MOUR HELP FOR KARANKA
Brahimi is also being looked at by Atletico, but sources close to the player claim he would prefer a move to the Premier League.
City manager Manuel Pellegrini is keen to add more pace to his side and the Porto speedster is understood to fit the bill.
Veteran midfielder Frank Lampard claims City’s faltering title bid will be given a huge boost by the return of Yaya Toure and also January signing Wilfried Bony.
Toure has missed City’s last six games as he captained an Ivory Coast team, including Bony, to Africa Cup of Nations glory.
The 31-year-old linked up with City again last week, while ex-Swansea ace Bony began training on Monday.
Both will be available to face Newcastle on Saturday.
Without Toure’s massive influence in midfield, City only won one of their six games which Lampard says underlines his importance to the side.
“Yaya’s a massive player for the club,” Lampard said.
“I could see that from JOSE MOURINHO has stepped in with his latest favour to help Middlesbrough’s Championship promotion push.
The Special One has allowed Boro to use Chelsea’s training ground ahead of tonight’s trip to Birmingham City.
Aitor Karanka’s men stayed in London after their 2-0 FA Cup defeat at Arsenal as they cope with the demands of seven games in 21 days.
With Chelsea in Paris on afar when I was at Chelsea. You want him back in and hopefully that will give us a boost as a squad.
“Of course you miss a player like that with his talent and his ability.
“We’ve lost quite a few games when he has not been around.
“And alongside his return, we’ve got Bony.
“We’ve seen what he has been doing at Swansea, so he’ll be a fantastic signing for the club. There’s an air of confidence about him and he’ll add to the squad.” Champions League duty, the Boro boss – Mourinho’s No.2 at Real Madrid – used his special relationship with Mourinho to secure use of the state-of-theart Cobham complex.
Boro can regain top spot by bouncing back from Sunday’s fifth-round exit with a win.
Searching for a ninth league away win, winger Adam Reach said: “After the Arsenal game, we were speaking about Birmingham, and our focus is 100 per cent on Wednesday.
“We have to go there, put in a good performance and bring back three points. If we win, we should go back to the top of the table, and that’s the main thing.”
Blues Boss Gary Rowett is set to ring the changes to freshen things up as his side
A club statement read: “With no solution to the in-fighting within the management, the majority on the BIHL Board decided that it had no other option but to voluntarily request receivers to take over the management of BIHL on its behalf.”
In December, Pannu was ousted as chief exec and managing director, but stayed on as a director.
Panos Pavlakis, the executive director, failed to win re-election in that vote only to be re-appointed within 24 hours with a string of BIHL board directors keen for him to continue. look to maintain their slim play-off hopes.
Wes Thomas, Nikola Zigic, Neal Eardley, Lee Novak and Demarai Gray are all pushing for starts as City launch a spell of six games in 18 days.
Birmingham have lost just three of their last 16 matches, and Rowett said: “I’m loathe to change things because we’ve been doing well, but those lads are going to get a chance in the next three weeks.”