City’s overlooked failing – the 2023 summer transfer window

Following last season’s treble triumph, there was every expectation that City would continue to dominate in the following season. While very far from bad, performances and several results have dropped from the standards seen in the first half of 2023.

Reasons have been provided, ranging from complacency and a lack of hunger in the squad to the injuries to key players in Kevin de Bruyne and John Stones. Then there’s the view that this is part of genius Pep’s season planning, where he makes a few tactical tweaks, the players peak in the second half of the season and City pick up the trophies.

Hopefully this comes to pass, but it’s remarkable how little scrutiny has been given to the other key factor – the mess that was City’s summer transfer window.

Even calling it a mess will be heresy to some, so let’s break down the reasons why.

Missed targets

City’s main midfield target heading into the summer was Jude Bellingham. The only good news about missing out on the golden boy was we knew early on that he was heading to Madrid, giving plenty of time to source alternatives.

The focus switched to Declan Rice, where Arsenal had already shown him a clear role and let him know he was their number one target. Their bids backed that up while City, offering the player a less clear role, didn’t fancy the bidding war.

James Madison was reportedly on the list of players City had an interest in. By the time Gundogan had decided to leave, Madison had long since signed for Tottenham for £40m. It was deep into the window and prices were duly escalating when City alighted on Lucas Paqueta, who they had looked at previously when he was at Lyon. The price was heading for a whopping £80m, when that deal fell through due to his gambling charges.

Now we were really dropping down the list of potential signings, with clubs unwilling to sell so late in the window. This seemed to scupper the interest in Eberechi Eze, before a Matheus Nunes deal appeared possible. His agent being Jorge Mendes with whom City enjoy good relations may or may not have been a coincidence. Nunes was another player from the list of those previously scouted.

Somehow City had gone from Bellingham to Nunes, signing on the last day of the transfer window for £55m after an underwhelming season with Wolves.

Mismanaged departures

Meanwhile, the club had allowed current players to dictate their own possible departures. Gundogan, Mahrez, Silva, Walker, Phillips – would they stay or would they go?

Cancelo and Laporte were the only ones who looked sure to leave. This made sense as Cancelo hadn’t featured in the successful second half of the season and Laporte was essentially being replaced by Gvardiol.

It’s hard to think of another club which allows first team players and their agents so much freedom in deciding whether or not they leave. I get that Pep doesn’t want unhappy players around the place, but saying it’s simply up to a player’s agent to bring in a decent offer results in those agents hawking their players around for much of the transfer window, while City miss out on potential replacements.

Rival teams were signing players while City’s plans were effectively on hold while we waited to find out who was leaving. For example, if Walker left we might need to buy a full-back, reducing the budget for a number 8.

Then there was Cole Palmer. A mess so bad it required a separate article. In short Palmer was expecting a loan earlier in the summer to somewhere like Brighton, giving him the regular game to prove himself. City could then bring him back to replace Mahrez or sell him – which, with his form this season, would well exceed the £40m Chelsea paid. However, City didn’t let him go whilst they were unsure about what was happening with Mahrez. He eventually left and City had to stump up for a new winger late in the window, as Palmer wasn’t considered ready. Palmer saw a repeat of last season’s limited opportunities, so it was loan or sale time. With City’s net spend going rapidly up, selling Palmer to part fund a midfielder was City’s decision. Goodbye Cole Palmer (£40m), who creates and scores goals. Hello Matheus Nunes (£55m), who does neither.

Let’s next have a look at the senior players we did sign:

Mateo Kovacic

The signing of Kovacic for £25m from Chelsea, who were delighted to move him on, was straightforward enough. While the Croat had been flagged up early as a squad signing, he still felt a bit underwhelming. Sure, he has those Champions League medals, but I seem to recall Modric and Kroos being the key midfielders for Real at the time.

For someone noted for his surging runs, Kovacic seems very one paced. He isn’t strong enough defensively to play as a number 6 and has never chalked up many assists or goals. At 29, these things are hardly likely to improve. As a signing, he feels more like Nolito (who recently came bottom in a list of Pep’s City signings), another 29 year old who never looked to be at the elite level of those around him and wasn’t likely to improve.

