METRO NAIJA

Friday, 1 January 2016

Pulis waits to pick up transfer 'crumbs'

West Brom head coach Tony Pulis used an unusual metaphor to describe the club's methods in the January transfer window.

Tony Pulis says West Brom are likely to have to wait until the end of the January window to pick up the "crumbs" in the transfer market.

Chairman Jeremy Peace is thought to be willing to allow head coach Pulis to bring in additions, but only if players are moved off the wage bill first.

Pulis is hopeful reinforcements can brought in to The Hawthorns, although he is not expecting quick activity.

"If we move people out, I'm hoping we get a little bit of money to reinvest, because we need to," Pulis told BBC West Midlands.

"But we have to move people out before we can move people in. The chairman showed in the last window that, unless a deal is right, he won't do it.

"We're not in a position where we can spend millions blowing everyone out of the water, where we can go out and offer people £100,000 a week.

"We're sat on the top table but we feed off the crumbs. You have to understand that.

"You have to wait for those crumbs to drop off the table and that hopefully you're in the right place at the right time to pick them up.

"And that doesn't happen at the start of a meal. That usually happens at the end of the meal."

Thiago Silva is determined to win the Champions League before Zlatan Ibrahimovic leaves Paris Saint-Germain.

Paris Saint-Germain captain Thiago Silva has vowed to do his utmost to deliver the Champions League before Zlatan Ibrahimovic leaves the club.

Laurent Blanc's side have established domestic supremacy since Qatar Sports Investment became majority shareholders in 2011 and claimed the club's first treble of Ligue 1, Coupe de France and Coupe de la Ligue last season.

PSG have yet to conquer Europe, however, having been knocked out by eventual winners Barcelona in 2014-15, meaning Sweden star Ibrahimovic remains without a winners' medal to add to a remarkable career collection.

With the 34-year-old tipped to leave the Parc des Princes at the end of his contract in June, Silva is determined that this will be the year for PSG to end their wait for continental glory.

The Brazilian told Omnisport: "Zlatan has a particular personality. At each training sessions he wants to win. That's something positive. And the other thing [that strikes me] when I look at him is that it's all about his personality.

"Any time he wants to say something to you, he would say it face to face. That's positive. Quite often, players don't speak face to face, they speak behind your back. So I think, what Zlatan does is very positive. He has a strong personality but people in front of their TV think that he is arrogant. He is not arrogant. He is still very good and for PSG, he is a very, very important player.

"I think he is one the best players I played with. I played with [Clarence] Seedorf, Ronaldinho, [Andrea] Pirlo, [Alessandro] Nesta - they are all quality players.

"He is different. He is strong physically and he also has technique, but he has a bigger personality. That makes him a great player. I hope he can finish his career with a Champions League title. It's his dream, and our dream. I would do everything possible to help him win the Champions League."

PSG's only defeat so far this season came at the hands of Real Madrid in the group stage, but Silva is confident the team is close to reaching a level capable of securing Europe's top prize.

Indeed, the 31-year-old hopes he can help the runaway Ligue 1 leaders reach the standard of Spain's top two and German champions Bayern Munich before he retires.

"I think we'll succeed this time. The project here is big. With the players we have, we are close. Little by little, we will reach that level," he said.

"Obviously, the sooner the better because we have the will to win the Champions League, and in order to win it, we need to play at 100 per cent.

"It's difficult to talk about the future because you never know. But I want to keep playing here with Paris Saint-Germain. The backroom staff, the coaches, the medical team, the chairman, they all like me. When you work in these conditions you make the players happy.

"I hope I will finish my career here. I hope that, with me, the club will keep improving. That's our objective. The chairman often says that I am the boss. I hope we will continue like this. I hope that we will improve our football to reach the likes of Barca, Real Madrid or Bayern Munich, who are at another level."

Silva may be keen to finish his career in the French capital but he was keen to pay tribute to two icons of Italian football that he played alongside between 2009 and 2012 at San Siro.

"I believe the 'Italian School' made me progress a lot in my career. In Paolo Maldini's last six months, I watched him play and it was an amazing thing," he added.

"Even at the end of his career, you saw his positioning sense was perfect. You looked at the defender of the other team and thought - 'this cannot be normal', a player like that end his career. So I learned a lot in terms of positioning, the right time to run, the right time to do a cover, understand what the opposing player, when he has the ball, what he probably will do, and to prevent these moves.

"Then I went to play with Nesta, so everything was easier. He was an idol for the team and I'm a particular fan of him, and learned a lot from Maldini and Nesta."

Pablo Zabaleta has been restricted to five appearances this term by knee problems but the Manchester City defender is ready to face Watford.

Manchester City defender Pablo Zabaleta is hoping to put an injury-ravaged first half of the season behind him in 2016.

The Argentina full-back missed the first two months of the season after sustaining knee ligament damage during training and suffered a recurrence of the problem during October's 5-1 League Cup win over Crystal Palace.

Zabaleta was an unused substitute for Tuesday's goalless draw at high-flying Leicester City and feels he is back up to speed physically ahead of Saturday's trip to Watford.

"The knee feels really good and I've felt great in training over the past few days," he told City's official website.

"I started full training again a few days before the Sunderland game [on December 26] so it was too soon to return because I needed a few intense sessions with the team to get my sharpness back, but it felt good to be on the bench again at Leicester.

"I damaged the same ligament as I injured earlier in the season, just a slightly different area. It was just bad luck more than anything and I've seen a specialist to make sure I come back 100 per cent and not make this a recurring injury. I've had a few injections and, as I say, now I feel great and ready to go."

Zabaleta is one of City's longest-serving players, having joined the club in 2008, but he has not crossed paths with Watford in the Premier League – a team who have impressed the 30-year-old on their top-flight return this term.

"It will be a tough game and they've done really well to be so high in the Premier League at this stage of the season," said Zabaleta, who featured when City knocked Watford out of the FA Cup at the Etihad Stadium in 2013 and 2014.

"They look really solid as a team and they have a really good manager in Quique Sanchez Flores, who I know from my time in Spain where he managed Valencia and Atletico Madrid. I think he's doing a great job, though it doesn't surprise me.

"They have some really hard-working players as well with [Troy] Deeney and [Odion] Ighalo are playing really well – they have scored a lot of Watford's goals this season and we're expecting nothing less than a really tough match.

"I've never played at Vicarage Road before but from what I've seen on TV it's a really tight ground with the crowd right on top of you so we have to be prepared for everything."