Manchester City manager Stuart Pearce has insisted that Micah Richards, Sylvain Distin and Joey Barton will not be leaving the club. Rumours have been rife that the coveted trio are on their way out of Eastlands.
Pearce told the Manchester Evening News: "We want to keep the top players. We have not had enquiries and even if they came we would bat them away."
Whilst three of his best players are looking to stay, Pearce confessed that Claudio Reyna and Danny Mills were both available for sale.
Pearce admitted he was finding it hard to add strength to his squad saying "It’s a difficult time trying to get the right people here. It would have been easier if we had a massive amount of money to spend
but with the amounts we are talking about it is very difficult. We will keep plugging away and hopefully somewhere down the line we
will get one or two fresh faces in here. I think this squad would flourish if I could bring in another three or
four quality players but that luxury would cost £20m-£25m."
Basically, Micah Richards is going to Chelsea, Barton has been linked with Newcastle but will probably stay and Distin looks to be off to either Portsmouth, Middlesbrough, Newcastle or Aston Villa. [Mof Gimmers]