Transfer rumour round-up: Balotelli, Dzeko, Bellamy

After some pretty impressive midfield reinforcements, the press have turned their attention to City's striking options - with Roberto Mancini only too happy to answer the questions of the Italian journalists of Il Giornale.

Both Mario Balotelli and Edin Dzeko have been linked to City with various intensities over the last couple of months and it does not come as a surprise that our interest in them has been confirmed. Mancini's comment last month about Krasic and Dzeko when he said 'we are interested in one of them', was almost certainly Dzeko - and at the beginning of June, The Daily Mail believed a deal was almost done before and after Dzeko's minimum fee release clause expired. So Mancini's comment that "certainly Dzeko is more than just an interest," at least shows that City retain a sustained interest in the Bosnian striker, despite Wolfsburg slapping an off-putting £50m price tag on him.

Balotelli has managed to shake off his agent for a moment or two to tell the press that he 'admires' his 'friend' Mancini, before reaffirming that his agent makes his decisions. As I have written when we were first linked with him, Balotelli certainly seems a troubled character at Inter, so a reunion with his 'father figure' in the game, who gave him his Serie A debut at seventeen, may well be a solution that could suit both the player and City. If we can get a content Balotelli, then we would be getting one of the brightest young talents in European football and, at nineteen, he will still feel he has a lot to prove to the world. Mancini's comments that "if Inter decide to sell, we will be there," are almost inviting contact with Massimo Moratti.

On top of these two, Torres, Ibrahimovic and even Didier Drogba have all been mentioned in the last few days but, as has been suggested earlier in the summer, this could represent a list of possible targets and City can afford to be quite fluid in who they go for. Although, one thing it does point towards is that we shouldn't expect Crocky to be our second choice centre-forward next season.

Alongside Santa Cruz, another widely tipped casualty of the reinforcements would be Craig Bellamy. Despite comments from Craig saying that he wouldn't move to another Premier League club, many of the papers are suggesting he is close to a £6m move to Tottenham - completing a deal we were accused to have bullied them out of when he moved to City. Bellamy's role on the wide-left has come into direct competition with David Silva in the last couple of weeks and this may have led him to reappraise his situation. Bellamy has always said he is chasing his final shot at glory - with worries that his knees won't carry him through - and this new doubt about whether his is a key role in the team may have left him wondering if any glory would truly be his. Although, as he has previously knocked Robinho out of the team, you never know...