Silva sends title warning to rivals
CITY should consider adopting a new motto: “Damned if we do, damned if we don’t”.
The reaction to the news that John Stones is out for up to five weeks has been knee-jerk, to say the least.
The Blues stand accused of making a mess of their summer transfer window by failing to replace Vincent Kompany.
But the fact is that their prime target, Harry Maguire, would have cost them £85m – and that was some distance above City’s valuation of the player.
“Oh, but City are minted – what is an extra £15m to them? Sheikh Mansour could find that down the back of his sofa,” is the refrain from the critics.
And many of the same critics will be howling about how City’s spending is ruining football, and how they are getting away with financial fair play murder.
The Blues, meanwhile, are busy earning a reputation as a club who will not go above their valuation of a player – they are simply not that desperate.
And to break that rule simply on the off-chance that two of their centre-backs MIGHT get injured – which has come to pass, of course – would be foolhardy.
Even had the Blues possessed a crystal ball to foresee the recent injury misery, they would not have broken their policy to land Maguire, or made an alternative panic buy to plug the gap. They are simply not that kind of club any more.
Nobody legislates against two players from the same position getting injured, otherwise you end up with an unwieldy squad and ultra-expensive players not even in the matchday 18.
In the early years of the takeover, City had to pay a premium every time they went into the transfer market – every selling club out there knew that they were desperate, as they had to close the gap on the top four, and do it as quickly as possible.
Nowadays it is United who look desperate, and their willingness to splash out the extra cash on Maguire is testimony to that.
City’s strategy is clear and calm. They WILL pay big money for players, as we saw when they landed prime summer target Rodri for a club record £62.6m.
But they buy such players at what they deem to be market value - and more often than not increase the value of those assets with good coaching and career progression.
Remember the hoo-ha about how much City spent on Kevin de Bruyne, on Raheem Sterling, on Aymeric Laporte, on Leroy Sane?
And yet all of those players are now worth considerably more in the transfer market.
Maguire, by contrast, has never shown that he is an £80m defender. It is difficult to imagine him ever reaching the level of Virgil van Dijk.
The other side of this coin is that to fill the gaps left by the injuries to Laporte and Stones, Pep Guardiola has mentioned Eric Garcia and Taylor Harwood-Bellis on several occasions.
Garcia has been promoted to the bench in recent weeks, and there is the likelihood that Stockport lad Harwood-Bellis will be involved against Preston in the League Cup next week.
Many a young player has made their breakthrough by seizing opportunities presented by the misfortune of others.
Guardiola has had his eyes on Garcia for more than a year, and Harwood-Bellis greatly impressed the manager after getting the nod to join the tour party in the summer.
Again, you can bet that those who have criticised City’s parsimony in the summer transfer window will be many of the same who complain that Phil Foden does not get enough game time.
They really can’t have it both ways.
Kompany was a great skipper, inspirational leader and important player – when he played.
But City have coped without him for large chunks of the last two years in any case, due to his injury record, and have still won consecutive titles.
When it comes down to it, losing Laporte and Stones in quick succession is simply bad luck, and no sensible football club adds players to its squad simply to cope with the possibility of ill fortune.