Manchester City launch birthday assault on Yaya Toure - but still no cake

Manchester City were playing it safe on Yaya Toure’s birthday on Wednesday by wishing him happy birthday – but did they get him a cake?

Twelve months ago, City managed to offend their star midfielder by failing to produce a birthday cake to mark his 31st birthday, with the fall out causing “a serious rupture in the relationship between Toure and the club”, according to the Guardian.

Last week, Manuel Pellegrini said the club would be making more of an effort this year, as “it is important to learn from the mistakes that you have in the past”, even if reports suggest City are willing to use him in part-exchange to land Juventus star Paul Pogba.

Only recently, agent Dimitry Seluk, who first laid into City for their failure to produce a cake last year, said it was “90% certain” his client would be leaving the club this summer, but the club embarked on a charm offensive on the day of Toure’s 32nd birthday.

Their main Twitter account led the way with a post wishing Toure a very happy birthday.

And taking no chances, their satellite accounts from across the world followed suit.

But, crucially, there was no sign of an actual cake itself. Was this a coded message to Toure, telling him he is no longer welcome at the club?

No, almost certainly not. But plenty of other jokers got in on the act (including us).

Certainly City’s fans were hoping he would feel the love at the weekend.

But the man himself had a rather more serious message to impart yesterday, when attending a Kick It Out event.