De Bruyne?

[tonea2003]

Yeah, as a sub and in plenty of friendlies.
Silva wasn't 'amazing' when we signed him. Many reckoned he'd be too lightweight for PL.
Silva became world class WITH us.

bollocks mate 9 out of the last 10 games he played before he signed he started and that includes qualifiers and finals, pretty much established if you ask me
and stated the 2008 euro final, bit part player my arse, you are showing your half empty on city again

 

[Rammyblues]

So the all knowing media have decided that Pogba will stay a year and go to Barca and KDB will stay a year and go to the Bayern, yeah right, bias bastards.

 

[Dax777]

Can quite easily see this one dragging until the end of the window tbh. The way kev seems unwilling to come out and make a solid choice, and the reluctance of the wolfsburg people.

If he does arrive this week, great.

I personally don't think Kevin should come out and say anything. So long as he has privately given City the assurance that he is interested in coming, it is City's job to go get the deal done.

I'd hate it if some City player, Aguero for example, was being courted by Madrid and he was interested, I'd hat it if he caused a stink band lowered the fee. If its good for the goose, it should be good for the gander.

City should simply go negotiate and get their player.

Everyone needs to save face on this. Kevin has to show some loyalty and affection twfs his present club. This is where he finally made it. And the club has to act like it couldn't refuse the offer to appease its fans. As Wolfsburg fans just like ours don't give a shit about the money, we'd all rather have the player.

In fairness everyone is so far doing the right thing. And hopefully it would end with us paying slighly too much, and getting Debruyne while He keeps his loyalty bonus and Wolfsburg gets a hefty sum and argur Kevin's head was turned.

 

[FanchesterCity]

He started the Euro 2008 final. He wasn't on the fringes, and he was definitely amazing when we signed him, hence why it was such a coup when we did.

Revisionism at its best. He did start the final, but that was because Villa was injured in the semi final. Until then, he was basically the benchwarmer and came on to replace Villa.

Robinho was a coup, Tevez was a coup, Toure was a high profile signing. Silva just wasn't the coup you're suggesting. He's turned out to BE an amazing signing, but there really wasn't any media frenzy over Silva. He was a prospect, not an established world class player.

 

[sam-caddick]

I think we have gone to far to back out of this now.

If Wolfsburg don't accept this supposed 46m I still think we will go higher.

De Bruyne is arguably the best creative midfielder in Europe at the moment, I can't see us not going all out for him.

I also think if Wolfsburg do end up selling him it won't be to Bayern, why would they hand them the best player in the league?

 

[jpinblue]

Surely Wolfsburg won't want to help strengthen Bayern's team? We wouldn't sell our key player to an English rival.

 

[manimanc]

some journo on talksport saying KDB will stay at Wolfsburg and move to Bayern next summer. Prob bs as per from talkshite. Basically said whatever City offer wont be enough as Wolfsburg don't need the money.

Didn't they say something similar about sterling?
Jealous fuckers the lot of them.
And slightly off topic but the rags haven't even bid for pedro but sky sports news and talkshite must repeat the some thing on the hour every hour that utd are in pole position to sign him xnd pedro wants to sign for the rags.
Spot the difference? ?

 

[Blue_Rossy]

Revisionism at its best.
Robinho was a coup, Tevez was a coup, Toure was a high profile signing. Silva just wasn't the coup you're suggesting. He's turned out to BE an amazing signing, but there really wasn't any media frenzy over Silva. He was a prospect, not an established world class player.

Yeah, ill always remember that plonker on talk sport mocking our signings and he said he had never heard of David silva. Anyone remember it?

 

[Manchester33]

some journo on talksport saying KDB will stay at Wolfsburg and move to Bayern next summer. Prob bs as per from talkshite. Basically said whatever City offer wont be enough as Wolfsburg don't need the money.

Most clubs in the Champions League don't NEED the money. But there's not needing money and making bad decisions, If Wolfsburg don't take this offer they're shooting themselves in the foot.

Just imagine a team like Arsenal just winning the FA cup and beating the current champions Chelsea in the community shield. They're on the up and have a real chance of winning the league off of a Chelsea team that's won the League 3/4 years in a row. They have an excellent player, but it's quite obvious he is going to leave - Barcelona have offered big bucks for him and you know he is leaving the premiership permanently OR Chelsea, who they are in direct competition with, want to sign him for significantly less, a year from now (so he'll be distracted all season), which one sounds more appealing?

If Bayern manage to pull this signing off it should be investigated - it would just prove how Bayern-centric the bundesliga is and that's why it will never produce the entertainment that the Prem does!

 

[Tanzeylee]

Just because they are key players in the team doesn't provide evidence of how big a signing they were originally. Robinho was our biggest (in terms of PR) signing at that time, and he didn't work out.
The fact remains, Yaya and Silva are both bigger names in the footballing world since joining City. Yaya was a bit of a coup (although many questioned if he was an overpriced Barca castoff at the time) - he WAS a fairly big deal coming from Barca, but he was still an outgoing Barca player!, and Silva was a nice little Spanish player on the fringes of the Spanish team, but possibly too small to make it in the PL (as was the view then). WIthout a shadow of a doubt, both have increased their profile since joining.
Tevez was also a huge signing for us and real PR coup at the time, certainly as big as Yaya, and definitely a bigger signing that Silva (I'm not talking about importance, just the marquee stature of the signing).

The pool of players that would improve City of 6 years ago was much larger than the pool of players who can improve us now. The closer you get to the top of the tree, the harder it gets to find even better players, and that is what makes it harder for us.

I also did not say it's any harder for us that other elite teams, I said it's hard for us NOW than it was then. Back then we weren't an elite team. That's why I said we are now competing with a different set of clubs for the calibre of player we would like. Once we start doing very well in Europe, things might get easier, but until then, if we want the world's best players to join us, they need some serious coaxing. We are still a 'project' on the European stage, whereas domestically, we have gone past that stage.

If, as you suggest, things are not harder, but ought to be easier for us, then we do indeed appear to be struggling to improve in a number of positions on the pitch.
This whole subject came about over criticism about how we 'seem' to be failing to land targets when in the past we managed to land them. I don't believe we are failing (we've landed 1 of our 3 obvious big targets with a second one seemingly imminent, and brought in a couple of others too), and I'm arguing are previous targets were from a wider pool of players we might have bought. The pool has severely diminished due to us being a far better team now then we were then.

I'd say that's pretty much spot on it's just a bit harder to get the best, and I'm very happy we're in for the best players from that top pool, give it a few years and we will be taking the top players from the 3 big European teams.