Manchester City launch £91m bid for Kaka I Hughes told his job is safe

Blackburn Rovers were bracing themselves last night for an improved £18 million offer from Manchester City for Roque Santa Cruz, the Paraguay striker, as Mark Hughes, the City manager, conceded that English football’s new financial superpower are having difficulty attracting the players they want.

Hughes’s fears of being quoted inflated prices for players because of the wealth of Sheikh Mansour, the City owner, who has a reputed personal fortune of £15 billion, are being realised as rival clubs attempt to hold them to ransom.

In some respects, City have created a rod for their own back by agreeing to pay Chelsea £12 million for Wayne Bridge, a considerable sum for a 28-year-old left back who has struggled with injuries and failed to hold down a regular place for his club or England over the past five years. Bridge also earns £92,000 a week at City, which has set another benchmark as far as wages are concerned.

With that in mind, Arsenal are unlikely to let Kolo Touré leave for less than £15 million, hence City’s wavering interest in the 27-year-old Ivory Coast defender,

Everton may demand a similar sum for Joleon Lescott and West Ham United are already driving a hard bargain for Scott Parker and Craig Bellamy, whom they have told City they value in excess of £20 million. Similarly, Shay Given, the Newcastle United goalkeeper, may cost well over £10 million. “We are finding it a bit difficult to get the players that we want here,” Hughes said yesterday.

City have indicated that they will walk away if they deem a deal to be too expensive but, by the same token, they are mindful that it generally costs more to sign players in January even before the “City premium” is taken into account.

aving already had a £16 million bid for Santa Cruz rejected this week, City are shortly expected to make another offer — their fifth in the space of a year — for the Paraguayan, although an £18 million offer would not trigger a release clause in the striker’s contract because that does not come into effect until the summer.

The likelihood is that Blackburn would still sell at such a price, but Sam Allardyce, the Lancashire club’s manager, has indicated privately that he is willing to dig his heels in to prevent Santa Cruz from leaving until he has a replacement. Blackburn are thought to be working on a deal to bring El-Hadji Diouf, the Sunderland forward who played under Allardyce at Bolton Wanderers, to Ewood Park.

Sources close to Santa Cruz say that he has been impressed by Allardyce, even though he still hopes to team up once more with Hughes, who signed him from Bayern Munich for £3.2 million in July 2007. Tal Ben-Haim or Nedum Onuoha, the City defenders, could move in the opposite direction as part of any deal.

“We have pursued him for a long time, and they have been made aware of our interest for quite a long time, and we are just trying to make it happen now,” Hughes said of Santa Cruz. “He has the physical presence we need.”

Bridge has launched a thinly veiled swipe at Luiz Felipe Scolari after accusing the Chelsea manager of not giving him a fair crack of the whip. Bridge claims that he was dismayed by the manner in which Ashley Cole was restored to left back as soon as he had recovered from an injury.

Asked if he was not given a proper chance by Scolari, Bridge said: “Definitely not. There was a time when I had put a string of games together but Ashley came straight back in. I just felt that it was never going to work for me there. Maybe he \ thinks that Ashley’s better than me. I thought no matter how I played, I was never going to establish myself there.”