiorentina he often takes a stroll down to the Piazza del Duomo.  And when his partner is too busy running her own business back home, he will jump on a train to Milan to see friends, Nigel de Jong among them. 'It's only an hour and 20 minutes,' he says.  He seems to be something of a renaissance man. He admires the architecture and he adores the food, and he shuns what might be considered the standard footballer accessories.

 

 

 

A season at Fiorentina has seen Richards in and out of the team with the coach preferring a 3-5-2 formation

 

Not so interested these days in driving the latest supercar, his transport of choice is an old Porsche he bought from a mate. Around 15 years old so not exactly vintage, it's probably worth about the same as a Ford Mondeo but it is still his 'baby'. 'And it's good for these narrow streets,' he says, producing a picture of said vehicle on his mobile phone.

 

Prior to moving here last summer on loan his life, he says, was pretty good in Manchester too. He had been at Manchester City since he was 14. He had a comfortable home in a leafy part of Cheshire. His girlfriend had quit her job as a primary school teacher to start her own cup-cake business. He was at a club winning trophies; playing Champions League football. There was even the offer of a new contract on the table.

 

But Richards left City to play regular first team football, and he will more than likely leave Fiorentina this summer and be available on a free transfer with the same simple ambition.

 

Richards is a football obsessive. 'I'll watch an MLS game if it's on,' he says. He once joined Patrick Vieira on a trip to Italy just to take in a few Serie A games, including the Milan derby. So the idea of sitting on the bench and simply counting his money is one he finds rather unpalatable. Particularly when he is now 26 and, in his view, coming to his peak.

 

The problem at City, in his main position at right back, was Pablo Zabaleta. 'He was number one and I had to accept that,' says Richards. 'He has been outstanding.  'But I just couldn't get my head around being second choice. I'd rather play for a lesser team. I know a lot of players would just take the money at City. But I'd rather take a pay cut and play every week. Ideally you want to be playing at the highest level, in the Champions League and so on.

 

'But when you're fit and you're occasionally not even getting in the 18 … it's a tough school at Manchester City. It got to the stage where it didn't matter how well I did or how fit I was, Zabaleta was playing.'

In his mind it made the meeting he had with the City hierarchy 12 months ago easy. 'I had a conversation with Txiki Begiristain and Ferran Soriano about a year ago, and they told me they wanted me to extend my contract,' he says. 'They told me the manager wanted me to stay. I have no problem with Manuel Pellegrini.

 

'But I just said "look, I've been here for 12 years. I haven't caused any problems. I've always given 100 per cent. I can't sign. I can't sign for another few years." I know they need to meet their quota of English players, but for my career I felt I had to move on. I couldn't just stay second choice.'

 

He had seen other players make that choice, of course. 'When I was a kid I used to look at Wes Brown,' he says. 'I loved him as a player. But he was always behind players like Rio Ferdinand and Vidic.

 

 

Txiki Begiristain (left), City's director of football, and club CEO Ferran Soriano (centre) offered Richards a new contract last summer but he turned down the deal and said he needed to leave for first-team football

 

'Even though he played in the Champions League final, and had a great career at United, he was never number one. And that must have been hard. They would use him when they needed him and I always felt he was better than that.

 

'If I had stayed at City I think I would have been someone who simply filled in when I was required. I'd rather go elsewhere and play regularly. Be a bigger part of a smaller team.

'When it came to coming here, I thought "you know what, everyone talks about English players not wanting to go abroad; I'm going to give it a go". And I did.'

 

The move to Fiorentina has not been without its frustrations, however. Here in Italy as well first team football has not been as regular as he would have liked. He has made just nine starts and 17 appearances in total since arriving at the end of last August, his situation was not helped by Vincenzo Montella's decision to change the defensive formation to a back three.

 

'I feel I've done well when I've played but for the next two or three games I've then not been in,' he says. 'I don't know whether it's because I've been on loan and I haven't made a commitment to stay. But, and I mean no disrespect to the players here, I don't think it's been a Zabaleta situation; I feel I should have been playing.

 

'We had a great result away to Juventus, for instance, winning there for the first time in something like 30 years. And I was dropped for the next game. Spurs in the Europa League. Beat them 2-0. I had a solid game. And I was out of the team for the next two games again.

 

'I'm always very honest. As I say, Zabaleta was amazing. But when I talked to Fiorentina they told me I'd play every game, and then after I arrive they change the formation to 3-5-2. I had to wait four or five months to be given a chance in the 3-5-2 formation, and if I'd known that was going to happen I probably wouldn't have come.

 

'But I see that as a real shame because I have really settled here. I'm renting this great apartment on the river from Luca Toni. I love the lads, I love the training, the city is absolutely amazing.'

 

There have been other positives. He says he has been 'treated extremely well' and playing in Serie A, however limited those opportunities have been, has been good experience.

'I think I've learnt quite a lot, playing here,' he says. 'I think they're probably a bit more defensively organised in Italy. And it's been a good season for Italian football. Juve are in the Champions League final. Us and Napoli got to the semi-finals of the Europa League.