Matheus Nunes

In the first half of the season, Nunes has completed a full Premier League match just once. We’re again hearing the line that it takes players time to understand Pep’s methods and it can be the following year before we see him regularly. Somehow I don’t think we’d be saying that about Jude Bellingham. In a different way it didn’t apply to Kalvin Phillips and Pep has described Nunes as a player for the “big spaces”, ie. when the game is open and stretched. Fair enough, the only thing is that’s the type of game Pep hates and the manager sets up his sides to avoid it whenever possible.

We were told this summer’s signings were brought in for their ball carrying abilities, which was to be the thing this season. It’s still not clear where Nunes and Kovacic fit in a Guardiola side.

Put simply, Pep plays a defensive midfielder, who has a huge amount of responsibility and two “free 8s”, who create and get a few goals themselves. Bernardo Silva with his energy levels, technique and super footballing brain is the only one who gets to play as an 8 without getting the assists or goals. Nunes isn’t at Silva’s level.

Both Nunes and Kovacic aren’t defensively strong enough to be trusted by Pep as a 6. Neither are they creative enough to play as an 8. So where do they fit? It’s not apparent, particularly with Nunes. Bellingham or Paqueta would have played as 8’s, even though they’re a little different to what we had, they’re both creative and Bellingham is a goal scorer.

Nunes and Kovacic are miles off the likes of de Bruyne and Foden in terms of goals and assists.

From the season so far, Nunes looks like a panic signing at the end of the window, when other targets were missed. It’s the kind of thing associated with United in recent years.

Jeremy Doku

Doku has clearly made the biggest initial impact. He’s electric and his take-on stats are incredible. There are still two caveats to his success. First is his end product, which can be erratic. Reading about his development, this has always been the issue and along with injuries was probably the reason why he wasn’t at a big club already.

The second caveat sums up City’s whole window. Doku was signed as the replacement for Mahrez on the right wing, yet from his first game it was clear that he was better suited to cutting in from the left under Guardiola’s system. He’s rarely been seen on the right since.

The player signed to replace Mahrez thus turned out to be the player who displaced Grealish. In the days of elite level scouting, you’d have thought someone at City might have realised this.

Of course City have Foden and Silva to play on the right wing, yet Foden is showing his best position is in the middle (remember how we were hearing that’s where Foden would be playing this season), while Silva has often produced crucial performances in the middle, particularly against the likes of Liverpool. Having also let Cole Palmer go, City are now without a player whose best position is on the right flank and are being linked with moves for Pedro Neto at Wolves or Michael Olise at Crystal Palace in the summer. Either of whom will likely cost more than the £40m we got for Palmer.

Meanwhile, £100m Jack Grealish has been finding himself back on the bench a lot more. All those generous words from Pep about his importance in controlling possession seem a lot less convincing when Doku repeatedly gets the nod to start in his place.

Josko Gvardiol

Gvardiol was one of our main targets and we got him, so all is good there. Not so good is his defending at left-back, which hasn’t been at the level of Ake. He’s yet to be trusted by Pep to play in his regular position of centre-back and at the moment a defence with Ake at centre-back and Gvardiol at left-back is looking less secure than Laporte at centre-back and Ake at left-back.

Similarly, a left flank of Gvardiol and Doku has been a gift to opposition counter attacks compared to Ake and Grealish last season.

On the plus side, Gvardiol is more comfortable on the ball than Ake or Laporte and he’s rightly viewed as a long term signing. Looking at him it’s easy to forget he’s two years younger than Alvarez.

With Stones and Ake injured, the form of Dias and Akanji suffered when they were required to play every game. Laporte would have walked back into the side numerous times this season, when clean sheets have been such a rarity.

City’s midfield refresh

City’s central midfield refresh over the last two summers has seen Phillips, Nunes and Kovacic arrive for a total of £120m. Frankly that’s terrible, particularly in the modern era of in-depth scouting. Only Kovacic appears to be trusted by Pep, without truly convincing.

City’s bad summer was compounded by Pep’s decision to start de Bruyne in the opening Premier League fixture at Burnley after playing a mere 30 minutes in pre-season. Even de Bruyne said he was surprised to start. Duly injured and out for the rest of the year, it’s noticeable how the talk around City has focussed on how things will be alright when de Bruyne and Stones will return.

De Bruyne has been injured in the past. The difference then was players like Gundogan and Mahrez would step up and he wouldn’t be missed. That hasn’t happened this season as the new signings aren’t good enough. It says everything that Rico Lewis, a teenage full-back, has been used in de Bruyne’s position of right sided number 8. Much as we like Lewis, he’s never getting near de Bruyne’s numbers for assists and goals.

