***
Monday January 17, 2005
Kevin McCarra / The Guardian
Anelka on his way to Turkey
Nicolas Anelka is on the verge of a transfer to Fenerbahce. The Manchester City striker was again absent on Saturday and it is believed that the Turkish champions may reach an agreement with the English club on a £7m fee today.
It has been obvious that Anelka, 25, no longer sees his future in the North-west but the sticking point will be the size of the fee. "Everybody knows we still have £5m to pay on Nicolas," City"s manager Kevin Keegan has said of the forward, "so you would have to add quite a bit more on to that figure for us to sell."
City paid Paris St-Germain £13m for the former France international in the summer of 2002, after Liverpool declined to buy him when a loan spell at Anfield ended. With debts of around £62m, however, it would be hard for City to reject £7m from Fenerbahce.
Anelka, who has scored seven times this season, is a depreciating asset in the Premiership. He has not been in action since New Year"s Day and declined to take a fitness test on a back injury before City played Arsenal two weeks ago. "I was a bit disappointed," Keegan said with measured understatement at the time.
In December the player had to apologise for telling a French newspaper that he wanted to move to "a bigger club" than City, and play in the Champions League. Other outspoken remarks had previously seen Anelka exiled from the France squad.
Now that Liverpool have bought Fernando Morientes there is no hope of a return to Anfield and his options appear limited. Fenerbahce, having gone out of Manchester United"s group in the Champions League, are now in the Uefa Cup and their coach Christoph Daum was watching their next opponents, Real Zaragoza, at Real Madrid yesterday.
Daum has had to weigh up the condition of his 35-year-old striker Pierre van Hooijdonk, who has been injured for two months, and may now invite Anelka to make the Turkish League leaders the sixth club of his career.
...
***
<a href="redirect.jsp?url=http://football.guardian.co.uk/News_Story/0,1563,1391933,00.html" target="_blank">http://football.guardian.co.uk/News_Story/0,1563,1391933,00.html</a>