City need to take steps to stop their big names leaving
LOST in the rush to pat Liverpool on the back for getting £142m for Philippe Coutinho was the ominous reminder that the Premier League has once again lost one of its best players to La Liga.
Even if Virgil Van Dijk appears a significant signing in defence, history records happier tales of the players that have left for Spain than the clubs given a princely sum for them.
England may have the best coaches and the most money but Barcelona and Real Madrid hold the game’s best players and the lure of those clubs remains as strong as ever.
And with a number of City players lighting up the Premier League, they could do with a plan for when the duopoly come calling again.
Winning every trophy going and having a world-class coach that can be clearly seen to be improving his charges is the obvious solution.
But even that may not be enough.
“There’s no doubt that Gabriel [Jesus] and Kevin [De Bruyne] would like a contract to stay here,” said Pep Guardiola last week.
“The negotiations are the negotiations, and sometimes it’s not possible, but they know, all of them, that they would like to continue. “They want to build up something.” Raheem Sterling is one to have recently talked up the appeal of Spain, and the clout of Barcelona and Real Madrid is not going to disappear however many titles City win in the forthcoming years.
If it really is impossible to keep them at bay, the question is less how to protect the door and more how to stop the house falling down with it.
In this, the Blues can feel confident providing they get their raft of new contracts sorted.
Guardiola has already overseen a major transformation, with the average age of the team dropping from 27 to 24-and-a-half in his time at the club. The purchases of John Stones and Bernardo Silva highlight the recently adopted policy of signing long-term successors to key players Vincent Kompany and David Silva in these instances - and should continue in the summer with a holding midfielder to give Fernandinho a long goodbye.
For now, there are so many young matchwinners in the squad that City should be able to lose one star without the team suffering an immediate drop in results, as some of their rivals have previously done in similar situations.
Looking further ahead, preparing for departures a few years before you expect them to happen looks a sound La Liga-proofing policy for any unwanted attention the Blues may attract in the years to come.