Looks like an incredibly naive window. We have left ourselves without a senior striker on our books. We have failed to source a workable left back again for the 8th window in a row. We’ve bought a brilliant player to replace a player that apparently isn’t leaving. Incredibly poor planning.
Buts it’s not just that, we have allowed ourselves to get involved in 2 soap operas that end up with the club looking amateurish.
It’s incredible that a management team that have brought huge improvements in commercial revenue, created a superb youth academy, created the CFG and brought us to the top table of European football have consistently managed to look fundamentally unserious (to borrow a phrase).
So much of what makes a football club is intangible, what marketing people call brand identity or accountants call goodwill. That’s why it’s astonishing to me that City have managed to consistently mismanage PR. We constantly fail to manage our image properly. Somehow wanting to appear bigger than the snide attacks from gutter journalists. Showing great acumen by not overpaying for players. Showing we’re smarter than UEFA. In every case we’ve lost the PR battle.
Time and again big 6 friendly journalists have a pop at us, damaging our reputation. We ignore but the marks stay.
We won’t overpay, great, that way you constantly have discover gems because the best players cost money and there’s real competition. Refusing to overpay, seems to fundamentally misunderstand how other clubs see us. There’s a Leeds (or any average PL team) price and a big 6 price. Accept it, it comes with the territory. Look at Real it’s part of their brand. Buying galacticos. It works for them. They see themselves as European royalty. We seem to be embarrassed by our wealth.
We’ve managed to be on the outside of European football inner circle for years. Happy to be seen as astute but wealthy. PSG bullied their way in. Their boss now heads the European clubs.
We have stop trying to persuade the media and other clubs that we’re smart and astute and principled and start doing whatever we need to win.
We need a striker? Then be ready to pay for him. Some red top journo starts acting up? Then ban him and his paper. Know that UEFA are gunning for you? Sink the perpetrators, no one in European has clean hands.
We have succeeded because we have had good managers and a good DOF. We have scouted pretty well and assembled a great squad but when we need to fill holes we’re afraid to overpay. What happens when Pep leaves? How much better are we because of his management? We’re going to eventually find out and based on our current planning process we could be in for a very bumpy landing post Pep.
Time to grow up and accept that we’re never going to be the good guys. Too many scousers and rags in the media. We should do whatever we need to do to succeed on the pitch. We are a big European player, start acting like it.