Exclusive: Yaya's City dream
Stuart Brennan

November 09, 2009

KOLO Toure says his brother Yaya would love to join City - and that he would be a big hit at Eastlands.

The Blues' skipper hinted that the Barcelona midfield ace is unhappy at the Nou Camp and would relish a move to the Premier League.

And he hopes that manager Mark Hughes liked what he saw when he flew to Spain to watch Yaya play against Osasuna last week.

The two brothers have now linked up on international duty for Ivory Coast, but Kolo is hoping that City can do a deal to team them up for the first time since they played youth football for ASEC Mimosas in their native country.

Asked if he would like to see City buy his brother, Kolo said: "I hope so. He is a good player, and if he could come to our team that would be great."

And he feels Yaya would jump at the chance to come to England: "He has had a few hard times in Barcelona. He doesn't play a lot, and he loves football and loves to play.

"If he can come, especially to a club in England, he would be really happy because the Premier League is a fantastic place to play football."

Asset

And Kolo believes the defensive midfielder - who can also play centre back - would be an asset to the Blues.

“Technically he is very good and can hold up the ball, and is a great passer with great vision,” he said. “He also has a great desire to win.”

Hughes may be looking to the winter transfer window to boost his side's fortunes after five consecutive draws – the last a 3-3 thriller against Burnley on Saturday – have seen them slip off the pace at the top of the league.

And Toure said the latest slip was hard to accept.

“It's killing me,” said the former Arsenal man. “When you give away three goals at home, with all respect to Burnley, it is very, very difficult to take.

“The dressing room was quiet afterwards because we know we lost two points. We didn't play very well as a team, especially the back four.”

The skipper pulled no punches, but insisted the problem against Burnley had been a collective failure.

“We have to improve our defending, including myself,” he said. “But we have not known each other for long, and for a defence to work takes more time.

“We are improving but still have a long way to go. We have enough quality players to defend better than we did, especially in the first half. In the second-half we were getting more of the second balls, but we have to take the responsibility at the back – we should have done better because our strikers did very well.

“We need to be stronger and work more collectively as defenders.”

The one player in the world I want more than Messi, Ribery and Ronaldo put together.

The exact thing we really need right now, is an experienced defensive mid, who will put a shift in and can score the odd goal. With respects to De Jong, he'll be a great player in about 3 years time, but he is currently average and nowhere near the Essien-type player we need. He will be though, and his transfer fee will prove a wise bit of business.

Get Toure, we get a guy who will sweat blood whether we are 1-0 up or 1-0 down.

Oh, he hasn't got a bad shot either.

I agree Y.Toure is significantly better than De Jong but there's no way De Jong is just 'average' IMO.