FFP in play

All clubs make bad signings and the advantage for big clubs is the ability to ride out the duds financially. In recent years United have made an untold number of bad signings, but they were always able to spend again. While being a lot less profligate, City have been able to do likewise thanks to the ownership. That’s changing now with FFP being properly enforced and clubs having to limit their spending to avoid points penalties.

Allied to advances in scouting, it’s now apparent that shrewd recruitment is a big difference maker in a club’s performance. David Moyes recently admitted as much when asked why West Ham were performing better in the league this season, despite losing Declan Rice. He cited the signings of James Ward-Prowse, Mohammed Kudus, Edson Alvarez, who have all had a positive impact.

With rivals using global scouting effectively, and less room for error financially, their is more pressure than ever to get signings right. Spaffing £100m on Phillips and Nunes eats up a sizeable chunk of City’s financial rewards for the winning the treble.

Ins and outs summary

(Fees taken from Transfermarkt, hence in euros)

Outgoing players
Cole Palmer €47m
Riyad Mahrez €35m
Aymeric Laporte €27.5m
Carlos Borges €14m
Ilkay Gundogan €0
Shea Charles €12.2m
Romeo Lavia sell on clause €14m
Joao Cancelo (loan)
Others players sold €12m approx
Total: €179m / £152.7m

Incoming players
Josko Gvardiol €90m
Matheus Nunes €62m
Jeremy Doku €60m
Mateo Kovacic €29m
Total: €241m / £205.6m

Net spend €62m / £53m
Net spend excluding Cole Palmer €109m / £93m

The risks of a small squad

It’s well documented how Pep likes a small squad. The reasoning is quite straightforward. Everyone plays a part and being actively involved keeps them motivated. The obvious risk is inadequate cover for injuries and fatigue for those playing twice a week.

Pep’s solution to the former is having technically and tactically high level players who can play in multiple positions and cover for absentees. This works a treat. Allied to this is Pep’s love of control in games. This enables City to dictate the pace and slow things down when required. It may not always be high intensity heavy metal football, but it enables City players to get through fixtures with less energy expended. Controlling possession also means players are throwing themselves into challenges less often and these factors can help to explain why City appear less prone to injury crises than other teams.

The issue this season is that the first team group is so small that a few injuries result in less quality cover and other first team players have seen increased fatigue.

Pep remains at the cutting edge of modern tactics but he isn’t perfect in every regard and his man management can be distinctly old school. In a typical season, Pep examines his squad, then makes some tactical tweaks as he goes along to get the best out of the squad. A settled side can then go on a winning run. The downside for players who aren’t part of that team are they can feel left out in the cold.

Pep’s response is that he doesn’t like to see “long faces” in those left out and if they’re not happy they can leave. Great in principle, but when perfectly good players are left out due to no fault of their own, after a while they inevitably become unhappy, and Pep is often happy to see them go.

Sometimes, as Pep’s tactics evolve, a player can come back in, as we famously saw with John Stones and this season with Kyle Walker. More often the player gets fed up and their agent is off to arrange a deal.

As a result, the summer of 2022 saw City lose Raheem Sterling, Oleks Zinchenko and Gabriel Jesus along with Fernandinho. The first three were all in their mid twenties and this creates some headaches for the age profile of the squad down the line, given City retained 30-somethings Mahrez, Gundogan and de Bruyne.

The summer of 2023 then saw City lose Laporte, Gundogen, Mahrez and Palmer from the first team squad, along with Cancelo on another loan.

This has put a lot of pressure on City’s recruitment with the new players needing to hit the ground running. Something which rarely happens as players adjust to life under Pep.

City’s first team squad is now down to 22, but of those 6 players (Ortega, Carson, Gomez, Bobb, Nunes and de Bruyne) completed a Premier League game on 2 occasions combined in the first half of the season (Ortega and Nunes played one each). Even with de Bruyne is back, City are reliant on a mere 17 players.

When playing big games twice a week in the second half of the season, that simply isn’t enough to allow for injuries and fatigue.

A replacement for Phillips was essential, but never on the cards after the deadline day splurge of £55m on Nunes.

