The big football story yesterday was the news that Yaya Touré wants to leave Manchester City. It's still pretty unclear as to why he wants to walk away from such a well-paid position, but a return to Barcelona would not be an unthinkable step for the midfielder.
As we reported yesterday his agent Dimitri Seluk blamed City's paltry acknowledgement of Touré's 31st birthday as a factor for all the discontent. Seluk criticised the club for not marking the milestone in a fashion similar to once-loaded Russian Premier League outfit Anzhi Makhachkala, who presented Roberto Carlos with the gift of a £1 million Bugatti Veyron in 2011. City's owners ate a Peter O'Mahony-sized cake of their own instead, if the agent's account is to be believed. The bastards. Said Seluk:
The club’s owners ate a 100kg cake after winning the Premier League this season but when they and the players were all together, none of them shook his hand on his birthday. It shows they don’t care about him. None of them shook his hand on his birthday. It’s really sick.
If this happened to you as a journalist in the BBC and nobody shakes your hand, you will say bye-bye and go to work for somebody else. It is normal.
As expected, certain small-time clubs have got in on the Twitter fun with messages intended to entice Touré to their humble set-ups with tokens of appreciation worth a touch less than the £250,000 weekly wage he receives at Eastlands. Yeovil Town 'sent' the Ivorian this cake:
We have just sent this off to Manchester for the attention of Yaya Toure. pic.twitter.com/G2EIF0jo1A
— Yeovil Town FC (@ytfcofficial) May 20, 2014
Oxfordshire side Didcot Town tried their best to improve their chances of winning the Southern League Division One South & West with this offering:
Happy birthday @Toure_yaya42, we wish you a happy birthday. We hope you received our card, also with a @SouthernLeague1 signing on form.
— Didcot Town FC (@didcottownfc) May 20, 2014
Moving up the leagues a bit, Colwyn Bay of the Conference North hoped to attract Yaya to the North Wales coast with belated wishes of their own.
After hearing the news that Yaya Toure may leave Manchester City after having nobody wish him a happy birthday.... (1/2)
— Colwyn Bay FC (@ColwynBayFC) May 20, 2014
......We would like to wish Yaya Toure a belated happy birthday from all your friends at Colwyn Bay Football Club. (2/2)
— Colwyn Bay FC (@ColwynBayFC) May 20, 2014
