Official: Manchester City sign Roma midfielder David Pizarro on loan until end of season

Chilean signs for the Eastlands club initially on a temporary deal and will link up once again with Roberto Mancini, his manager for a year while he played at Inter

31 Jan 2012 22:41:00

By Ryan Benson

More On :  Manchester City, Roma, David Pizarro
David Pizarro - Roma (Getty Images)
Getty Images

Manchester City have confirmed the loan signing of Roma midfielder David Pizarro.

City manager Roberto Mancini only claimed on Monday that no players would be brought in during the final days of the transfer window, but has been given the opportunity to add depth to his midfield.

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The Chilean international has signed until the end of the season as he links up with former manager Mancini who was his boss for one year after joining Inter in 2005, winning a Serie A title, the Italian Super Cup and Coppa Italia with Inter.

Pizarro has struggled for first-team football at Roma this season since former Barcelona man Luis Enrique became head coach, appearing just seven times, but the deep-lying playmaker adds experience and European pedigree to the City midfield.

The midfielder had been linked with Genoa, Juventus and Zenit St Petersburg in recent weeks, but City raced to the front of the queue late on, but due to his lack of action this season, it is likely that he will have to work up his fitness before getting into the City side.

The former Udinese man made 148 league appearances at Stadio Olimpico since signing from Inter in 2006 and played 22 Serie A matches last season as his influence on the side decreased.

Elsewhere at City on deadline day, young Swiss defender Frederic Veseli joined Manchester United and left-back Wayne Bridge moved on loan to Sunderland.

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England 1-0 Belgium, Netherlands 4-0 Northern Ireland - follow all the international action LIVE! ahead of Euro 2012
With countries across the continent gearing up for their final warm-up games ahead of Euro 2012, join us for all the action from Saturday's friendlies. Get in touch with us via Twitter with your reaction.

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19:59 BST
Unfortunately for Northern Ireland, they are trailing the Netherlands 4-0 at half-time. Looks like that one's all sewn up then.
19:54 BST
We're still getting plenty of Hazard chat on Twitter. A few are now saying that he's not worth the hype, others saying he was brilliant(!?) and others (which I agree with), saying he created much of his own hype. What do you think? Get involved!
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Joe Hart has also been giving his thoughts after the Belgium game: "It was a really tough game, a good run out. I thought we played well, [but] we were a little bit bitty at times.

"But, we came through. Obviously there were a lot of changes so it's good to get the result.

"Belgium are a very, very strong side who are going to be really good in the future. Vincent [Kompany] told me about them and said that they were coming good and I totally agree with him."
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Here's Roy Hodgson's reaction to the result and some injury chat: "I'm very pleased, it's been a hard week and we've used a lot of players. There was a lot of disruption in the second-half with substitutions – some forced upon us, some we wanted to do. But it's still a very good end to the week playing against a good Belgian team here. Arguably even stronger than the Norwegian team we played last week and I've got to be more than happy that we've come out with another victory."

"[Gary] Cahill I suppose is slightly more of a concern for me because it is a jaw injury. We're desperately hoping the CT scan doesn't show any fracture and it's just going to be a bruising situation, which will be bad enough, but won't stop him taking part in the tournament. As far as John's [Terry] concerned he felt his hamstring a little bit. Again it wasn't a major thing when he came off but we still need to scan it just to be 100 per cent sure."

Suffice to say, if Cahill has broken his jaw, he won't play any part in the tournament.
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And another point from today: Eden Hazard wasn't great. Don't think you can judge him on one performance though. What do you think? Is it just a case of too much hype around the Chelsea-bound Belgian?
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