Curious lack of criticism

While the decision to sell Cole Palmer has sparked plenty of debate, there has been precious little questioning of City’s summer window overall. Sure, plenty of fans were frustrated in the summer at the prevaricating of players leaving and the uncertainty over incoming targets, but in the wider media there has been little. Imagine if United had sold their two right flank players and replaced them with someone who turned out to play on the left? We’d have a field day. Similarly, the non playing Nunes hasn’t provoked the same outcry we saw with Phillips, despite costing significantly more.

Why is this? Well, the team are doing ok and the faith in Pep’s genius to come up with a solution and repeat his trick of going on a winning run in the second half of the season makes potential critics think twice. The idea of City as an indomitable machine is a powerful one.

City have two huge assets in Pep and the Academy, where Oscar Bobb is following Rico Lewis in plugging gaps in our recruitment. Pep can make poor recruitment look good – remember how he turned Otamendi from a first season liability into a relatively solid defender.

Maybe our previous recruitment successes have blinded people to the failings of the last summer window. The reality is that City will need to do a lot better next summer.

Next summer

Bear in mind Real Madrid will likely be welcoming Mbappe after beating us to Bellingham last summer, City can’t afford any more slip ups if we want to keep up with the Spanish giants.

Number 8s

With age catching up with de Bruyne, it will take a high calibre signing to take over his mantle. Florian Wirtz is one who is reported to be on City’s list along with a return for Paqueta if he is cleared from any alleged misdemeanours. It’s a big ask for any one player.

Right wing

After the farce of replacing Mahrez and Palmer with Doku who’s most effective on the left flank, City are now in the market for a right winger. The pacy Neto has been linked, which is slightly surprising given he looks most effective in transitions rather than the controlled possession type approach play of Mahrez and Grealish.

City were linked with Olise last summer and his excellent delivery would better suit Haaland who has openly admitted to missing de Bruyne’s crosses this season.

No doubt we’ll pay more than the £40m we got for Palmer, so the pressure will be on to get someone who can at least deliver comparable numbers.

Rodri back up

Hopefully things go well for Phillips at West Ham and City can get a decent price for the England international. It’s then over to the recruitment team to find a replacement. Again it would be nice if they can find someone better than Romeo Lavia, who we sold before seeing him play regular first team football.

Full-back

With Gvardiol not always convincing defensively at left-back, it will be interesting to see what happens in this position – something we seem to say every year. Sergio Gomez may well decide he needs to move for regular first team action.

Goalkeeper

Keeping hold of Ortega will be a challenge. If he goes, then he’ll need replacing.

Girona

Maybe now will be the time City take a player or two back from the high flying Catalans. Yan Couto and Savio are the two most likely. Whether they would be at the level where Pep trusts them enough to feature regularly would be the question.

Outgoings

Bernardo Silva is the perennial concern and there was talk of a £50m release clause in his latest contract. That sound worrying, but it’s worth bearing in mind that he’ll be 30 in August and very few clubs pay that amount of money for older players these day. Harry Kane was the exception last summer, but Silva doesn’t exactly bring the goals and star quality of the England captain.

Elsewhere, it should be an easier summer in terms of outgoings. Cancelo, Phillips, Ortega and Gomez are the only senior players likely to move. Surely Bobb will be kept after what happened with Palmer. There’s a decision to be made on James McAtee and other young loanees. Taylor Harwood-Bellis and Callum Doyle are the leading candidates for players we could regret selling. De Bruyne will have interest from Saudi, but doesn’t seem especially interested in going. We need to be sure we can cope without him before letting him go.

In conclusion, the key lessons for next summer can be summarised as:

  • Secure first choice targets and if we have to move on, do it quickly and don’t compromise on quality.
  • Determine who is staying and who is going at the start of the window. No more Gundogan’s, Silva’s and Walker’s letting their agents trawl for deals all summer. Key players need to commit.
  • Avoid looking for new players late in the window; prices go up while quality goes down. Maybe City were overconfident after the success of Akanji, but the missteps of Nunes and Gomez should provide a greater warning.
  • Don’t get carried away with selling the very best youngsters to fund signings; see how they cope with regular first team football first. Lavia for Phillips, Palmer for Nunes, no more of this.


Why selling Cole Palmer was a mistake City need to learn from

Sell in haste, repent at leisure. The sale of Cole Palmer was arguably the most controversial made by City for years. Why? Because City have never willingly sold a young player of such ability who had been nurtured by the club since they were in primary school.

