Toure is threatening to leave Manchester City after claiming the club had forgotten his birthday, but City officials maintain that they had presented the Ivorian star with a selection of gifts, all of which Toure had ignored because he was wearing the headphones they’d given him for Christmas.
“There was a Jamie Oliver cook book, a box set of Justified, a portrait of Yaya by Brian Marwood, and an enormous cake, which we put down next to Samir Nasri,” said a City source.
“I saw Alex Kolarov looking at the cook book, I think Javi Garcia took the DVDs, and I know Brian decided he couldn’t bear to part with his painting in the end. As for the cake, you’ll have to ask Samir.”
Sources inside the Etihad Stadium believe Nasri consumed the whole cake, which was decorated with an image of Toure in icing, designed by Marwood over the course of an hour, and allegedly refused several opportunities to share it to the irritation of several other players.
“It really wasn’t my fault,” Nasri told FourFourTwo. “I was very sad about being left out of the France squad, and I needed to cheer myself up. When I saw [the cake] was coffee and walnut, I just couldn’t help myself.
“Everyone knows coffee and walnut is my favourite. If they’d wanted me not to eat all of Yaya’s cake they should have given him a Victoria sponge, or a bucket of Angel Delight. But Jack Rodwell would have inhaled that before you can say ‘homegrown quota’.”
Meanwhile, James Milner reportedly made off with an antique hunting rifle, presented to Toure by City chief executive Ferran Soriano, and is using it to negotiate a wage increase from the board.
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