Micah Richards is one of the increasing numbers of “bling” players in the Premiership, loving the lifestyle, money and women being a professional football player provides you with.

Earlier this season, Richards was part of a “roasting” scandal which was revealed by the News of the Screws. With a mate, Richards captured on his mobile the pair of them having sex with a teenage girl.

Today, we have been linked with the player again, with a £25 million price tag being slapped on him. He’s extremely talented, no doubt, but is he the kind of player we want at Manchester United?

News of the World:
The film of Richards’ roasting—a sick act which involves one man having sex with a woman from behind while she gives a second oral sex—was passed on to friends’ mobiles by the swaggering pair. In the clip, the Manchester City player, one of England’s brightest young stars, smiles directly at the camera over the girl’s back… Richards is wearing distinctive jewellery including a silver ring, earrings and necklace… The footage is believed to have been shot in Manchester city centre in the last five weeks, near the time England embarrassingly failed to qualify for the European Championships with their defeat to Croatia at Wembley… As the sleazy session ends, one of the players says something that forces the girl to yell an indignant “Hey!”… Our sordid footage reveals the Aston Martin-driving Micah has been drawn into the depraved lifestyle that is tarnishing our national game.

Boys will be boys, of course, but I think we as United fans we have the right to expect more from our players. They can get up to what they want in their own time, but the moment they start dragging our club’s name through the dirt it’s a different matter. Our players’ sexual preferences are no concern of mine, but whatever they want to get up to, I’d like them to have the common sense not to have video evidence of their off the field antics! I’m not entirely sure I’m too keen on signing a player who would regard our disastrous recent Christmas party as a dream come true.

“Myself and Rio get on really well and I’ll get all the info I can off him,” said Richards of Ferdinand, in relation to where he gets his advice from. We’ve seen Rio Ferdinand grow up more recently, the effect of becoming a father certainly making a positive change in him, and despite what the press say, he is still adament he was not the one to organise the shagfest at Christmas. Of course, Richards has to the potential to mature in the same way, with the player coming out and regretting the roasting incident. “Yeah, I was foolish to be in the video and I was devastated when it appeared in the News of the World,” he said. “It was a real wake-up call to the fact I might have been doing things I really shouldn’t have been.”

From a footballing point of view, Micah Richards is a quality player and one we’d certainly welcome at the club based on ability alone. Able to play in the centre as well as right back, he’d certainly help us bulk up our squad. With Dr Death currently looking as though he is set to sack Sven Goran Eriksson, incredibly, a mass exodus of City’s best players is likely to occur. They would be mad to stick around at a club with an owner who clearly has so little knowledge about football but who insists on getting involved in the big decisions. With Liverpool’s owners proving to be a poor advert of what disruptive owners can do to a club, with the dippers finishing 4th this season, again without winning anything, despite having the highest scorer striker in the league in their team. City players would be best rid of the club.

Richards has pimped himself out on a number of occasions, calling himself an Arsenal fan (which makes sense for someone who grew up in Leeds I suppose) and naming Roy Keane as his biggest inspiration, putting the Gunners as our rivals to sign him. However, if reports from today are to be believed, the reason Arsenal’s managing director Keith Edelman left earlier this week was due to a clash with the manager over the spending budget. Despite being named as the third wealthiest club in the World, behind United and Real Madrid, Arsenal do not spend big in the transfer market, and that has certainly cost them. If they had the depth of squad required to win the league, they probably would not have fallen away from the race in February, after leading the table for the majority of the season.

City will be asking for a lot, particularly seeing as though Richards signed a contract extension earlier this season, which might automatically rule out Arsenal’s bid. Wenger is unlikely to be interested in having to 1. pay over the odds and 2. buy an English player. Every season, Arsenal announce Wenger is promised a sum of money, yet every summer, only a fraction of that is spent. Whilst Arsenal fans brag about how cheap their squad is in comparison to United and Chelsea, their bragging rights certainly end when they see that it is United and Chelsea fighting it out for the league title and United and Chelsea in the final of the European Cup. I am more than happy to see Arsenal survive on a shoe string budget, if it brings them the trophies it has done over the past three seasons, and if it sees us beat them to transfer targets.

The News of the Screws has today reported that United are willing to offer £25 million for the player, who is currently earning £45,000 a week at City. The question of whether we can sign him seems to be yes, but do you want him?




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