De Bruyne?

mcfc1632 said:
People (not specifically you) make these comments on Txiki's performance - yet they do not know the brief he has been given by Soriano and Khaldoon. Yes it will certainly have aspects of securing top players, but I guess that it will also include securing a professional reputation and this being demonstrated in how we do business. Why should the Sheik, Khaldoon - or any one at the club - and this includes fans - want to be sneered at as some thick lottery winner that can be mugged off because they know no better. The club is becoming increasingly professional in all areas - and it is time that we made transfer dealings the same.

And who actually can evidence poor performance by Txiki in this KDB affair - the comments made on here are so banal. He has likely spent months preparing the ground through the agent and thereby getting the player onside, then choosing the right time to approach the club - he is perhaps better qualified than anyone on here to determine when that should be.

Of course the selling club were always going to play hard-ball. What would have happened if we had gone in straight away with £50m - they would have accepted?? I doubt it - more like they would have thought "lets milk the chavs for £75m" - and there would have been some crass negotiation settling on £60mish.

I think that Ric is right and we are likely to end up with a settlement between that offered and that requested - has anyone actually thought to give Txiki credit for therefore getting the starting point of expectation lower so that the eventual settling point is lower?
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Good post.

I also think that people seem to view transfers in isolation and think "well who cares if we pay 5/10 million more". The problem is when you want to buy 3/4 players that quickly becomes 30 million plus extra you've paid for the players. That's the cost of one extra player so I can understand why the club are doing their best to get the best deals possible. Simply blaming Txiki or saying he doesn't know what he's doing is frankly just stupid. Txiki doesn't decide the budget for a player, Khaldoon and Soriano do.
 
AdamManCity said:
I am never one for criticising txiki but I'm not sure why it's taking so long.
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Exactly...nobody is sure of why it's taking so long

I find it hilarious that people post that Txiki is doing a shit job when they actually have no idea about what he is doing

If KDB gets over the line that's all our targets bar one achieved and Pogba is only ridiculously difficult due to his image rights
 
VOOMER said:
KDB doesn't want to come. He's in his comfort zone at Wolfsburg, as the main man in a league which aside from maybe two teams is wholly inferior to the EPL. I don't understand the fascination with the player, when we could get Pedro for less than half. KDB has been described by most neutrals, as being two things, slow and not as good as Hazard.
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Just for clarity, is this fact or your opinion?
 
It's a bit chicken and the egg this. We want to get to the level of Madrid and Barca.

So do you:
a) Buy the best players for £50m plus and increase your revenue on the back of it.
Or
b) Try and increase your revenues to Madrid / Barca levels so that you can afford the top players.

It's a difficult call. We obviously have the ambition to get to that level, to be a Champions League winning club. But the two strongerst clubs in the world have been buying the top players in the world over the last 3 years for 60, 75, 80, 100million pounds per player.

I trust in the executives we have in place, they're clearly very capable and they have their budgets worked out.

But the reality is, if we want the top players in the world we have to pay the biggest money. Real and Barca are the two most attractive clubs in the world to join, yet they are also the two that pay the biggest transfer fees.

Madrid bought Bale for 80m off the back of one outstanding season, and went on to win the CL. I think De Bruyne looks a better player, off the back of an even better season. Wolfsburg don't want or need to sell. De Bruyne isn't pushing the move.

I'd expect us to get it done at around 50m and if he takes us up to the next level of a regular semi final CL club, it will be money well spent.
 
BillyShears said:
Good post.

I also think that people seem to view transfers in isolation and think "well who cares if we pay 5/10 million more". The problem is when you want to buy 3/4 players that quickly becomes 30 million plus extra you've paid for the players. That's the cost of one extra player so I can understand why the club are doing their best to get the best deals possible. Simply blaming Txiki or saying he doesn't know what he's doing is frankly just stupid. Txiki doesn't decide the budget for a player, Khaldoon and Soriano do.
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Sadly that does not seem to be the case when we are looking to offload players (ie the loan deals for Dzeko and Jovetic) where are contiously bending over backwards for italian clubs
 
paulchapo said:
And you my friend are talking bollocks.I have supported this club for 47 years and i was there in the old second[in effect the third] division standing getting piss wet through,watching us get tonked by some mediocre side, in some shitehole of a ground and getting the piss taken out of us by the local inbreds.

Those days are thankfully gone and like it or lump it we ARE the richest club in the world and some of us want to see us competing worldwide at the very top and winning a shed load of trophies before we shed off this mortal coil.We will NEVER be rags in Blue due to that misery and grounding we all endured and in spite of the laughs along the way it was on the whole fucking misery! Now you and some others might still want to stand there in sack cloth and ashes saying,''At least we are not rags,we have the right attitude!'' but some of us want some joy and sunshine in our lives,we have on the whole fucking earned it with big shiny bells on! If spending a lot of money to watch the top players in sky blue and wanting to see us win trophies makes us rags then i have news for you....we already are,or you have fallen asleep and missed the last seven years!
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Th trouble is we can't spend whatever we want or we face sanctions that restrict our spending in the future and reduce our squad numbers for the CL. So regardless of how much you want City to pay up and get on with things, that's not how we can operate. Have you seen just how many clubs have been taken over in recent times. Not many have managed to keep on competing at the top level. Most have spent a lot of money which has left them in a bad position. PSG are still up there but the French league isn't as competitive and therefore they should always be winning it with their resources.

