Lionel Messi | Joins Inter Miami (pg4111)

[Kippax.]

Am I right in saying this ffp thing is just a UEFA issue?

If so, why don't New York City 'buy' Messi (and pay his wages) = $750 million and then they can 'lend' him to MCFC for a few years.

(I can't think where I got this idea from!)

or even better, they sign him for £300m and then falls out with the manager and the club decide to appease the fans with the love for Reyna that they sell him as quickly as they can to the first offer as they want him out the door!

lest say £10m to the first bid. City bids and he's ours!

my idea is more plausible, don't you think?

 

[Gaylord du Bois]

It would be a genuine dream come true if City were to sign Messi, but I simply cannot see it happening. That's not a "likkle City" mentality, as some patronisingly put it, more a pragmatic realisation of the difficulties involved in prising a player of Messi's standing from a club of Barca's magnitude. Their transfer ban makes the deal impossible in the foreseeable future in my eyes.

Obviously no one can say definitively what will happen, but if I was a betting man I'd be putting my money on him staying at Barca.

Better the Truman Show you know than the one you dont.

 

[WEMBLEY76]

The more this story runs,I feel he could join City as a new start for him.No problem settling in with his mates,financially we can make it happen,and it would elevate City to many levels higher globally than signing any other player in the world,and instantly create a full waiting list for the North Stand expansion.Commercially,and revenue wise it's a no brainer,shirt sales would go through the roof.

 

[JOGAMIGMOG]

Let's assume we sign him to a 5 year contract and with wages and add one the total bill for 5 years is 1billion quid or a thousand million. We need to make 200 million a season to pay for it.

I'm no expert but you're talking telephone numbers here and how can we rake in an extra 200mill I don't know.

Not letting it put me off though!

 

[Stuuuuuu]

It would be a genuine dream come true if City were to sign Messi, but I simply cannot see it happening. That's not a "likkle City" mentality, as some patronisingly put it, more a pragmatic realisation of the difficulties involved in prising a player of Messi's standing from a club of Barca's magnitude. Their transfer ban makes the deal impossible in the foreseeable future in my eyes.

Obviously no one can say definitively what will happen, but if I was a betting man I'd be putting my money on him staying at Barca.

Barcelona don't have any say in the matter if his buy-out clause is met.

 

[Bald fraud]

Has anyone seen Kun's cheeky tweet?

No, what's it say?

 

[Dribble]

It would be a genuine dream come true if City were to sign Messi, but I simply cannot see it happening. That's not a "likkle City" mentality, as some patronisingly put it, more a pragmatic realisation of the difficulties involved in prising a player of Messi's standing from a club of Barca's magnitude. Their transfer ban makes the deal impossible in the foreseeable future in my eyes.

Obviously no one can say definitively what will happen, but if I was a betting man I'd be putting my money on him staying at Barca.

Barcelona don't have any say in the matter if his buy-out clause is met.

Arsenal met Suarez's BOC and the Dippers still told them to fuck off.......

 

[Prestwich_Blue]

It would be a genuine dream come true if City were to sign Messi, but I simply cannot see it happening. That's not a "likkle City" mentality, as some patronisingly put it, more a pragmatic realisation of the difficulties involved in prising a player of Messi's standing from a club of Barca's magnitude. Their transfer ban makes the deal impossible in the foreseeable future in my eyes.

Obviously no one can say definitively what will happen, but if I was a betting man I'd be putting my money on him staying at Barca.

Barcelona don't have any say in the matter if his buy-out clause is met.

Arsenal met Suarez's BOC and the Dippers still told them to fuck off.......

There's a difference between a release clause like Suarez had, which was meaningless, and a Spanish buy-out clause. The latter has a legal basis which means if it's met, the player can walk away.

 

[Manchester_lalala]

Am I right in saying this ffp thing is just a UEFA issue?

If so, why don't New York City 'buy' Messi (and pay his wages) = $750 million and then they can 'lend' him to MCFC for a few years.

(I can't think where I got this idea from!)

