WHY CITY ARE WISE BUYERS...
BEFORE Manchester City committed £ 52million to sign Kevin De Bruyne, their executive committee examined more than 50 scouting reports on the midfieder.
They had been compiled over the past 18 months, with City’s team of 80 full-time and part-time scouts reporting to the club’s football admin officer, Brian Marwood.
Almost all De Bruyne’s performances for Wolfsburg and Belgium were analysed by City’s recruitment department. Each aspect of his life was assessed in line with a huge rethink of City’s recruitment strategy after the showy signings made immediately after Sheik Mansour’s takeover in September 2008.
This is a new era at City, who are trying hard to eliminate expensive mistakes. They have become Manchester’s better-run club, adopting a sophisticated strategy that is different from the impulsive, scattergun nature of Manchester United manager Louis van Gaal and chief executive Ed Woodward.
United spent a staggering £58m on 19-year- old Monaco forward Anthony Martial and there are people at Old Trafford who believe Van Gaal has never been to see him play.
It is certainly a departure from 2012, when Sir Alex Ferguson claimed: ‘The world has gone mad — I find it quite amazing that a club can pay 945m for a 19-year-old boy’, after United were gazumped by PSG for Brazilian Lucas Moura.
Seven years on from the £32.5m signing of Robinho from Real Madrid, the perception that City continue to throw money at a problem irritates the club’s executives.
Last season, as the tension surrounding Raheem Sterling’s future at Liverpool increased, City moved quietly in the background to set up the biggest domestic transfer of the summer.
Sterling had been top of the wish- list — the four names in each position that are circulated among the club’s highest-ranking staff — for 18 months. Manager Manuel Pellegrini, Marwood, chairman Khaldoon Al Mubarak, chief executive Ferran Soriano and director of football Txiki Begiristain were in agreement that Sterling was their most wanted.
It may come as a surprise that they were prepared to spend more than the £44m it took to buy the England forward. City are convinced he was undervalued.
Spending extravagant sums is usually associated with City but they walked away from a deal to sign Paul Pogba from Juventus in the summer because of the fee.
They did not even get as far as Pogba’s outrageous salary demands because the Champions League finalists were quoting £73m for the France midfielder.
The spine of City’s squad remains largely intact, with Joe Hart, Vincent Kompany, Yaya Toure, David Silva and Sergio Aguero playing together since 2011. It cannot last forever and City are already planning for the future by beefing up their scouting network all over the world.
SOUTH
AMERICA is the most recent target, with improvements and additions to the recruitment team and with City Football Group adding clubs in Melbourne, New York and Yokohama, there is a healthy exchange of information on players between the scouts.
They are not infallible and City still bear the scars of expensive imports such as Emmanuel Adebayor, Matija Nastasic, Javi Garcia, Jack Rodwell and Maicon.
They were flying by the seat of their pants back then, playing catch-up with United, Chelsea and Arsenal as they chased their Premier League dream.
Three years on from their first title, they are ahead of the game.