onceabluealways said:
ISCO is not a player for the future - he is good enough to play in most teams now - he is the star player for Malaga who got robbed against Dortmund in CL QF so is well capable of playing at the top level.
What he also has is the POTENTIAL to be one of the best players around on the planet.
This is exactly the same as Hazard - I'm not flapping but I believe these are both players that we could have bought and sold 3 / 4 years later and made money - IMHO we let both of these players slip through our fingers due to c*ck ups - Both should have been done and dusted before other clubs showed their hands. Thats if it was possible of course as i only have opinion not all the facts
That's not the way it works, though. You can't just sneak up and sign someone when nobodies looking. You have to go through the agents. The agent is usually the first person to ring Madrid et al and inform them that City have made a bid. This is to start a bidding war. The player and the agent always get a better deal from this, the more clubs that are interested the more cash gets thrown into the mix.
The only occasion when a club can snap up a player without competition is when the player's agent contacts the buying club direct and says he wants to sign for you. Everything else is a circus.
We have addressed two important areas of our squad, back up and competition for Yaya with Fernandinho and width/pace/delivery with Navas. Another season with Aguero, Tevez, Dzeko and Guidetti is hardly the end of the world, like!