English League Cup quarter-finals:Manchester City will have to pay €5 million if they want to sign the Mexican striker Nery Castillo from Skakhtar Donetsk. Sven-Goran Eriksson has identified Castillo among his primary targets and the City manager has been encouraged by reports from Ukraine that the player is keen to move to England.
Skakhtar's president, Rinat Akhmetov, told the club's website last night that Castillo can go out on loan providing City paid a one-off fee of €5 million. He moved to the Ukrainian club from Olympiakos in August for a club record fee of €17.7 million.
Asked about the transfer yesterday, Eriksson said he would prefer not to talk about it "until it was done". The Swede was far happier discussing tonight's League Cup quarter-final against Tottenham Hotspur, when City hope to reach their first semi-final of any knockout competition since their run to the FA Cup final of 1981, when they lost to Tottenham in a replay.
Eriksson will put out his strongest side, which should include the Brazilian Elano who has fully recovered from injury, and hopes to make it all the way to Wembley, a stadium he never got to manage at while with England. "It's a dream for every player, coach, manager to be at Wembley and it's my dream to sit on the bench at Wembley," Eriksson said.
Having won all their home games this season Manchester City go into tonight's tie as favourites but they face a team who earned their first away win of the league campaign on Saturday, when they beat Portsmouth 1-0.
The Tottenham manager, Juande Ramos, has described the League Cup as "important" as it offers the club their first guaranteed route into Europe. It is also of particular significance to the Spaniard, whose first match in English football was the 2-0 home win against Blackpool in the fourth round of the competition.
Tottenham beat Manchester City 2-1 in a league match at White Hart Lane earlier this month but Ramos does not believe that result hands any psychological advantage to the Londoners.
"We know it is going to be a very difficult game, Manchester City is a strong team with good players. All we can do is try our best," he said.
Joe Hart will start in goal for City with Eriksson asserting that a strong performance by the 20-year-old could see him become the club's number one ahead of Andreas Isaksson.
Michael Dawson could return for Tottenham after recovering from a migraine.
Their captain, Robbie Keane, completes a three-match suspension, which could mean a starting place up front for Jermain Defoe who has not been picked from the outset by Ramos since the victory over Blackpool.
MANCHESTER CITY(probable, 4-4-1-1) Hart; Corluka, Dunne, Richards, Ball; Vassell, Hamann, Johnson, Petrov; Elano; Bianchi.
TOTTENHAM HOTSPUR(probable, 4-4-2) Robinson; Chimbonda, Dawson, Kaboul, Lee; Zokora, Jenas, Malbranque, Lennon; Berbatov, Defoe.
