Blues can’t just throw money at back problem

CITY’S problem this season was glaringly obvious – the failure to replace Vincent Kompany was accentuated by the long-term loss of Aymeric Laporte.

And the more spoiled Blues fans, largely those who have found an emotional attachment in the last 10 years, were fully expecting a shower of money to wash away the difficulty.

It seems simple. Go out on January 1 and spend big bucks on a new centreback – problem solved.

But, contrary to popular belief, City do not have a limitless transfer budget and a scattergun approach to buying players.

That may have been true 10 years ago, but in an age of financial fair play, and after the accelerated investment needed to get them to Europe’s top table, the Blues have to budget like any other.

Fans have become used to Sheikh Mansour’s cheque book solving problems in the past, but these days the club stands on its own two feet financially.

And that means they rarely deviate from a carefully-constructed plan of how to proceed in the transfer market.

The plan does not always come off – in the summer they secured Rodri as the new holding midfielder, a priority signing which had taken a couple of years to achieve after they were beaten to Fred and then Jorginho.

They also refreshed their full-back options with Joao Cancelo, but United’s high fee for Harry Maguire meant their only summer centre-back target had gone.

Still, with Fernandinho earmarked for his new defensive role, the Blues still had four senior centre-backs.

The emergence of Eric Garcia and Taylor Harwood-Bellis added to the feeling that they could cope.

Laporte’s injury changed that, with John Stones and Nicolas Otamendi both struggling to hit form, while Garcia and Harwood-Bellis are both promising but raw.

There is a theory that City might have gone the extra mile for Maguire, or even spent big on another centre-back.

That is speculative, at best, but there is a central truth to it, in that City need to balance the books.

Changes to the squad are expected in the summer, and a centre-back is high on the agenda.

But fishing for one in the winter window was always going to be fraught with problems.

There is rarely value in the winter market, and the Blues only stumped up a club record £57m for Laporte two years ago because they were convinced it was good value.

The truth of that has since been confirmed, and his recent return to action is as good as a new signing.

With Sane also close to a return, the Blues will enter the next phase of the season a considerably stronger outfit.

Buying a centre-back, any centreback, for the sake of it, was never going to be a solution.

And no club involved in domestic title races and Champions League campaigns is keen to allow a key man to leave.

Summer was always going to be the answer.

Even with Fernandinho signing a one-year extension, and with Garcia and Harwood-Bellis a year older.