Chelsea have a very rich owner who has decided to limit spending to what the club generates. As rich as our owners are they're not investing in the club just because us City fans have had to put up with a lot of shite over the years. There are many more football clubs out there who have been through what we have, and most have not subsequently had any success. Many haven't had success at all.

We can't keep paying limitless amounts of money if we want a squad full of committed players. You end up with petty arguments between playing staff querying why others earn more than they do. You end up with a refusal to perform at their best ability because they don't feel they're being paid enough. We could then sell those players but we'd be losing all that investment.

Ferran rightly decided it was time to offload high earners and negotiate deals based on performance related bonuses. Giving the players an incentive to play well is common sense.

Txiki will have been working on our deals since Christmas time. He's worked hard enough to make us the no.1 club for De Bruyne to move to despite competition from other top sides who would probably pay him higher wages. We won't walk away just because De Bruyne doesn't hand in a transfer request but even when you're talking about millions of pounds, negotiating one million less is still worthwhile.

With Sterling we bid £25m despite knowing it would take £50m to get him. We ended up paying £44m and will pay up to £49m if he reaches his potential. For all the time it took, that's good business and if De Bruyne is valued at £Xm by Wolfsburg and we manage to do something similar we'll be very happy with that. It's more complex because he isn't demanding to move, but it will still happen.

This summer we lost two homegrown players who played a big part in our squad last season. We've replaced them with two England Internationals, one who has a decade left at the top level at least, and another who is very experienced but only 25. We paid a combined £52m for them (ignoring add-ons). In today's market that's good business when Luke Shaw, Andy Carroll and many other English players have commanded circa £30m despite a lack of consistency.

As for the query from another poster on why bother with De Bruyne when he won't ever be as good as Hazard... there's no saying he won't be and there's a clear need for further creativity and younger players in our squad. He ticks the boxes there. Silva won't be around forever and De Bruyne is capable of replacing the creativity we lose with Silva out of the side. Sterling is the one likely to provide for us the attributes Hazard does for Chelsea.
 
avoidconfusion said:
Sadly that does not seem to be the case when we are looking to offload players (ie the loan deals for Dzeko and Jovetic) where are contiously bending over backwards for italian clubs
Click to expand...

But again, if you look at Txiki's record of offloading players and getting fees then I'd say he has done an admirable job. Those Dzeko/Jovetic loan deals guarantee us a fee at the end just like the Negredo deal did. It's good business and it's not like we're the only club who the Italians try and fuck with. I was listening to a podcast recently where a journo from the Times was saying he had spoken to German, French, and Dutch clubs recently who all said that they preferred to sell players into England because Italian and Spanish clubs just weren't prepared to pay the money required or structure the fees an acceptable way.

We forget that the rest of Europe looks at our TV deal and then decides on valuations based on that both for players they sell and players they buy.
 
mcfc1632 said:
People (not specifically you) make these comments on Txiki's performance - yet they do not know the brief he has been given by Soriano and Khaldoon. Yes it will certainly have aspects of securing top players, but I guess that it will also include securing a professional reputation and this being demonstrated in how we do business. Why should the Sheik, Khaldoon - or any one at the club - and this includes fans - want to be sneered at as some thick lottery winner that can be mugged off because they know no better. The club is becoming increasingly professional in all areas - and it is time that we made transfer dealings the same.

And who actually can evidence poor performance by Txiki in this KDB affair - the comments made on here are so banal. He has likely spent months preparing the ground through the agent and thereby getting the player onside, then choosing the right time to approach the club - he is perhaps better qualified than anyone on here to determine when that should be.

Of course the selling club were always going to play hard-ball. What would have happened if we had gone in straight away with £50m - they would have accepted?? I doubt it - more like they would have thought "lets milk the chavs for £75m" - and there would have been some crass negotiation settling on £60mish.

I think that Ric is right and we are likely to end up with a settlement between that offered and that requested - has anyone actually thought to give Txiki credit for therefore getting the starting point of expectation lower so that the eventual settling point is lower?
Click to expand...
Great post mate.
 
Aguero

Sterling - Silva - De Bruyne
​
That's scary, City should be doing what they can to make it happen.

Add Otamendi at the back and that's favorites for the league and a good CL run IMO.
 