If this deal went ahead like this, there would be hell on.

 

[BillyShears]

It would be a genuine dream come true if City were to sign Messi, but I simply cannot see it happening. That's not a "likkle City" mentality, as some patronisingly put it, more a pragmatic realisation of the difficulties involved in prising a player of Messi's standing from a club of Barca's magnitude. Their transfer ban makes the deal impossible in the foreseeable future in my eyes.

Obviously no one can say definitively what will happen, but if I was a betting man I'd be putting my money on him staying at Barca.

It's funny, I think the transfer ban makes me MORE likely he'll move rather than less. I just don't see him sitting around for another year without them being able to add to the squad whilst it all comes down to his goals to win them something.

 

[baildon blue]

I would love it if Messi comes to CITY .
But it won't happen .
I would rather we signed Ronaldo .
I think he would be a more realistic target .
Only negative about him his age .

 

[BluessinceHydeRoad]

It is impossible to know what the future holds for Messi and Barcelona, but it does seem that he just might leave the club. Relations seem to have become incresingly tense over the last few years, until Barcelona appear to have to replace the entire managerial staff to placate him now, and then there is no guarantee that this will succeed. The lesser of two evils may be to bid him farewell.

There is evidence that City have been monitoring Messi's position at Barcelona for at least two years and are serious in their intention to bring him to Manchester. In my opinion, if Messi leaves Spain he will come to City. It has nothing to do with FFP, which will be irrelevant and City will not have to sell the squad or the Sheikh's star racing camel or anything else to buy him.

Firstly, Messi will be going nowhere in January. If he moves it will be in summer. Real would be a competitor, perhaps, but no-one else. United could not even think of competing. City's owner, and many of his advisors, are businessmen for whom this deal would be small scale after deals worth $65 billion for the development of Dubai or even £4 billion to save Barclays. City will not even pay the transfer fee or the bulk of the wages. The link up of Messi with the Sheikh and Manchester City would be irresistible to many commercial interests. Messi would get a salary and bonuses from the club, but contracts with all kinds of football products etc etc would mean that he earned mouth watering sums, even for him. This is the kind of world the Sheikh moves in and no other club or owner, even the Qataris or Abramovitch, does. If City want Messi and can get him, a deal will be put in place.

Agree with all that, but doesn't the whole transfer fee have to be paid by the club to register him without 3rd party ownership. Not saying it couldn't be recouped through sponsorship, but we would have to pay the fee.

Yes, it does and I have expressed myself clumsily here. I wanted to say that City probably have outline agreements with all kinds of partners, sponsors and other interests who will contribute to City's income without contravening any regulations and, on the other hand, will stand to profit from Messi's association with the club. I think City are the only club on earth which understands that the club exists to provide football for the public while other groups exist to exploit fans as consumers of other products. So the aim is to give the football as near to free as possible and let the fans soak up the advertising. This is why the ground is being extended, this is why there will be advertising in New York, Melbourne, Yokahame etc etc - and this is why City will pioneer technology to allow people all over the world into the Etihad by "distance viewing" - to see Messi and share the sponsors advertising. From this perspective Messi is eminently affordable!

 

[Dribble]

football manager time again!

hart
zab
vinny
mangala
kurwaza
fernandihno
koke
silva
reus/bale
messi
Sergio

Formation?

hart

zab.....................................vinny......................mangala....................kurwaza

….…............................................. fernandinho.................................................

...............koke.................................silva...............................reus/bale............

.......................................................messi...............................................

.......................................................sergio...............................................

sorry about the shit layout! lol a 4-1-3-1-1 sort of formation? each player after dinho also has the ability to swap roles etc.

I think most people are agreed that Silva's best position is at No 10 exactly where Messi is placed in your line up. We already ready have conundrums for the No 10 position whereby its considered the strongest position for Silva/Nasri/Jovetic and to add Messi to that would mean a continuation of squeezing our best players into a line up ahead of playing them in their strongest position. I suppose we'd still have 2 players for each position, but what would happen to Nasri and Jovetic?

