It would seem that Dani Alves has decided to join PSG rather than Citeh. So, Citeh currently have no full backs, unless you count Kolarov and I'm not sure that he's even a defender. Someone resembling me rather highly, suggested that letting all your full backs **** off at the same time was the action of a bunch of amateurs. This isn't Germany or Spain. Citeh ain't no Barcelona or Bayern Munich, either. Let's face it, Manchester is no Paris. Yes, Pep you used to manage clubs that did as they pleased. They had caché and history and players dreamed of playing for them. You are paid a fortune by Citeh because you're not working for one of the elite clubs. Citeh's business model is to be richer than everyone else. Unfortunately, everybody's minted nowadays, so all that's left is to throw ever larger sums of money away..........or you could take a few minutes to develop something?
They knew that they were going to get rid of their fullbacks. Why didn't they have anyone lined up? Amateurish.
The arrogance of having been able to buy what they want. However, seeing money as no object leads to brain failure. Made a mistake? Pay it off. Want to make changes? Throw the cash about. In trouble with the authorities? Buy your way out. Throwing money around like confetti only works if you truly believe it doesn't matter. As soon as you blink, it's hard to go back to it. Citeh either pay up or what are they?
City's transfers seem to have been far more intelligently approached in the past though, despite throwing around a lot of cash. The whole way that they've run the club has generally been pretty sensible, if you ignore the financial aspect. Perhaps the combination of their money and Guardiola expecting to be in a Bayern/Barca transfer position is the issue? He may believe that they can just go out and get whoever they want, as that's what he's been able to do in the past. Time will tell if that's arrogance or if they can actually follow it up. I may also just be wrong!
Dani Alves not coming ?? No exalted player for Walker to learn from ?? Citeh have just added at least 15m to TODAYS' valuation of Walker.
All but £50m for Sturridge and the same for Stones, pre-Pep and during his reign weren't great. £42m for Mangala? £32m for Otamendi? Adebayor and Nasri were flawed and don't start me on Bravo! I think the problem is that many of their purchases haven't been 'all that' for very big fees and massive wages. Apart from Tevez, Silva and Aguero they've not landed any really big fish and have spent well over £1 billion. Buys from English clubs seem to be a particular problem.
They've spent a lot of money and had some poor buys, but then so has everyone else. It's been largely successful in terms of trophies, sustained Champions League football and increased recognition. Hasn't really drawn in that much support in England, though. Not sure why. £50m for Sturridge? I'm guessing you mean someone else, as he was one of their academy players. Sort of. I think that they've tried to get big names by buying those on the verge, as they can't compete with the true big guns. Bayern, Barca and Real still dominate that completely, for some reason. Aguero is the best example of them grabbing someone nearly there and I think that their Brazilians buys have been close. Gabriel Jesus looks like he could get to that level and Robinho did too, for a short while.
Working backwards to the beginning of the petrodollar takeover: Gundogan £20m Stones £47m Otamendi £32m Sterling £44m Mangala £40m Bony £28m Navas £23m Negredo £20m Jovetic £25m Rodwell £15m Garcia £16m Nasri £22m Balotelli £25m Dzeko £27m Santa Cruz £17m Adebayor £25m Lescott £22m Jo £18m Robinho £32m De Jong £16m £445m wasted on crud in 8 years. Not too shabby.
Sterling's done pretty well for them, in my opinion, though the £50m was excessive. Probably quite cheap now, judging by the current window's prices! Not sure how they use him, Sane, Silva (x2), Jesus, Aguero, Nolito and De Bruyne in the same side, though. Lots of depth in attacking positions. Sterling and Kolarov at fullback?
Because of the ridiculous wages they have almost no re-sale value. They're 'on loan' at massive cost until their contracts run out. You can double the transfer fees with money wasted on wages.
It is telling that the core of their team remains Kompany, Silva, Yaya and Aguero - all players signed years ago. No one since has looked capable of taking the baton from that original group (although Sane, KDB and Jesus look capable of it).
Looks lie Walker is worth about 75M plus Itchy Nachos now. Leave it until 31 August and it will be Itchy plus 100M. That's what I call Levyeridge
Mangala and Otamendi are both Jorge Mendes clients, so naturally City paid through the nose (and a few other orifices) for them. Their approach to replacing their full backs seems to have been that they believe that, if they make an offer, the other team will accept it and they'll be fine...and that's not happened, as we're not budging on Walker while Monaco aren't budging on Mendy, at which point it becomes abundantly clear that City don't appear to actually have a backup plan if either of those pursuits falls through. It's telling that, last week, City spoke of themselves by saying that within a decade they'd be as big as Barca or Los Ladrones, yet they seem to have missed the point: not only do Barca and Los Ladrones have decades of success behind them, but those clubs also have an identity - City, on the other hand, do not have decades of success while their identity is that of a chav who won the Euromillions throwing money around to make themselves look important, and Chelsea have a decade's head start on them in that regard already.
the true definition of "state aid" helping their every move. Perhaps the sheikh needs to buy a UK newspaper publisher so he can try to La Marca ise clubs like Spurs into selling players (good luck with that) .
Could it be more than coincidence that a story has surfaced today that we've no interest in Ünder, the young Turkish Wonderboy that Citeh have suddenly become very interested in? Clear out the side issues and any avenues of hope left to Citeh over negotiating and they can ask us nicely what we will accept. I've just been on the Bluemoon website. There's much discussion over the need for lubrication given what Daniel's going to do to them. It's a shame they don't rate their English goalkeeper and their 2 signings have been foreigners when they're chronically short of home grown players. That mistake will cost them. Everyone knows what's coming next, it's XXX certificated and someone's going to have a very sore bottom afterwards.
http://forums.bluemoon-mcfc.co.uk/threads/kyle-walker.326286/page-282 The previous pages give a good counterpoint to today's change of mood once Alves move to PSG broke.
Funny how the papers keep forgetting they ended up paying £44m for a HG player in the final year of his contract...
