With the Ishige interesting Manchester City rumours on Twitter today, as well as being given some credence by Sponichi in the Japanese press, I HOPE that someone keeps an eye on it and uses it as an example if, and when, Manchester City, or Mancini or anyone connected with the club make a comment along the lines of, “Yes, we’d like him at the club”, because, in my opinion, ANY commenting on the future of a player that is at another club is unsettling at least, and probably highly illegal, if the rules of approaching players was actually adhered to!

Mr. Ghotbi, as head coach at the club, please do all in your power to convince the Shimizu S-Pulse bigwigs to hold on to Ishige with all their might. Tell Ishige that you’ll make sure he gets his chance in a couple of years, when he is ready to make that step – when he’s played 80 plus games for the club and made an appearance on the full national team. Until then, unless the offer is HUGE, the player REALLY wants to go now, refuse it.

If the offer allows S-Pulse to build a better training ground, develop a better youth policy, or put a deposit down on that new ground under discussion in the centre of town, do NOT let him go. (Note, a new ground would, potentially double the average crowd of a rising team and bring a community together, a small price to pay for a better future, but that’s a digression) …

In a nutshell – take the BIG bucks, but use that cash well, or hold on to him, with a personal promise that he WILL get his chance.

IF the powers-that-be go over your head, Mr. Ghotbi, find a club that will give you a free reign in your plan to build a club of the future.

Western Sydney Wanderers’ “marquee signing”, former Japanese international, Shinji Ono arrived in Sydney on Monday morning and was even greeted at the airport by a few of the fans of the new A-League team.

“I’m surprised there are so many people here, [especially] to sing a song about me already,” Ono said to gathered reporters. “Now I just want to give my everything for the club. It’s very exciting to play here. I think I’ll be ready (for Saturday’s match in the A-League against Central Coast Mariners at Parramatta Stadium) but I need to speak with the manager of the team. I feel ready to play. I want to play here. I want to show the people what I can do. I hope a lot of people come to the stadium to watch the game.”

Ono has had a storied career over 17 years since he actually originally spurned the advances of his local team – S-Pulse,  in 1998, signing for Urawa Reds where he played from 1998 to 2001, returning for a second stint in 2006-07). He also played for Feyenoord, in Holland’s Eredivisie (2001-05),Vfl Bochum in Germany (2007-10) before returning to Reds, an then finally returning “home) to join Shimizu S-Pulse in 2010.

Ono also has 56 caps for Japan, including a shock inclusion for the France 1998 World Cup (when Kazuyoshi Miura was dropped at the last minute), as well as the 2002 and 2006 World Cups.

West Sydney Wanderers coach Tony Popovic said,

“(Shinji) is an experienced player at all levels and has played on some of the biggest stages in the world, his professionalism at the top level will be good for all to see.”

Ono had not been playing regularly at S-Pulse this season, due to niggling ankle injuries and the emergence of new players at the club and S-Pulse coach Afshin Ghotbi was not going to stand in the player’s way when this offer came along. The club and the Iranian coach agreed to cancel his contract in order for the move to be transfer-free, and wished him the best of luck in his new venture.

“It is a new chapter in his career and, as he was not playing at S-Pulse, we were not going to hinder his progress by asking for fee or making ti difficult for Ono to find another club. He moves on with our best wishes and our thanks for his service to S-Pulse”.

Nabisco Cup 2005 twitter.com/sidi55/status/…

He has Tweeted pics of his other medals, too – follow him on Twitter @sidi55

Maya Yoshida received a baptism of fire when he replaced the injured Jos Hooiveld less than 30 minutes into Southampton’s 6-1 defeat by Arsenal but then kept his place in the convincing 4-1 home win over Aston Villa. The team may have been stuck to the bottom of the Premier League without a single point to their name prior to the Villa visit, but they had drawn plaudits for their displays and it should be remembered that they had played all of last season’s top three teams in those opening four games. Before the Villa win the fans saw a stinging defeat to Wigan, which was not teh best performance but, ask any Southampton fan if they really expected points from Manchesters City and United, or Arsenal and they’d probably say no – the only way is up! But I digress, this is about Yoshida!

Before moving to Southampton Yoshida had spent three season in Holland’s Eridivisie, making 63 appearances for VVV-Venlo, who he had joined from the J.League’s Nagoya Grampus. His bicycle kick goal for VVV-Venlo off a corner kick on September 11th against PSV Eindhoven in a 3-3 draw earned “Goal of the Year 2011-2012″ in the Dutch Eridivisie. Between 2007 and 2009, Yoshida appeared for Nagoya 101 times, scoring 11 goals. Yoshida also captained the Japan team to the semi-final in the 2012 London Olympic Games.

Yoshida joined Southampton on a three-year contract, reported to have been at a fee of £2,000,000 and arrived at the club – after Japan national team commitments – just the Wednesday before the Arsenal defeat.

“The Premier League is a very, very high level but I’ll try to do my best to win games for the supporters and the Club. When I was in the youth team of Nagoya Grampus Eight in Japan at 15-years-old, I often watched games in the Premier League with the likes of Arsenal, Chelsea, Manchester United and Liverpool. I still like to watch and, now I’m here, I can play games in the Premier League. That’s a real success but I’m just standing on the starting line – now I want to show my quality in the Premier League”, the Japanese defender said to the official Southampton web site this week.

“It was a challenging game for me to play against Arsenal because they are a very big team,” he continued, “I enjoyed it because the Emirates is a great stadium and the opponent was very strong – and it was my debut in the Premier League. I played not-so-well in the 1st half – especially for the third goal, which was my mistake – but in the 2nd half I calmed down and was able to show my skill, I think. I have confidence that I can play in the Premier League. I am still looking forward to playing in our stadium and I want to show my best qualities to the Southampton supporters.”

Picture shows a page from JSoccer Magazine Issue 5, Maya Yoshida sharing the spotlight with VVV Venlo’s Yuki Otsu.

Yes, he couldn’t resist the lure of that oil cash – despite most of us thinking Alex was staying after the transfer window passed, I guess the BUYING club that has no transfer window can do as it likes. The club made an obviously too-good-to-resist offer TO Alex Brosque (apparently after being priced out of the market for Josh Kennedy?) and then Shimizu S-Pulse had to make the decision to not stand in the way of progress for Alex himself. The Shizuoka club said that it is not in the habit of holding on to players against their will and accepted Al-Ain’s offered transfer fee, and Brosque signed on the dotted line. Reportedly an initial one year contract with immediate effect.

Brosque will return to Japan for this weekend’s S-Pulse home game to say goodbye to the fans.