Bellamy plying his trade in the Championship is frankly absurd

Bellamy and Balotelli. Manchester City have discarded one, and acquired the other. Both attackers of outstanding talents though very different in origins, style and character.

That Roberto Mancini is probably one of the very few managers who can handle the unpredictable 20-year-old Mario Balotelli is evident; he did so when he was managing Inter and it was something which even The Special One, Jose Mourinho, couldn't do when he was at Inter.

But it is equally arguable that Mancini has made a real dog's dinner of his relationship with Bellamy, temperamental enough in his own way, but hardly as rebellious as Balotelli.

So much so that Bellamy, a great, influential success last season at City, has gone back to his native city, Cardiff, to play for the local Bluebirds in the Championship. For which he's surely far too good.

Last Thursday, Balotelli got impressively off the mark for City at Timisoara, in the Europa Cup, when he tapped in an early goal and, coming on as a second half substitute, changed the ebb and flow of a game which had been going against an ill-balanced City side.

He also inevitably had his stormy moments, was shown a yellow card, and eventually limped from the field after a heavy challenge.

That a player of Bellamy's pace, skill and penetration should have dropped out of the top division is frankly absurd and to me very surprising.

This, because, when I interviewed him some years ago, and oddly enough the fact seems to have been missed by the media, he told me that, although he was born in Cardiff, he had no interest in joining the local club as a youngster.

The fact that over the years he has had so many clubs, among them Liverpool, Newcastle and West Ham, hardly suggests a tranquil character, and at City there is no doubt that he and Mancini crossed swords over training.

In particular City, would not let him go to any other Premiership club which could be seen as a rival, so he is at Cardiff.

A very big fish in a rather small pond, though to be fair to them, Cardiff did miss promotion to the top division last season by losing a Wembley play-off to Blackpool.

Joe Cole, meanwhile, suspended after that red card against Arsenal, couldn't play for Liverpool against Manchester City.

A stormy start for Cole, but he has been eulogised by those two Liverpool veterans, Steven Gerrard and Jamie Carragher.

The more bewildering, then, that Fabio Capello, left Joe out of his England squad for the recent friendly against Hungary.

Cole is about the only English player who knows how to make a telling pass.

Operating now not on the wings, where Chelsea and England often used him but just behind the frontal attack, he looks the player one has always thought him to be.

—The author is a soccer expert based in England