Chippy_boy said:
I've posted this before elsewhere but I'll post it again. I think some blues understandably proud and passionate about our club tend to forget that the outside world and players in general just don't see our club as we do. We are in the north of England which in itself is nothing like as attractive to the average foreign player as London is, let alone Madrid or Barcelona. We have had recent success yes, but our successes are limited compared to the top clubs we are looking to overtake on the world stage. Our CL performances have been underwhelming. Our manager doesn't have any particular gravitas or special appeal.

The net net is that if a top player becomes available and other top clubs are interested (Bayern, Chelsea, Real, Barca, United...) then unless we bid MORE than those clubs and offer to pay MORE then 9 times out of 10 we will lose out.

This isn't us being mugged or treated like chumps - it's the plain unavoidable reality. Of course in time, things will change, but for now if we want to sign the top talent we are going to have to pay over the odds and trying to save a few million here and there is just going to mean us missing out again and again.

Look at the Sterling situation - yes we got him, but look at what we had to pay to make it happen, and that was with a player pretty desperate to leave. If Chelsea or United had come in with the same bid at the last moment, doubtless he would have gone there instead. We only got him because we paid over the odds.

The alternative is to buy b-list players and hope they become a-list. We can pull that off occasionally but again 9 times out of 10 they will stay b-list and we don't need backup players, we need to add top talent if we are to progress from where we are.

Bottom line, pay Wolfsburg what is needed and get it done.
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Still can't understand why he hasn't publicly asked for a transfer if he genuinely wants to join us

It would certainly make life easièr
 
BillyShears said:
Good post.

I also think that people seem to view transfers in isolation and think "well who cares if we pay 5/10 million more". The problem is when you want to buy 3/4 players that quickly becomes 30 million plus extra you've paid for the players. That's the cost of one extra player so I can understand why the club are doing their best to get the best deals possible. Simply blaming Txiki or saying he doesn't know what he's doing is frankly just stupid. Txiki doesn't decide the budget for a player, Khaldoon and Soriano do.
Click to expand...

I think a lot of people are taking this "shackles off" idea too far.
What Khaldoon said was all PR. It was a season review and a statement of intent.
It was our intention this summer to improve the playing squad and have a side capable of challenging on all fronts.
It's not a limitless budget by any means. FFP still looms and is something we'll still be wary of.
Though we've again offloaded players on high wages, we've had to loan Dzeko and Jovetic and haven't got much cash in the pocket to play with other than the added funds from getting those two, Milner, Richards, Lampard and Sinclair off the wage bill.
We've identified players and we will have been sensible about how much they will likely cost. We'll have set a limit to what we'll spend and we'll have come up with a strategy for signing those players.

With Sterling it was well known he'd cost £50m. We played the long game and managed to work the fee down to £44m for this summer. It may rise to £49m but we've effectively saved £6m to what Liverpool wanted as a lump sum.

With De Bruyne we're probably working a similar strategy. The only difference is he hasn't spoken out about wanting to leave and Wolfsburg have been quiet publicly and just regurgitated the fact he's not for sale. He will be or we'd have never been in discussions for the player. I'm sure there have been several other players we've sounded out (Godin for instance) where we've known early it's not a likely transfer so moved on. That's not the case here so I'm confident we'll get him.

If we can argue £50m down to £49.5 million then that's a job well done even if it's take two weeks. We've still got a good enough team to beat Chelsea regardless.
 
supercity88 said:
I think a lot of people are taking this "shackles off" idea too far.
What Khaldoon said was all PR. It was a season review and a statement of intent.
It was our intention this summer to improve the playing squad and have a side capable of challenging on all fronts.
It's not a limitless budget by any means. FFP still looms and is something we'll still be wary of.
Though we've again offloaded players on high wages, we've had to loan Dzeko and Jovetic and haven't got much cash in the pocket to play with other than the added funds from getting those two, Milner, Richards, Lampard and Sinclair off the wage bill.
We've identified players and we will have been sensible about how much they will likely cost. We'll have set a limit to what we'll spend and we'll have come up with a strategy for signing those players.

With Sterling it was well known he'd cost £50m. We played the long game and managed to work the fee down to £44m for this summer. It may rise to £49m but we've effectively saved £6m to what Liverpool wanted as a lump sum.

With De Bruyne we're probably working a similar strategy. The only difference is he hasn't spoken out about wanting to leave and Wolfsburg have been quiet publicly and just regurgitated the fact he's not for sale. He will be or we'd have never been in discussions for the player. I'm sure there have been several other players we've sounded out (Godin for instance) where we've known early it's not a likely transfer so moved on. That's not the case here so I'm confident we'll get him.

If we can argue £50m down to £49.5 million then that's a job well done even if it's take two weeks. We've still got a good enough team to beat Chelsea regardless.
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There was no chance KDB was going to start against Chelsea unless he signed 2+ weeks ago anyway. Some of the posters on here were living in a dreamworld trying to work out if he'd have started if we got it done yesterday, ridiculous.
 
We have already broken our transfer record in signing Raheem Sterling. Correct me if I am wrong but is that not a sign of the shackles being off?
 
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