The Man With The Stick said:
JoeMercer'sWay said:
There are a bunch of immature, clueless, aggressive, mard arse, disrespectful and stupid posters in this thread who quite evidently haven't got a scooby about what they're talking about.
These posters just sulk and woman because they don't get what they want. They moan because they have lost sight of who we are and where we came from. They think just because our owner is rich, and because we have won a single league title and FA Cup that we have the right to buy who we want, that everyone should just want to come here and other clubs should bow down and sell us who we want to buy. These fans are being rags.
Txiki and Ferran are consummate professionals, and they are excellent at what they do. This does not make them messiahs. There is one quite colossal difference between their roles at Barca and City and that is that they now have to work at a club with a far smaller global reputation and less appeal than what they had behind them at Barca. They've been here less than a year and they are already making huge strides of progress, but if you honestly expect them to be able to persuade every great talent to come here then you are foolish at this stage, because they have far less to sell to these players than the likes of Real Madrid. Zidane can pick up a phone and sell 70 years of illustrious Madrid history, all the Champions Leagues, La Ligas and world class players that have been there (Himself, Figo, Beckham, the Ronaldos, Casillas, Di Stefano, Puskas, Raul etc. etc. etc.).
He can sell Madrid as the greatest club in the world, in the capital of the lad's home country and the dream club of at least 50% of every Spanish youngster. Txiki and Ferran have a club that at best has a tiny amount of that kind of history in comparison. We are a great club and we've had some success but when you're trying to sell this to foreign players it is nothing sadly in comparison to Real Madrid, very few clubs can stand up to that stature.
We tried our best and he was interested, but it seems at this stage and it's a perfectly fair conclusion that Madrid have more to offer him, at least on the surface, and it seems Zidane has done a superb job of selling him their club. That's not to say Txiki didn't either, because for Isco to even admit interest is enough to say we did a good selling job, the fact is at the moment Txiki has nowhere near as much behind him to sell at City as Zidane has at Madrid, and Txiki isn't the only person great at his job. This is Zidane you're talking about, a legendary attacking midfielder one that Isco can only dream of emulating, a legend. All the hard work that Txiki and Ferran have already done reshaping the club on and off the pitch is designed to put us on a par within 5 years within Real Madrid in everything except long term trophy cabinet, but that is something that will pale into insignificance once we can demonstrate we can compete at their level.
So to these frankly imbeciles blabbering on about how we've failed and moaning your arses off why not shut the fuck up, grow up, engage your brain and understand where we are at, what we're trying to do and where we are compared to the elite clubs in Europe. We're not there yet, and it's nothing to be ashamed about and it's certainly not a failure.
Bang on post... Nice mate
No, not really.
Anyone in sales knows that you have to find your own unique USP's - unique sales proposition. What is it that differentiates you from your competitors. And you try to move the goalposts so that your potential buyer sees more value in these things than in other things that your competitor has.
Then there's another old saying in sales; "there's only 2 reasons for losing a sale - either you were outsold, or you should not have been bidding in the first place". Harsh, but true.
All of the above is relevant to the Isco saga.
Of course we can't match the history of Real Madrid, but we shouldn't try to. We have a different proposition. How many players - out of the countless hundreds who have played in title winning teams at Real are truly remembered? A handful. Winning is a tradition at Madrid, not an exception. If you want to go to a team, be brilliant and be ignored and forgotten there is no better place to go.
On the other hand, our "project" turning an ugly duckling CIty into a majestic swan City, on a par with Real, Barca, Bayern etc, dominating our domestic league and winning CL trophies too, is a fabulous prospect for the early joiners. To be worshipped by the fans, and by new fans all over the world. And to move to a new city, a new country, England - capital of the civilised world, at age 18. What a prospect. How many 18 year old cannot be sold on the opportunity to see the world, to experience life in other countries? Staying home is for old men.
Silva, Aguero, Navas - they have all seen this opportunity and decided to grab it with both hands.
The fact that we could not persuade Isco means we were outsold, or we should not have been persuing him in the first place. What on earth can Madrid and Zidane have possibly told him that he did not know already??? Nothing. If all they had to do was pick up the phone and he's there's we shouldn't have been chasing him, wasting our time and effort.