...........................................................Hart........................................................

Zab....................................Vinny......................Mangala....................Kurwaza

….….....................................Yaya...................Fernandinho...............................

.........................................................Messi..........................................................

Sanchez..........................................Sergio.............................................Hazard

This is essentially how we've been lining up recently because of our striker shortage and what I've done is placed players in what I believe is their strongest position with Messi, Hazard and Sanchez included for arguments sake, and here is where our problem would lie......... Presumably Silva would be back up for Messi, and if we continued to employ our 2 players for every position policy we could still squeeze Nasri and Jovetic into our squad, but considering Messi would expect to start and finish every game, where would that leave our current No10 options and how would they feel becoming bit part players?

I never thought about this until a couple of weeks ago and it started to make me think aboiut squad harmony as there is no way we could get possibly one of the 3 finest footballers to have ever played the game to our club and he wouldn't be afforded the 'special' treatment he currently seems to get at Barca.

It's newspaper talk so you have to treat it with a pinch of salt, but Messi doesn't seem adverse to playing power games to get his own way judging by the many different reports coming out of Spain in respect to his wage/contract demands. The more worrying reports though are the ones saying he wants a manager gone and replaced with one of his choice which again is all newspaper talk, but when added into the other stuff coming out of the Nou Camp it gives me a chilling reminder of the Tevez/Mancini affair.

It's all conjecture and probably me making more out of it than there is tbh, and if someone had posted what I've just posted 2 weeks ago I'd have have said they were mad and we should do whatever it takes to get the world's greatest footballer here lickety split. Considering who Messi is and the finances his transfer would involve, Chelsea have said a move for him would be virtually impossible from a financial viewpoint because of FFP. Many knowledgeable posters have outlined how a transfer to City could work in reality, but with a lot of 'if's' thrown in.

Would I want Messi here? Hell yeah!

Do I think it will be plain sailing getting him here and shaping the squad around him? I'm not so sure.

But if Messi leaving Barca becomes a reality (which I doubt anyway), I will continue to place my faith in Txiki and Soriano to do what's best for Manchester City and put my trust in Pellegrini's ability to make it all fit if we were the club of Messi's choice whilst keeping the rest of the squad happy.

 

[blue b4 the moon]

Don't think anything will happen until after the election which I believe is being brought forward and even then it's probably not going to materialise.

I would like the kudos of having Messi with us but the way both Barca & the Argentine side are built round him makes me think he wouldn't fit in the Prem League.

It's a sign of how far we've come that we have doubts on if we want the best/second best player in the world playing for us.

 

[Rammy Blue]

Formation?

hart

zab.....................................vinny......................mangala....................kurwaza

….…............................................. fernandinho.................................................

...............koke.................................silva...............................reus/bale............

.......................................................messi...............................................

.......................................................sergio...............................................

sorry about the shit layout! lol a 4-1-3-1-1 sort of formation? each player after dinho also has the ability to swap roles etc.

I think most people are agreed that Silva's best position is at No 10 exactly where Messi is placed in your line up. We already ready have conundrums for the No 10 position whereby its considered the strongest position for Silva/Nasri/Jovetic and to add Messi to that would mean a continuation of squeezing our best players into a line up ahead of playing them in their strongest position. I suppose we'd still have 2 players for each position, but what would happen to Nasri and Jovetic?

...........................................................Hart........................................................

Zab....................................Vinny......................Mangala....................Kurwaza

….….....................................Yaya...................Fernandinho...............................

.........................................................Messi..........................................................

Sanchez..........................................Sergio.............................................Hazard

This is essentially how we've been lining up recently because of our striker shortage and what I've done is placed players in what I believe is their strongest position with Messi, Hazard and Sanchez included for arguments sake, and here is where our problem would lie......... Presumably Silva would be back up for Messi, and if we continued to employ our 2 players for every position policy we could still squeeze Nasri and Jovetic into our squad, but considering Messi would expect to start and finish every game, where would that leave our current No10 options and how would they feel becoming bit part players?