Sure, we’ve lost talented players before, but it was always a bit different. Jadon Sancho was very highly rated, but was determined to leave. Going back further, Shaun Wright-Phillips also left for Chelsea, but that was at a time when we needed the money and weren’t competing at the highest level. Most recently Romeo Lavia was tipped for the first team and may be one we regret selling, however Lavia had only been with City a couple of years. Palmer was “one of our own”.

So let’s assess what happened…

1) Firstly, why selling Palmer was a bad decision

We were told the Palmer fee was a great one, yet given his talent the risk that feeling might not last was high. The view that £40m is a huge amount for someone who had played so little first team football is a foolish way of looking at a transfer. You pay the fee for what the player is going to do for you, not what they have done in the past. £40m is not a crazy fee for a creative player good enough to play in a top Premier League side, especially one who has been a regular goal scorer and assist provider. We would expect to pay more, as we have with Jack Grealish and Jeremy Doku.

Remember, Palmer was the standout player in his age group, at the heart of teams that won the Youth Cup, Premier League Division 2 and U-21 Euros for England. Before a growth spurt he had been nurtured as the next David Silva. That perhaps wasn’t apparent in his limited first team appearances at City, yet wtih regular first team football, it was soon noticeable how he was demanding the ball, dictating the pace of the game and playing incisive passes. He’s looked a Pep player all over.

2) What should City have done?

Palmer both wanted to play first team football and needed it. He either needed some Kyle Walker style assurances from Pep or, more likely, a loan to see how he fared with regular first team football.

Only after that regular first team football, should a decision have been made on whether to keep or sell.

Sure, if he’d done badly, we may not have got £40m. That was a gamble worth taking with a player of so much ability; one who could have been a first team player for a dozen years or more.

It’s not like there was a shortage of potential takers. With recruitment experts like Brighton and Dortmund sniffing around, you would have thought alarm bells might have sounded.

Those who say City were right to sell as Palmer wouldn’t play ahead of Foden or Silva miss the point. Loaning him to say Brighton, where he would likely have performed as well as he has at Chelsea, would have enabled City to make a more informed decision on whether he was good enough for us. If not, well how much would Palmer be worth if you wanted to buy him next summer? A lot more than £40m.

3) So why did City sell Palmer rather than loan him?

Clearly the money offered matched City’s asking price. £40m for a player who had played so little first team football would have sounded good to the execs.

Look deeper and there were other factors at play.

City have followed the Chelsea method of hoovering up quality youngsters, coaching them expertly in a superb environment, then selling them on to ease FFP issues. The club has received many plaudits for the success of this in recent seasons.

Soriano once gave a talk where he described how important it is to judge the right time to sell players. Sell too soon and you might not get maximum profit; hold on to the player too long and his value can drop if he hasn’t kicked on. As always with these Ted talk style presentations, the underlying message is one of how great a genius the speaker is. I remember thinking that I bet Soriano doesn’t use Lavia as the example in his next speech.

That’s the risk, when the game becomes all about maximising the sale price. Buying clubs have their own agenda and Southampton were happy to get Lavia on a permanent deal, with City’s buy back clause becoming redundant after he was sold to Chelsea. Even with the sell on clause, City got significantly than half the £40m Chelsea paid. More importantly, we never got to see if Lavia was good enough for us.

This selling model can too easily see players sold too soon when cash is needed to fund a signing the manager wants. The Palmer sale can definitely be put in this category. As Jack Gaughan wrote:

“Chelsea’s interest grew stronger and Guardiola told Palmer that his two options were either stay or leave permanently — no loan deal. City’s position on Palmer was financially driven”

Why did City need the money? They had just enjoyed a treble winning, revenue breaking season. Palmer himself said at the start of the summer, he and City had been looking at a loan. There was a host of options including the likes of Brighton and Dortmund. Palmer didn’t know what changed, but we can hazard a guess…

The summer transfer window had a messy feel throughout. It began with 3 clear targets in Bellingham (global star in the making), Gvardiol (ball playing defender to replace Laporte) and Kovacic (squad addition). Having missed out on Bellingham, we never seemed to have a clear alternative in mind.

To make matters worse, a number of first team players were considering leaving and City were seemingly happy for them to take as long as their agents to find a deal. The club should have insisted players decide whether or not they wanted to stay before the transfer window opened, giving the club time to plan replacements and spending.

