Rafael van der Vaart in title warning to Manchester City

Posted Tuesday, November 01, 2011 by The Sun

RAFAEL VAN DER VAART reckons Manchester City could end up in Real trouble — by tripping over their egos in the race for the title.

Spurs' former Real Madrid ace said: "The difficulty is they have a lot of egos so maybe that's going to be a problem.

"It's a huge problem when you have too many big stars.

"At this moment City are really good and winning games easily.

"The way they beat Manchester United 6-1 was very impressive."

Roberto Mancini's Etihad outfit have stormed five points clear at the top of the Premier League.

The City boss has already had run-ins this season with striker Edin Dzeko, winger Adam Johnson and, most famously, Argy star Carlos Tevez.

Van der Vaart believes it could be tricky managing so many star names in one dressing room — and the Dutch playmaker should know.

Before joining Spurs in August 2010, he spent two years at the Bernabeu as part of Real Madrid's big expensive squad of stars who collectively failed to live up to their price tags.

He admitted: "When you play for a big team and they buy a lot of good players, a lot of other players are also unhappy.

"At Madrid we had six Dutch players and we were all gone within about six months or so.

"The same could happen at City — look at Emmanuel Adebayor.

"He is a great player for Tottenham after joining us on loan and he was not even in the squad, he was training with the kids.

"That tells you everything. He is a great player and was not even allowed to play with them."