Take off your blue tinted specs.
Real Madrid eat at the top table. What position are the6 buying for? Who are the top 3 players in that position in the world? They want one of them.
How much do you think Real would want to pay for Sterling? They don’t care that he is English, so knock off at least the £20m “Homegrown” premium English clubs pay for what little talent is left in this country. Then he is in the process of running down his contract if he is going to leave. So, next summer, do they bid £100M? Not a chance! £40M tops...or they simply make it known to the player that they want him, will pay him mega bucks to sign and show him the €5M villa they have picked out for him in Madrid, and Bob’s Your Uncle....he does a Milner!
Like everyone else, I have no idea what he is looking for, but I know Txiki and Khaldoon are not going to be bent over BY ANY PLAYER! They know who the key components of the squad are going forward. They also know that there is not a hole in the team, apart from GK, that cannot be easily plugged by another player. There is Bernardo and Mahrez both looking to play in that same position, with a Mahrez favoring the wing and Bernardo liking to drift infield, not to mention Diaz who can play the left footed right winger role.
The game is big business and in our best year ever we made £10M. Khaldoon, Ferran and Txiki know what they want, but most importantly, they are disciplined enough to walk away from deals they are unwilling to pay, because they know this is not the City of yesterday, but the City of tomorrow.
I hope they can do the deal at the right price, with the right incentives, but if not I will trust their judgment and expect Sterling to be sold next summer. 10 years ago we would have killed to keep a 20 goal player. This isn’t 10 years ago!
And, as other players’ contracts come up, expect the exact same sentiments from me, unless they are one of the Lynch pins of the team going forward, which explains why they have been taking care of contracts thick and fast until they came up against this roadblock.