Hunger is vital in this squad. The way we hunted down Liverpool showed that. Bringing the wrong player in or the right player with the wrong attitude will destroy that.
Now Mbappe is a special talent (although he's got a massive 12 months ahead of him as he seems to be going down the Neymar route) but we are never going to go from spending £60m (our current record) to £150m plus on a player, plus huge, huge wages.
This would shatter our pay structure and would cost around £30-40m per annum with the amortisation of the fee.
That's a high risk strategy both in terms of finances (especially if we get a champions league ban) and other players wage demands.
Do I think we'll break our record this summer? Yes I do, but do I think we'll get close to £100m plus? No chance.
That's not us being over cautious, that's us being business savvy.
You're completely missing my point here. I'm not saying as a club we aren't well run or business savvy as shown with the deals for Ederson, Sane and Bernardo. We've struck some excellent deals and Txiki deserves a pat on the back here. But I'm looking at this is a few different ways here.
1. If De Ligt wants 350k a week, walk away because if he comes in on that money without proving anything in World Football at present then what does that show to KDB, Silva, Aguero etc. It would end up in a similar fashion to United where they are struggling to tie up key players to long term deals because they want an extra few thousand on top of the wage offered.
2. Alexis Sanchez was all set to come here and United blew us out of the water. I completely agree with the stance that we had taken on this transfer because we aren't a gravy train who can be used by agents and players anymore. We are a successful model on and off the field.
3. The point I'm making is that if Mbappe suddenly becomes available we would declare ourselves as out of the race for the player because "we don't want to enter a bidding war with Barcelona and Real Madrid". That's the point I am making regarding our activity. Those are the two very sides, along with Liverpool we are battling against to win the Biggest prize in European Football and the trophy our owners and manager craves the most. You can't sit here and tell me that by not battling Madrid and Barcelona all the way for one of Europe's elite players is seen by the club as "savvy business" - it's more to do with our stance. If a player of that quality becomes available I believe we should be all over it, because signings like that would take us to the next level, and in turn stop our direct rivals from improving. The next level for us would be Champions League Winners and a shot at winning a Quadruple, and becoming the envy of World Football, and not just Domestic Football. There are no guarantees at all but I'm sure a player of Mbappe's quality if he does become available would certainly improve our first 11. He's a top 5 player in the world and has a higher ceiling than any of our current stars.
4. Do we really use the term "not entering a bidding war" to save face and to save us from a position of weakness if the player eventually chooses Barcelona or Madrid? I know statement signings aren't the be all and end all like with Pogba at United, but it didn't harm Liverpool when they got Van Dijk. They beat off all the competition to acquire him to go from a team in 4th position to a side finishing on 97 points in 2nd and winning a Champions League with a midfield three of Jordan Henderson, Fabinho and Gini Wijnaldum- none of whom would get onto our bench, let alone into our first 11. That poses the question, is it worth paying that extra bit of money to beat off the competition from the world's elite to acquire the world's best? I think if we are to move to the next level, it wouldn't do us any harm and there are always exceptions to the rules.
5. Examples of Txiki spending - 30m on Bony, 42m on Mangala, 22.5m on Jovetic, 12m on Fernando and 12m on Patrick Roberts. That's a total of 118.5m in fees with wages on top wasted on shite. I know all football clubs make mistakes, but none of those players were ever going to be good enough for Manchester City as they weren't very good players when we bought them, we all just hoped they'd be the answer. Could have bought 2 Kevin De Bruyne's for the price, which adds to the the point that instead of penny pinching for cheaper options, we could have done with shattering our transfer records to buy World Class Talent who would have accelerated the project 2 years ahead of its time, for example paying the extra money for Eden Hazard when Chelsea had got the player. We won a league title in 2012, had Hazard at the ground and failed to sign the player. Instead we ended up with Jack Rodwell, Scott Sinclair and Javi Garcia and regressed. This ended up costing us the price of 2 Eden Hazards to repair in the seasons afterwards. The point being, we are on top of English Football and we need to improve on the first 11. I like Mahrez, but last season we brought him in when we really didn't need to, and instead it would have made more sense to put those funds aside for the replacements for Aguero, Kompany and Fernandinho in the coming seasons and give Foden and Sane more playing time, who are arguably much better prospects.
In the end we could lose Sane and keep Mahrez, so are we really strengthening in that area? Nope. So this begs the question, would this be a business savvy move?
It's not always a business savvy move to turn away from the most wanted, especially considering the revenue these types of players would generate for the club.