Robinho could be a bargain buy

AS advertisements go, £32million seems pretty expensive — though only around twice as costly as the new Hovis campaign that has recently appeared.

In the TV ad, a boy carries a loaf under his arm as he wanders through 122 years of history with all kinds of northern mayhem setting loose around him, showing that in this ever changing world at least bread can be relied upon to stay pretty much the same.

Manchester City’s own advert, currently featuring Brazilian step-over merchant Robinho as its costly figurehead, attempts to convey the exact opposite.

That no matter the misery City fans have gone through in the past, the times to come — bound as they are for the considerable future to sky-high cost of oil — will be bright, successful and full of glamour for all concerned.

For the new owners, what happens on the pitch is of secondary concern.

Grinding out three points at home to West Brom or Stoke, or making a £150million bid for Cesc Fabregas? Only one of those options guarantees news coverage across the world.

The main thing is that media outlets — who can’t help but take the backers very seriously following Robinho’s stunning arrival at the club — pump up the excitement every day with talk of this player and that player arriving at Eastlands for vast amounts of money.

City’s new executive chairman Garry Cook may pay lip service to the club becoming a global brand, with energy drinks and scooters bearing the badge. But those goals are laughable.

Really, the take-over is all about increasing the profile of Abu Dhabi as a destination to rival Dubai.

It is working, too. You can’t buy the sort of blanket, in-depth press coverage the wealthy and ambitious emirate has enjoyed in the past few weeks. Don’t bet against Robinho turning out to be a bargain.

o ENGLAND’S 4-1 win in Croatia last week was a turn up for the books and no mistake.

But while the football was a refreshing change, with Fabio Capello’s men passing the ball to each other and everything, the Setanta coverage wasn’t so pleasant.

The actual content was fine. But those in charge should really get someone other than a toddler to design the colour schemes.

Not content with hideous yellow and black for its stand-alone news channel, Setanta decided that bright red would make a good background for the portacabin studio in Zagreb.

Which wouldn’t have been too disastrous if it wasn’t for the fact that Terry Venables was a guest pundit.

By the tone of El Tel’s skin, it looks like he recently taken to summering on the surface of the sun itself. The overall effect wasn’t so much a colour clash as an all-out thermonuclear assault on the eyeballs.