Only us City fans can downplay going after a defender with the reputation of Kalidou Koulibaly. If United and Liverpool were going for him their fans would label him as the next "Maldini" coming to Anfield/Old Trafford.
I dislike arrogance but our fans need to have a little more self belief in how big we've become, how good we are and what we've won over the years. We aren't that little club anymore.
If we are to be considered one of the big boys in World Football attitudes have to follow suit with it. Who cares about how much a 29 year old costs, we aren't here to penny pinch- we want to become the best team on Earth and to do that we need to spend whatever it takes on proven quality. If Van Dijk was being sold from Liverpool for 63 million- Liverpool would have their pants pulled down and he's the same age as KK.
The way I see it, we bought Sane at a very young age to set up the future of this club and lost him- and that could happen to a lot of players we buy at a young age. Football is a short career, players from other countries don't tend to want to stay at clubs for a long period of time. Silva, Aguero, Kompany are the exception. But if you look around the world - Barcelona bought Neymar young to set up their future after Messi and he left. Mbappe probably won't stay at PSG for very long. There's no guarantee. Id rather we buy proven world class in areas that need immediate improvement than buy another young player with potential like John Stones who is still potential and hasn't improved under us - even after having the time being Kompany's understoody for 3 seasons. With Rodri we have time because we still have Fernandinho, with Jesus we have time because we still have Aguero but in defence we have Laporte who still isn't the finished article yet like a Van Dijk, Terry, Vidic or a Tony Adams. We need a defender who's ready now to get back what's ours. The title.
In a world where there are very little available top class defenders who brings the presence Koulibaly could bring to us- we've got to strike.
