Balotelli out, but who in?
Tuesday, December 18, 2012 at 8:10 PM | by Peter Stickney 
As Mario Balotelli nears the gates of the Etihad stadium he will inevitably be replaced by another top name. But who? Well, according to the Daily Mail he might be holding the door open for David Villa. The Spanish star has fallen down the pecking order and may also have fallen out with the manager Tito Vilanova.
The ex-Valencia player was out of the game for eight months after suffering a broken leg in a Club World Cup game in Japan last year. He only returned to action in August and in that time Barcelona have played Alexis Sanchez, Pedro and Tello alongside Argentinian goal-scoring freak Lionel Messi.
David Villa cost the Catalan club €40 million when they bought him from Valencia in 2010 and since then he has scored forty goals in ninety-five games for Barca. A similar sort of player to Sergio Aguero he could fit straight into the Manchester City side and surely he’d be easier to control than Balotelli.
Several clubs including Juventus are monitoring the player and those with an eye on their purse strings may be hoping to pick him up cheaply at the end of the season but the blues of Manchester may be able to scupper them with a big money move in January.
Peter Stickney
