By Mark Heys
August 18 2005

Stuart Pearce has leapt to the defence of Manchester City today after they became embroiled in a war-of-words with local rivals Bolton Wanderers this week. The former England full back has reacted to comments made by Bolton's Sam Allardyce earlier this week which claim that the Blues have acted improperly in their pursuit of the Wanderers Greek midfielder Stelios Giannakopoulos.

A million pound cash offer has already been rejected out of hand by the Trotters for the European Championship winner as they are looking for a fee more in the region of £4 million for a player who has just one year left to run on his current deal.

City manager Pearce says that the situation regarding Giannakopoulos has been blown out of all proportion.

"I don't want to go into battle with Sam over this situation but all we feel we've done is make an offer for one of their players.

"If that's out of order then I'm sorry, but I'm sure down the line Bolton will enquire about one of our players too.

"We valued him, we asked the question and we followed it up with a fax in respect of the offer. The last I've heard is they say they have not received it so maybe their fax is broken. They seem to be very cross about our offer and I have no idea why."

It remains to be seen whether City will up their offer for the former Olympiakos star, but it seems as if Bolton are willing to re-negotiate if they are offered a bid that is too good to refuse.