When Gundogan and Mahrez finally left, it was late in the window, with deals like £40m for Maddison having been done and City faced with paying twice that amount for Lucas Paqueta or Eberechi Eze.

Perhaps there was an overconfidence about being able to pick up a good deal late in the window after we signed Akanji last season. The counter argument is that after letting Zinchenko take his time to decide to leave, we signed Gomez as his replacement. Gomez is technically good and an excellent crosser, but his defending makes Zinchenko look like Pablo Zabaleta. Of course Pep baled out this recruitment failure with the use of four centre-backs, but that hadn’t been the plan.

This summer, Palmer’s situation hadn’t been resolved. Would Pep want to keep him for squad depth if we didn’t get a Mahrez replacement? Instead of being set up with a good loan, he was kept waiting, while no doubt his agent was getting plenty of offers.

You’d have thought that with recruitment experts like Brighton and Dortmund being keen on taking him, alarm bells would have sounded.

From Palmer’s perspective, he’d spent most of last season on the bench, while lesser team mates like McAtee and Doyle were having a great time getting promotion with Sheffield United. Now aged 21, it’s no wonder he didn’t want a repeat this season.

City finally alighted on Doku as a Mahrez replacement. The gamble on whether Pep could turn the master of the take on and turn him into someone with consistent end product is looking like it may pay off. Yet it shows something of the unplanned nature of this deal that after being signed to replace Mahrez on the right, Doku has performed much better playing on the left and cutting in. You’d have thought our elite scouting might have spotted that!

Foden’s much talked about move into was again on hold. Ironically, with Foden and Silva both looking for central positions, there would have been more of an opening for Palmer on the right this season. If he was on loan, we’d just bide our time before bringing him back and everyone would be happy.

Instead, with Pep wanting another midfielder, time running out and prices going crazy, our net spend was going to take a big hit. In that light, Chelsea’s £40m offer eased the pain of paying £55m for Nunes and Palmer was on his way.

City’s net spend for the transfer window in the summer of 2023 was £53m. Without selling Palmer, it would have been a whopping £93m. In these days when clubs are a lot more mindful of FFP that’s a big difference.

I saw one comment that there had been some debate about whether to accept Chelsea’s offer. Khaldoon had favoured keeping the player, while Soriano wanted the money. I don’t know if this is true, but it does seem believable.

Why are Chelsea so happy? Well look at the deal from their perspective. One view would be their summer business with City amounted to 29 year old Kovacic and £15m for 21 year old Palmer, who is on an eight year contract and only going to improve.

Alternatively they got £65m for Havertz and replaced him with Palmer who is already delivering more. Why wouldn’t they be happy.

Perhaps their greatest joy is that having been reminded for years of their mistakes in selling de Bruyne and Salah, they have now benefitted from City making a similar mistake. This, I believe, is the greatest fear of City fans. We could be about to spend the next dozen years watching “a baller” who we nurtured as one of our own showcasing his skills for a rival.

What can City do? Well there isn’t much in the way of options to get him back. The only chance could be when Chelsea get hit with FFP, miss out on Champions League qualification and need to cash in on a player or two.

Even if this was an option, it’s hard to see City executives eating humble pie and admitting their mistake.

With Doku doing so well playing off the left, City might find themselves looking for a right sided player once again. Who would be the outstanding candidates? From the Premier League, Saka is probably the only one who I might put ahead of Palmer and Saka isn’t likely to be going anywhere.

Otherwise, I think the best way to ease the pain is to ensure we have someone better in our creative areas. A Wirtz or Musiala could do it. I’m not convinced Olise, Eze or Paqueta are better players than Palmer is going to be, so getting one of them for a fee well north of £40m would be dispiriting.

The old consumer saying about buying in haste and repenting at leisure is always applicable at the end of a transfer window. For Cole Palmer, the fear is that City sold in haste and will be repenting at leisure for many years to come.

4) What lessons can be learnt?

While City continue to do so well and Pep’s tactical genius continues to overcome any issues in the squad, then there is unlikely to be much questioning of City’s transfer policy. This doesn’t mean that behind the scenes, questions shouldn’t be asked. Pep won’t be here forever and you can’t bank on a fresh crop of outstanding talents every year from the youth team.

