Firstly, putting cards on the table, I love a good ol’ ‘transfer war chest’ as much anybody.
Money flying around the top tiers of European football is part and parcel of the sport we all know and love. There is of course one club that currently towers over the rest and with a recent £400m sponsorship deal, the spending is unlikely to start slowing down anytime soon.
Obviously, I am referring to Roberto Mancini’s Manchester City. Following a successful season whereby an automatic Champions League spot and victory in the FA Cup was acquired, the blue half of Manchester will now want to carry out an assault towards winning the Championship for the first time since 1968.
Despite Mancini’s success last year, many still seem to question the suave Italian’s approach to the transfer market.
Popular Skysports pundit Paul Merson recently claimed, ‘You look at someone like Roberto Mancini at Manchester City and he bought players like James Milner for £30m. Come the start of the season you looked at the team and thought he had a lorry load of players who all play in the same position.’
Further criticism has been lent to City’s overall transfer policy that stretches to before Mancini took over from Mark Hughes back in December 2009.
The club is fully expected to take spending on new players beyond the eye-watering amount of £400m this summer, all since Sheikh Mansour bin Zayed Al Nahyan took control.
When assessing that spending, it is easy to see why the club attracts criticism.
Take the left back position for example. City paid £12m for Wayne Bridge just two summers ago. After just one season, he was deemed surplus to requirements and eventually farmed out on loan. Last summer, they then replaced him with £17m Alexander Kolarov from Lazio. With that money spent on him, and a total of £29m spent on finding the ‘right fit’, surely City had now filled that position adequately. Incorrect. This summer they brought in Gael Clichy from Arsenal in a £7m move. If I was him, I’d feel under pressure, otherwise that haunted position will claim another casualty.
Then of course there are the much-fabled strikers. These include the likes of Craig Bellamy, Roque Santa Cruz, Emmanuel Adebayor, new-boy Edin Dzeko and recently departed Jo. This ‘strike force’ was bought for a combined £101.5m. Quite an investment you would agree, especially something you would expect to see a rather impressive return on. However, this has not been the case. They have mustered a depressingly low 33 league goals between them. That works out at over £3m a goal. Crazy.
The case of Robinho can’t be ignored either. City’s first ‘Galactico’ arrived for £32.5m only to be sold two years later for half the price.
This may sound like damning criticism of City but I believe it should actually act as lessons learnt. The club is now embarking on a Champions League campaign and should now only be interested in the very best world-class players, leaving the likes of Jo and Wayne Bridge at the door.
I personally feel that if you’ve got it, which City certainly have, why not flaunt it. It makes the race for the Premier League title all the more exciting and it’s always entertaining to see Fergie squirm as the gap between the red and blue halves of Manchester edges closer.
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Or have a look at the ten strikers that we think will lead the race for the Golden Boot next season