De Bruyne?

twosips said:
There's nothing 'lickle city' about saying we're not on the same level as Barca, Real or Bayern yet. Not at all. Just realism. We've got a fuck load more to do before we can say that. I love where we are as a club, but i guarantee you the Sheikh wants to be much, much bigger too.
Click to expand...

If anyone thinks we are on the same level as Madrid, Barca or Bayern then they are very very deluded. 10 years, maybe.
 
Didsbury Dave said:
There's a lot more to it than that, partly because your post has a whiff of the Likkle City about it.

We are a big draw now to players. We win things, have glamour, pay well, look after players and have an enormous future. The fact that we have agreed packages with these top drawer players shows that is the case.

The delay with De Bruyne and Pogba is clearly in negotiations with the selling clubs, clubs who are more or less having their arms forced by players who we have tapped up. City's recent history is of regularly overpaying, and Soriano's brief is of course to stop that, and to ensure that City don't get held over a barrel and forced to pay a City "premium". They've been very clever by ensuring that we have no rival bidders driving up the price, and now we are at the purchase point. Time arguably is on our side here, when the player(s) have mentally made the switch, and the best tactic we have is to walk away/play it cool.

I'd imagine if we had thrown £100m each on the table for De Bruyne and Pogba we would have had these players sewn up weeks ago. But the club is now integrating itself into the European giants and part of that is not been taken for mugs. These players aren't in the bag but it's obvious to me that we are playing things cleverly. We have signed two, and are close to two big name players, and there hasn't been a rival bidder for any of them. That's class in action, and the current delays are an extension to that.
Click to expand...

Whilst i agree with you about not being taken for mugs and building on our reputation in gaining respect in Europe, i also agree with what Domalino said. We are a big draw to players, but as he stated, we don't have the reputation of a Barca, Madrid, Bayern just yet. The only problem i have with City being in the mindset of not overpaying is that if we don't overpay for the "bigger" stars like Paul Pogba, he will go to a more attractive proposition such as Barca. City will always have to overpay in comparison to Europeans most elite teams because that is our only pull over them. For a player like Pogba, as long as FFP doesn't affect us, money should be no object. We should just pay whatever we can to get the player because if you want to be the best and you want to buy the best, sometimes you have to just pay the premium and bite the bullet. Yes, i bemoaned in the Sterling thread about the price, but that is because we had no other competition for his signature. With Pogba, most of the europe's elite want him and it is easy to see why, because he is a fantastic talent. When a big star becomes available, City need to use their financial muscle in the market to attract the best. You only have to look at Real Madrid spending 63m on James Rodriguez and 84m on Bale... as big as Real Madrid are, they had to bite the bullet and pay a ridiculous amount to acquire these 2 players, same goes for Luis Suarez with Barca... what was that... 75m quid?

If City don't want to be left behind and want to put up more of a challenge in Europe, they have to pay the premium for the best players in Europe in order to compete against Europe's finest. If we try and be too cute in the market, we will get left behind. We paid the premium for Aguero, Yaya and Silva and we got them, we have stopped trying to overpay for players in the past few years and we have not got the worlds best because of it. Hazard went to Chelsea on the basis that Chelsea offered more money to him and threw a shit load of money in his agent's face. If you don't overpay for a world class player, you will only be left with regret because in the long run, these mega stars are the ones that will guarentee you trophies most seasons. As stated, Eden Hazard is a clear example of that and now Chelsea are reaping the benefits from him.
 
So we paid the ''who do they think they are'' tax to get Raheem so in all probability WFC will first want the ''Oh its City'' tax together with the ''PL TV Sky / BT bonus'' tax for being in the PL.
A lot of negotiation there if we want any non PL club to treat our bid without taxation.
 
We're not the only PL club subject to this. Liverpool are struggling to offload Balotelli for 7m as the Italians are trying to drive down the price. They know we all have money, and they're wanting a slice of it. In some ways, you can hardly blame them - business is business after all.

I don't think City need to pay over the odds for most players, but once we're looking at the sort of player that the big three might want to sign, then that player is always going to command a mega fee, especially if City are buying.

Eventually, if we step up the mark of CL winners (or serious contenders) then hopefully players will be knocking at our door.

We've stepped up a good few levels since the takeover, but there's at least 1 or 2 more levels to go yet, and we're still relative 'new' to the scene at the top table. We've not really done much in Europe to make the world sit up and notice yet, yet alone contemplate winning the CL.
 
Last edited:
citizens_1976 said:
Whilst i agree with you about not being taken for mugs and building on our reputation in gaining respect in Europe, i also agree with what Domalino said. We are a big draw to players, but as he stated, we don't have the reputation of a Barca, Madrid, Bayern just yet. The only problem i have with City being in the mindset of not overpaying is that if we don't overpay for the "bigger" stars like Paul Pogba, he will go to a more attractive proposition such as Barca. City will always have to overpay in comparison to Europeans most elite teams because that is our only pull over them. For a player like Pogba, as long as FFP doesn't affect us, money should be no object. We should just pay whatever we can to get the player because if you want to be the best and you want to buy the best, sometimes you have to just pay the premium and bite the bullet. Yes, i bemoaned in the Sterling thread about the price, but that is because we had no other competition for his signature. With Pogba, most of the europe's elite want him and it is easy to see why, because he is a fantastic talent. When a big star becomes available, City need to use their financial muscle in the market to attract the best. You only have to look at Real Madrid spending 63m on James Rodriguez and 84m on Bale... as big as Real Madrid are, they had to bite the bullet and pay a ridiculous amount to acquire these 2 players, same goes for Luis Suarez with Barca... what was that... 75m quid?

If City don't want to be left behind and want to put up more of a challenge in Europe, they have to pay the premium for the best players in Europe in order to compete against Europe's finest. If we try and be too cute in the market, we will get left behind. We paid the premium for Aguero, Yaya and Silva and we got them, we have stopped trying to overpay for players in the past few years and we have not got the worlds best because of it. Hazard went to Chelsea on the basis that Chelsea offered more money to him and threw a shit load of money in his agent's face. If you don't overpay for a world class player, you will only be left with regret because in the long run, these mega stars are the ones that will guarentee you trophies most seasons. As stated, Eden Hazard is a clear example of that and now Chelsea are reaping the benefits from him.
Click to expand...

Very good post mate!
 
bugsyblue said:
If anyone thinks we are on the same level as Madrid, Barca or Bayern then they are very very deluded. 10 years, maybe.
Click to expand...

Scum not on there level and never will be and they've been around winning league after leagues plus champs league via referee bias for 20 years!
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Unread Posts

Don't have an account? Register now and see fewer ads!

SIGN UP
Back
Top
✖
  AdBlock Detected
Bluemoon relies on advertising to pay our hosting fees. Please support the site by disabling your ad blocking software to help keep the forum sustainable. Thanks.