CITY Blues get it right – on and off the pitch
“EVERYBODY spends money, right? Not just us, no? It’s a natural process, every team invests.”
Remember those words from Jose Mourinho, United manager, talking about the need to plough more money into his squad, after the Reds’ Champions League exit.
With City closing on the Premier League title, the nay-sayers and spite merchants are already readying their nonsensical barbs.
City’s success doesn’t count because they bought it, with oil money, is the general theme of these green-eyed monsters.
But, as Jose has found to his cost, there is nothing wrong with investing in your squad, as long as you invest it in the right players. Like any investment, you put your money in and expect something out – whether that be, in the case of football, trophies and success, or an increase in the value of players.
All those fans of other clubs who spent the summer bleating about the amount of money City spent – the club’s own money, by the way, not “oil money” – need to take a look at the result of that investment.
The Blues are 16 points clear in the league, have already won the League Cup, and are in the quarter-finals of the Champions League.
And, as a result, the profile of the club on a global level is increasing, thereby further justifying the investment. Investment is what good companies, and good football clubs, do.
As for the players City have bought, were those transfer fees REALLY over the top? Football director Txiki Begiristain pointed out last week that the Blues have not got one player in the top ten most expensive footballers of all time – United have two and Liverpool one.
And the analysts at the CIES Football Observatory claim that not only have the players City bought increased in value, some have done so spectacularly in the last six months.
In fact, in Ederson, Leroy Sane, Gabriel Jesus and Raheem Sterling the Blues have four of the top 20 in Europe in terms of increase in value over the last six months. United have one, in Jesse Lingard.
The Blues have made Pep Guardiola the highest-paid club manager in the world, but they are reaping the benefit.
In football terms, he has made City the best team in the country, and in business terms he has increased the value of the club’s assets, on a massive scale.
Fans of other clubs need to address their own clubs’ shortcomings, rather than point snidey fingers at a club getting it absolutely right.