da realsbet： In August 2008, the Abu Dhabi United Group made Manchester City the most financially powerful club in England. City have since spent hundreds of millions on bringing in the players they hope will make transform into one of the top clubs in the Premier League and in Europe. Some top quality talent has walked into Eastlands since Sheikh Mansour took over, but has it been money well spent at Manchester City under the new owners’ rule?
da realbet： The first signing of the Abu Dhabi era at Man City was Robinho, with the club breaking the British transfer record by paying £32.5 million to Real Madrid for the Brazilian. Robinho’s time at City began in promising fashion, but he faded as the season progressed and his spell in Manchester has to be deemed a failure, and an expensive one at that. In January 2009, Shay Given and Nigel de Jong were brought in and both were shrewd signings.
The summer of 2009 would see the new owners really open their cheque book however, as Man City became one of the biggest spenders in world football. Gareth Barry, Roque Santa Cruz, Kolo Toure, Emmanuel Adebayor, Carlos Tevez, Vincent Kompany, Shaun Wright-Phillips and Joleon Lescott were all brought in for substantial transfer fees and you would say they constitute a mixed bag of signings. Carlos Tevez has arguably be the club’s most important to date, with the Argentinian providing the main goal threat and more often than not being the teams’ most dangerous player. Kolo Toure has also been a good signing, with the Ivorian bringing experience and solidity to the backline. Kompany and Wright-Phillips have also been dencent acquisitions. I would question the merits of the others in this list however.
Santa Cruz has barely played for the club and it is perhaps surprising that he was not moved on in the summer. Emmanuel Adebayor had a decent first season, but now it seems he is out of favour and he has wasted no time in voicing his displeasure in sitting on the bench, not too many Arsenal fans were sad to see Adebayor go, which tells you something about the wisdom of the transfer. Lescott has performed adequately but at £22 million he was well overpriced. With regard to Gareth Barry, the club spent a reasonable amount on him but I’m yet to be convinced that he is a quality midfielder. January 2010 saw perhaps City’s best value signing to date, with Adam Johnson joining the club, and the young winger looks like he could become a top class footballer.
After the disappointing failure to get a top four place in 2010, Roberto Mancini embarked on a huge spending spree to spur the club on to greater things. Of course it is too early to say whether many of these signings are money well spent or not, but we will have a look at them anyway.
Jerome Boateng impressed in the World Cup and was brought in for the relatively paltry fee of £10.4 million, and I think the versatile German defender will be a good signing. Yaya Toure is a quality player, but £24 million was a lot of money and he will have to perform well to justify his price tag. James Milner is a good player but in my view he was overpriced. The jury is out of David Silva, Aleksandar Kolarov and Mario Balotelli, and there is no way we can say whether they will prove to be good deals or not just yet.
Overall it has been a mixed bag. Some good signings have definitely been made, but the prices paid for some players is way overboard, and City should be wary of being held to ransom by other clubs in the future, and perhaps should be looking to get some more value for their money.
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