 

'I'm more tactically aware now. People forget I was 18 when I made my England debut. Two years before that I was playing academy football. You can't be tactically brilliant at 18. I was thrown in at the deep-end at Manchester City. I'd make mistakes and my pace and strength would get me out of trouble.

 

'I think I've improved hugely in that area. I'm much more tactically aware. I'm 26 now and I feel the next five years will be my best and I want to join a club where I'm going to play. Being out of contract this summer hopefully I'm in a good position.'

 

He is open-minded about his next destination; a return to the Premier League or another club somewhere in Europe.

 

'The Premier League is fantastic but I had my best season at City under Roberto Mancini and obviously he's at Inter Milan now, so maybe that could be an option,' he says. 'I think he definitely got the best out of me. As a coach I think Mancini was really good, and had he been given more time I think he could have done something special at City. I think he has proved he is a top line manager.'

 

Was he not too volatile? Not least with the players? 'I think some players are too soft,' says Richards. 'I played under Stuart Pearce at City, and if you didn't do what he said you'd get called all the names under the sun. Now a manager does that and it's "you can't disrespect me like that".

 

'He's the manager and every player should respect that. He did go overboard occasionally. The most extreme examples were with Mario (Balotelli). But they were like a husband and wife. And Mario still provided the assist that won us the league, so there you go.'

 

He likes Mario. 'I love Mario,' he says. 'I still speak to him now. I think he' s a great player too. At City he was probably still a bit immature. He then came back to Italy and developed more. He impressed at the World Cup. But now he's at a club (Liverpool) where everyone seems to have an opinion. And when the team wasn't doing well, he's became a target.'

 

Richards wonders if he has become a target for criticism since declining the invitation to be on standby for England for the European Championship in 2012. He wonders if it a factor in his exclusion from the England squad since then.

 

When Liverpool's Martin Kelly was then called up as a replacement for the injured Kyle Walker, it did look like a mistake. But his decision to opt for the Olympics was motivated by the same desire that drives him now. He knew he would play for Pearce at the Olympics. At the Euros he thought it less likely.

 

'We weren't allowed to play in both so I had to make a choice,' he says. 'Be on standby with England or play for Stuart Pearce at the Olympics? In hindsight it looked like a stupid decision because there was an injury and Martin Kelly went instead of me.  'But I chose not to go on standby because I wanted to play. The same reason I came here and the same reason I didn't sign that contract at City.

 

'I don't regret it but I suspect it might have counted against me with England since then. I didn't deserve to go to the World Cup in Brazil. I hadn't played enough. But I felt a little hard done by, not getting picked in the first place for the Euros. I'd played regularly in the title-winning team but that wasn't enough seemingly. That was a bit hard to take when I didn't feel there was a better English right back than me that season.

 

'It knocked my confidence a bit if I'm honest. But I'd like to get back into the England squad. That's why this next move, and next season, is massive for me. I just want to play football.'

 

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/football/article-3106356/Micah-Richards-talks-rollercoaster-year-loan-Fiorentina-Italy-better-player-ll-moving-on.html

[ciggiesnbeer]

Good articles. Whether he signs for us or not he comes across as a pretty level headed bloke.

[Ponky]

Good signing IF he can stay fit. It's that caveat that has me worried.

[Ads]

He's not a crap player at all, he's just not as good as Zabaleta, which is hardly a crime.

Sorry to repeat myself, but it's just odd how people have very rightly complained that we have trawled the bargain bucket or the lower leagues for years, stumbling around as if we were a plucky promoted team. The minute we go after a good, proven Premier League player and offer him the going rate in wages, people are falling over themselves to complain.

In no way is a good player like Richards not good enough for a club who have failed to reach 40 points in three of the last four seasons.

Edited June 12, 2015 by Ads

[villan_007]

Good signing IF he can stay fit. It's that caveat that has me worried.

 

By reading those articles it looks like he's had an injury free season over there? Hope so. Could turn out to be a good deal if so.

[mightysasquatch]

Good signing

Personally i don't think he will play as right back because he is not strong offensively.

I think that he is going to be play centre back which is the position that many pundits have said where he will end up.

This was probably the determining factor between us and Sunderland if true.

Its also reported that TS wants to play three at the back with wing backs, so with that in mind, micah would fit perfectly in the back with three in a high line.

I think he'd slot in nicely on the right side of three centre halfs, Okore or Vlaar in the centre & Clark on the left. Bacuna as a wingback and a new left side wingback.

[One For The Road]

Excellent signing if it happens. Not sure what people are expecting from this window but I think this is a good bit of business. He will be keen to resurrect his career and given England's lack of defensive options he will see this as an opportunity to push for a place in Roy's Euro squad.

As long as he minds his language next time he scores at Villa Park I think he will prove to be a success.

[Adam2003]

"Personally i don't think he will play as right back because he is not strong offensively"

(Sorry, quotes not working)

Didn't he get the most assists of any defender in the league when City won it a few years ago (ie before Zabaleta)?