I never thought about this until a couple of weeks ago and it started to make me think aboiut squad harmony as there is no way we could get possibly one of the 3 finest footballers to have ever played the game to our club and he wouldn't be afforded the 'special' treatment he currently seems to get at Barca.

It's newspaper talk so you have to treat it with a pinch of salt, but Messi doesn't seem adverse to playing power games to get his own way judging by the many different reports coming out of Spain in respect to his wage/contract demands. The more worrying reports though are the ones saying he wants a manager gone and replaced with one of his choice which again is all newspaper talk, but when added into the other stuff coming out of the Nou Camp it gives me a chilling reminder of the Tevez/Mancini affair.

It's all conjecture and probably me making more out of it than there is tbh, and if someone had posted what I've just posted 2 weeks ago I'd have have said they were mad and we should do whatever it takes to get the world's greatest footballer here lickety split. Considering who Messi is and the finances his transfer would involve, Chelsea have said a move for him would be virtually impossible from a financial viewpoint because of FFP. Many knowledgeable posters have outlined how a transfer to City could work in reality, but with a lot of 'if's' thrown in.

Would I want Messi here? Hell yeah!

Do I think it will be plain sailing getting him here and shaping the squad around him? I'm not so sure.

But if Messi leaving Barca becomes a reality (which I doubt anyway), I will continue to place my faith in Txiki and Soriano to do what's best for Manchester City and put my trust in Pellegrini's ability to make it all fit if we were the club of Messi's choice whilst keeping the rest of the squad happy.

That's such a weird post fella, trying to hypothesize about a formation whilst including players we won't have at our club.

I prefer to look at it much more simplistically by thinking we'd employ a front 3 of Sergio, Leo and Merlin. Personally I wouldn't give 2 fucks what went on behind that as I'd be too busy knocking one out. ;-)

 

[Dribble]

hart

zab.....................................vinny......................mangala....................kurwaza

….…............................................. fernandinho.................................................

...............koke.................................silva...............................reus/bale............

.......................................................messi...............................................

.......................................................sergio...............................................

sorry about the shit layout! lol a 4-1-3-1-1 sort of formation? each player after dinho also has the ability to swap roles etc.

I think most people are agreed that Silva's best position is at No 10 exactly where Messi is placed in your line up. We already ready have conundrums for the No 10 position whereby its considered the strongest position for Silva/Nasri/Jovetic and to add Messi to that would mean a continuation of squeezing our best players into a line up ahead of playing them in their strongest position. I suppose we'd still have 2 players for each position, but what would happen to Nasri and Jovetic?

...........................................................Hart........................................................

Zab....................................Vinny......................Mangala....................Kurwaza

….….....................................Yaya...................Fernandinho...............................

.........................................................Messi..........................................................

Sanchez..........................................Sergio.............................................Hazard

This is essentially how we've been lining up recently because of our striker shortage and what I've done is placed players in what I believe is their strongest position with Messi, Hazard and Sanchez included for arguments sake, and here is where our problem would lie......... Presumably Silva would be back up for Messi, and if we continued to employ our 2 players for every position policy we could still squeeze Nasri and Jovetic into our squad, but considering Messi would expect to start and finish every game, where would that leave our current No10 options and how would they feel becoming bit part players?

I never thought about this until a couple of weeks ago and it started to make me think aboiut squad harmony as there is no way we could get possibly one of the 3 finest footballers to have ever played the game to our club and he wouldn't be afforded the 'special' treatment he currently seems to get at Barca.

It's newspaper talk so you have to treat it with a pinch of salt, but Messi doesn't seem adverse to playing power games to get his own way judging by the many different reports coming out of Spain in respect to his wage/contract demands. The more worrying reports though are the ones saying he wants a manager gone and replaced with one of his choice which again is all newspaper talk, but when added into the other stuff coming out of the Nou Camp it gives me a chilling reminder of the Tevez/Mancini affair.

