Thing with two years left on a contract is if the player doesn’t sign you have that thought he been tapped up by a club to go there on a free! I feel that’s how the likes of Madrid and Barcelona get the top quality players now because they can’t off us 100m for him as they could years ago because they are skint!
Like Rodri will Madrid’s pay us the money this summer? Or wait till next year on a free?
Of course - that shit goes on all the time. Particularly with the Clubs you mentioned.
And it works with a year left on a player’s contract, as the ‘buying’ Club can reasonably (just about) wait a season to get a key player in on a free for a key position in the team.
But realistically, no Club is hanging about holding/not filling a critical role in their first team for two years, waiting for a player to run down their contract.
There’s way too much uncertainty in that scenario for any serious Club.
And the reality is most selling Clubs will buckle, because they need to max out the fee potential for the player.
City aren’t in that position, so can afford to sit it out. We can wait a year, and see if we can convince him in that time.
And if not - we sell in summer ‘27, when he’s still got a year to run.
So any Club that wants Gvardiol this summer is going to have to make it at a price worth all the hassle in an already challenging window for us.
