Man City on alert as defender maybe plays last game for Valencia

Not many footballers have had a week to mirror Adil Rami in terms of eventfulness, with the icing on the cake being that he may well have played his last game for Valencia.

Rami’s week to forget started in the 3-0 Europa League defeat to Swansea, where he was sent off for fouling Wilfred Bony. This represented Rami’s fifth dismissal in three seasons at the Spanish club.

He has now been dropped from Valencia’s La Liga clash with Grenada after comments on a local radio show, where he called his teammates ‘brown nosers’, alongside admitting that he doesn’t enjoy the best relationship with coach Miroslav Djukic.

The latest thoughts are that Djukic, president Amadeo Salvo and sporting director Braulio Vazquez are all in agreement that the French defender has made his last appearance for Valencia.

Rami’s importance to the club is fairly obvious from the fact that they have won more than double the number of the games in the last two seasons when he has featured, in comparison to the number they have won when he has been absent.

The 27-year-old is contracted to Valencia until 2015 and it is unlikely that they will want to pay him off to depart early, especially as their financial situation has largely caused them to sell their biggest assets in recent seasons, such as David Villa, David Silva, Roberto Soldado, Juan Mata and Jordi Alba.

Therefore, Rami is liable to be allowed to leave for a cut-price fee in January, almost certainly less than the €12m buy-out close that he is believed to have.

Manchester City are just one Premier League club that have shown an interest in Rami previously and another option at centre-half would not go amiss at the Etihad.

Signing Rami in January would have to be considered as a boost to the title chances of any club that acquires him, with Man City’s odds currently 9/5 to win the Premier League.

All Odds and Markets are correct as of the date of publishing.

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