It's all conjecture and probably me making more out of it than there is tbh, and if someone had posted what I've just posted 2 weeks ago I'd have have said they were mad and we should do whatever it takes to get the world's greatest footballer here lickety split. Considering who Messi is and the finances his transfer would involve, Chelsea have said a move for him would be virtually impossible from a financial viewpoint because of FFP. Many knowledgeable posters have outlined how a transfer to City could work in reality, but with a lot of 'if's' thrown in.

Would I want Messi here? Hell yeah!

Do I think it will be plain sailing getting him here and shaping the squad around him? I'm not so sure.

But if Messi leaving Barca becomes a reality (which I doubt anyway), I will continue to place my faith in Txiki and Soriano to do what's best for Manchester City and put my trust in Pellegrini's ability to make it all fit if we were the club of Messi's choice whilst keeping the rest of the squad happy.

That's such a weird post fella, trying to hypothesize about a formation whilst including players we won't have at our club.

I prefer to look at it much more simplistically by thinking we'd employ a front 3 of Sergio, Leo and Merlin. Personally I wouldn't give 2 fucks what went on behind that as I'd be too busy knocking one out. ;-)

No worries mate, I was just following on from the post I was quoting and that's why I said 'for arguments sake' as that post also quoted players we didn't have, but the point remains the same. I don't think wide right is Messi's best position anymore and neither do I think wide left is Silva's best position. Both of them are strongest as No 10's and we can only have one of thise in are current set up.

Seeing as it would take a bid north of £150m to get Messi who would expect to start and finish every game, if we were to continue to play players in their strongest position what happens to Silva? Effectively he becomes Messi's back up which could/would cause all manner of problems.

Also taking your post ejaculative euphoria of watching Messi, Silva and Sergio into consideration, (Lol) the reality would have to kick in that once the likes of Stoke/MauUre have hoofed the ball past our forwards/midfielders, what would you have to protect us?

Like I said in my post, I'd never thought of it before and I've surprised myself how my thinking has begun to change once I've truly considered the impact a Messi transfer to us would have. I've just read a surprising statistic on 442, whereby they've aggregated the the likes/dislike percentages for fans if a certain players were linked to their club and strangely enough Messi came in around the mid-60% mark for both City and Chelsea fans well behind players like Pogba, Barkley, Isco and Draxler who were all up in the 70's.

 

[Rammy Blue]

I think most people are agreed that Silva's best position is at No 10 exactly where Messi is placed in your line up. We already ready have conundrums for the No 10 position whereby its considered the strongest position for Silva/Nasri/Jovetic and to add Messi to that would mean a continuation of squeezing our best players into a line up ahead of playing them in their strongest position. I suppose we'd still have 2 players for each position, but what would happen to Nasri and Jovetic?

...........................................................Hart........................................................

Zab....................................Vinny......................Mangala....................Kurwaza

….….....................................Yaya...................Fernandinho...............................

.........................................................Messi..........................................................

Sanchez..........................................Sergio.............................................Hazard

This is essentially how we've been lining up recently because of our striker shortage and what I've done is placed players in what I believe is their strongest position with Messi, Hazard and Sanchez included for arguments sake, and here is where our problem would lie......... Presumably Silva would be back up for Messi, and if we continued to employ our 2 players for every position policy we could still squeeze Nasri and Jovetic into our squad, but considering Messi would expect to start and finish every game, where would that leave our current No10 options and how would they feel becoming bit part players?

I never thought about this until a couple of weeks ago and it started to make me think aboiut squad harmony as there is no way we could get possibly one of the 3 finest footballers to have ever played the game to our club and he wouldn't be afforded the 'special' treatment he currently seems to get at Barca.

It's newspaper talk so you have to treat it with a pinch of salt, but Messi doesn't seem adverse to playing power games to get his own way judging by the many different reports coming out of Spain in respect to his wage/contract demands. The more worrying reports though are the ones saying he wants a manager gone and replaced with one of his choice which again is all newspaper talk, but when added into the other stuff coming out of the Nou Camp it gives me a chilling reminder of the Tevez/Mancini affair.

