Micah Richards insists that he is not being greedy as his contract talks with Manchester City look set to reach the crunch tomorrow. The England defender has stalled on signing a new 4½ year deal because he wants to be paid the market rate for a teenage sensation who has already been billed as a future international captain.

The Times can reveal that Richards would have earned £70,000 a week had he moved to Newcastle United, but he would almost certainly put pen to paper if City raised their present offer to £55,000. So far the talks have stalled, with City saying they are not prepared to break their pay structure, but Sven-Göran Eriksson, the manager, does not want to lose such a prodigious talent.

Richards, 19, earns £15,000 a week, a paltry sum by Barclays Premier League standards. His father, Lincoln, who took over from SEM as his agent last month, would be happy for him to remain at City, but there has been interest from a string of clubs, including Newcastle United and Chelsea. However, Richards has noted how the career of his friend, Shaun Wright-Phillips, has slowed in London and has little interest in joining him at Stamford Bridge. If he was forced out of City then he would favour Arsenal, the team he supported as a boy.

City have offered £47,000 a week but Richards, who has two years left on his existing deal, has been biding his time and talking the matter over with his father. Both emphasise that money is not the primary concern at this stage in his career, but with Newcastle prepared to pay so much, neither do they want to be short-changed. City, meanwhile, have said that they will not pay more.

Richards would like his contract resolved sooner rather than later, but he has time on his side. Manchester United would be likely to enter an auction for the player in the summer if talks break down and the risk of losing Richards to their neighbours would be a bitter pill to swallow for City fans.

Lincoln Richards has been angered by newspaper reports portraying his son as greedy and another suggesting that he has been seduced by Manchester’s party scene. His concern that his son keeps his feet on the ground was highlighted after he was upset when Richards bought a car without first consulting him.

The immediate priority for Eriksson is to reinforce his forward line, having allowed Rolando Bianchi, his £8.8 million summer signing, to return to Italy in a loan move to Lazio. With Nery Castillo and Valeri Bojinov, other recent acquisitions, sidelined by injury, Eriksson is desperate to sign at least one centre forward before the transfer window closes on Thursday. His contacts have led him to a familiar source, the Russian league, which is home to numerous high-quality South American players, with the three Brazil forwards at CSKA Moscow – Daniel Carvalho, Vágner Love and Jo – all coming under his scrutiny, as well as Djibril Cissé, the former Liverpool forward who is available on loan from Marseilles.

Eriksson signed Castillo and Elano from the Russian league, but he may find it harder to add Jo to that list, with CSKA valuing the forward at what would surely be a prohibitive sum of £14.8 million. “At this moment we do not have any proposals for Jo,” Yevgeny Giner, the Russian club’s president, said yesterday. “With Valencia we did not agree a price and so he remains in our team. He said he wants to remain in our team and succeed this season. In the future he would be happy to play in Italy or Spain. But now he needs to think about CSKA.”

Luton Shelton, the Sheffield United forward, believes that Manchester City’s supporters should take the blame for their FA Cup fourth-round defeat on Sunday. Shelton’s goal came after the ball bounced off balloons that had been thrown on to the pitch by City fans. “I know [City] were upset by all the balloons, but I never had a problem with them,” he said. “They can only blame themselves because they were thrown on to the pitch by their own fans.”