Richard Keys is not impressed with Tixxi and Soriano'
City blow a fortune
Posted by
admin on Monday, 22 June 2015
Apologies again that I've been a little quiet of late, but I don't suppose I'm alone. There's not a great deal happening and I'm really enjoying myself in Miami.
Why Miami? Well, take a look at view from my hotel room first of all.
Beautiful eh?
@MondrianSoBe
The real reason I'm here though is to help my colleagues at beIN Sports cover Copa America 2015. It's quite an operation. We're joining up Australia, Far and Middle East and the Americas with a simultaneous broadcast in Arabic, Spanish, French and English. It's never been done before on such a scale and I have a feeling it's the shape of things to come in our business.
Anyway, I digress. Let me 'reach out to you'. They say that a lot here in Miami!
Question - when is somebody at Manchester City going to be called to account for the on-going financial waste? As ever, I can hear City fans squealing already 'he hates us'. I hear that from Liverpool and United supporters all the time as well. It's not true. All I do is point out facts and some of you would be well advised to open your minds and ask some of the questions I'm about to set.
What a mess Txiki Begiristain and Ferran Soriano are making at the club.
My feelings on Roberto Mancini's sacking are well known so there's not much point in returning to that subject. City will never get the 'lost decade' back now. Instead of bossing the PL and Europe, as they would've been doing, they're playing catch up. And they might never catch up.
Anyway, let's not gloss over the £300m spent supplementing Mancini's squad. At the end of last season only two of the players bought in that spree were getting games - Fernando and Navas. For me, neither is any better than the players they replaced.
Fernando's presence means they've lost James Milner. After Aguero he'd have been the first name of my team sheet every week. What a good lad - honest, professional, never lets you down and perfect for the P Lge. Liverpool have done their best piece of business since Brendan Rodgers took over.
We won't dwell on that. He's gone. So have Frank Lampard and Micah Richards. On the face of it no major harm done. Lampard's best days are behind him and Richard's was away on loan last year anyway. But I'll tell you why those three departures matter.
City are now left woefully short of able home grown players to fulfil their C Lge obligations - eight are needed in a 25 man squad. Five in a 21 man UEFA penalty imposed squad. Currently only Joe Hart, Richard Wright and Gael Clichy are recognised 'home grown' players. This is rank mis-management and the consequences are frightening.
What it boils down to is this -Liverpool and Arsenal, well aware of the problem, can ask whatever they like for Raheem Sterling and Jack Wilshere. Anything they like. City HAVE to keep going back.
Their agents will already have negotiated massive new contracts for their clients. Agents don't miss a trick and will also be only too aware of City's predicament.
City have got the money, but can they spend it and keep within FFP restrictions, even new relaxed restrictions? It's a mess that should've been identified some many months ago.
I'm sure they'll get Sterling, but not for less than the £50m Liverpool are demanding. They might also get Wilshere, but not for the first time, Arsenal will burn their fingers.
One last thing. It's an outside chance now, but it wouldn't surprise me if City were to get their hands on Guardiola this summer. All is not well at Bayern. It might suit them to let him go and replace him with Jurgen Klopp. He knows most of the players there anyway!
Begiristain and Serrano NEED Guardiola. The Spaniard has agreed to join them, either this summer or next, but no formal deal has been done. If the guv'nor in Abu Dhabi starts asking some of the same questions I have the free spending exiled x-Barca twosome will make one last ditch attempt to deflect some of the criticism and Pep some excitement into City THIS summer. So how much did it really cost to get rid of Mancini? For sure, hundreds of millions and counting. Most likely - a title or two and maybe, just maybe, the big one that is getting further and further away from them.