It's all conjecture and probably me making more out of it than there is tbh, and if someone had posted what I've just posted 2 weeks ago I'd have have said they were mad and we should do whatever it takes to get the world's greatest footballer here lickety split. Considering who Messi is and the finances his transfer would involve, Chelsea have said a move for him would be virtually impossible from a financial viewpoint because of FFP. Many knowledgeable posters have outlined how a transfer to City could work in reality, but with a lot of 'if's' thrown in.

Would I want Messi here? Hell yeah!

Do I think it will be plain sailing getting him here and shaping the squad around him? I'm not so sure.

But if Messi leaving Barca becomes a reality (which I doubt anyway), I will continue to place my faith in Txiki and Soriano to do what's best for Manchester City and put my trust in Pellegrini's ability to make it all fit if we were the club of Messi's choice whilst keeping the rest of the squad happy.

That's such a weird post fella, trying to hypothesize about a formation whilst including players we won't have at our club.

I prefer to look at it much more simplistically by thinking we'd employ a front 3 of Sergio, Leo and Merlin. Personally I wouldn't give 2 fucks what went on behind that as I'd be too busy knocking one out. ;-)

No worries mate, I was just following on from the post I was quoting and that's why I said 'for arguments sake' as that post also quoted players we didn't have, but the point remains the same. I don't think wide right is Messi's best position anymore and neither do I think wide left is Silva's best position. Both of them are strongest as No 10's and we can only have one of thise in are current set up.

Seeing as it would take a bid north of £150m to get Messi who would expect to start and finish every game, if we were to continue to play players in their strongest position what happens to Silva? Effectively he becomes Messi's back up which could/would cause all manner of problems.

Also taking your post ejaculative euphoria of watching Messi, Silva and Sergio into consideration, (Lol) the reality would have to kick in that once the likes of Stoke/MauUre have hoofed the ball past our forwards/midfielders, what would you have to protect us?

Like I said in my post, I'd never thought of it before and I've surprised myself how my thinking has begun to change once I've truly considered the impact a Messi transfer to us would have. I've just read a surprising statistic on 442, whereby they've aggregated the the likes/dislike percentages for fans if a certain players were linked to their club and strangely enough Messi came in around the mid-60% mark for both City and Chelsea fans well behind players like Pogba, Barkley, Isco and Draxler who were all up in the 70's.

With a front 3 of Sergio, Merlin and Leo, I don't think you'd worry too heavily about width - that would be left to the fullbacks. Hence you'd employ a 3 man central midfield and pretty much adopt the Barca formation, one as an anchor and two pulling the strings.

 

[ewok]

Barcelona don't have any say in the matter if his buy-out clause is met.

Arsenal met Suarez's BOC and the Dippers still told them to fuck off.......

There's a difference between a release clause like Suarez had, which was meaningless, and a Spanish buy-out clause. The latter has a legal basis which means if it's met, the player can walk away.

With the Spanish release clauses, if met doesn't tax have to be paid on top? Meaning an considerable amount more on top of the supposed €250m release fee. Bayern got away without having to pay it for Martinez by agreeing a fee slightly below his release clause if I remember correctly.

 

[g180aj]

Barcelona don't have any say in the matter if his buy-out clause is met.

Arsenal met Suarez's BOC and the Dippers still told them to fuck off.......

There's a difference between a release clause like Suarez had, which was meaningless, and a Spanish buy-out clause. The latter has a legal basis which means if it's met, the player can walk away.

They are exactly the same a buy out clause in a contract simply means if someone bids that amount then the club have to alow the player to talk to that club and leave if they wish. Suarez turned down arsenal because Gerard told him arsenal wasn't big enough for him and if he waited a year he would go to barca or real. Anji activated messi's buyout a few years back and he refused to talk to them, a buyout clause just takes any power away from the club who own the player.

 

[el blue]

I would love it if Messi comes to CITY .
But it won't happen .
I would rather we signed Ronaldo .
I think he would be a more realistic target .
Only negative about him his age .

He's only 38.