  • City need to resist the temptation to sell outstanding talents too soon, particularly before they’ve played regular football (preferably in the Premier League).
  • Decisions on loans need to made earlier with business NOT being done at the end of the transfer window – no matter how many clubs or agents come calling.
  • Sales for the best young players need to have stronger buy back options, even if it reduces the fee.
  • Contracts need to be extended rather than allowed to run down. The fee we got for Tosin Adarabioyo at the end of the 2020 window was pathetic after he’d been with us so long. There was nearly a repeat with Harwood-Bellis this year.
  • Regarding first team players, City need to clarify who wants to go a lot earlier in the summer and not wait for their agents to bring in an offer at their leisure.

It will be interesting to see whether lessons will have been learnt next summer. In the meantime let’s hope Pep can get a tune out of Nunes and convince us that the Palmer money was at least put to good use.


City and United treble talk makes for surprising comparison

With City chasing a treble, there have been inevitable comparisons with the United side of 1999. Inevitably there’s a romanticised look back to Fergie’s team, with it viewed as a purely footballing triumph, while City’s bid is often viewed as something more. A state backed, money no object, inevitable conquest played out on an uneven playing field. Guardiola may be a great coach, but his triumphs come with the asterisk of money (or Messi).

Back in 1999, City and United were in different financial worlds, but what about United and their rivals for trophies? A quick look at the Deloitte Money League comparing then and now makes for interesting viewing.

Compared to their rivals, United were far more financially dominant than City are now.

Deloitte Money League 1999 for football clubs
Deloitte Money League 2022 for football clubs

Looking at the latest figures, City are now top and have been for a couple of years since the pandemic reduced matchday income – which had a bigger impact on other top sides. Former number one, Real Madrid still has 98% of City’s revenue, while domestic rivals Liverpool and United have 96% and 94% respectively. Bayern Munich, who City played in the Champions League, are just below on 89%.

Compare to 1999, where United were top, but the next highest were Bayern, well behind with 75% of United’s revenues. In the Premier League, United’s dominance was greater still as they enjoyed more than double the revenue of every other club apart from Chelsea – who still only managed just over half United’s revenues with 53%.

In fact, United’s dominance over Premier League rivals in 1999, is more comparable with Bayern’s current dominance in the Bundesliga, where Borussia Dortmund have 55% of the revenue of Bayern.

This feels like a surprise and the interesting question is why? With all the talk of state funding and super clubs, there is the view that top level is more financially distorted than ever. Yet that distortion was already in place with United during the 90’s.

City’s bid for a treble has also been described as the inevitable culmination of all the years of investment since Sheik Mansour bought the club. However, Fergie also enjoyed many years of financial domination prior to 1999. Neil Webb was signed for the then huge sum of £1.5m in 1999. A few weeks later, Gary Pallister was signed for the record sum of £2.3m. Nobody could compete with that. Roy Keane’s signing was another which broke the transfer record as United continued to dominate in the years prior to ’99.

This throws up the question of why weren’t United getting 90+ points in a season, like City and Liverpool have done? Well, City fans might like to say Fergie wasn’t quite as good as was made out. He could simply afford more expensive players. Another view might look at changes in modern coaching, squad building and scouting of signings. For example, the analytics and global scouting systems help top English clubs ensure less money is wasted on poor signings with no resale value. The hoovering up of young talent by the academies of big clubs will help too, although you may have heard it mentioned that Fergie benefitted from a class of ’92.

The only time United were threatened financially in this period was by the owner investor model of Jack Walker at Blackburn. Unfortunately for Rovers, this proved to be a relatively short blip and United were back on top by 1999.

There’s a tendency now to look at owner investor clubs as the evil that created the financial inequality within football, with Blackburn and Chelsea as the instigators. Yet United with their commercial deals and matchday revenues from all those corporate boxes were the greater financial powerhouse. Their longevity normalised the dominance, while there was less attention paid to club revenues in those days. What went wrong? Well, put simply, the Glazers draining money and making dodgy managerial appointments, while the influx of funding for City and Chelsea saw them compete for signings. With United off their perch, others like Liverpool have been able to step up.

Some will point to the charges of financial malpractice at City that might have boosted the club’s finances. Well, we have no idea what the outcome of the charges will be, but we do know they only go up to 2018 and all the contracts for City’s current players were signed after that. The accounts of recent years have all been signed off.

The good news for City’s rivals is that Pep isn’t as likely to stick around as long as Fergie did after winning his treble, and City aren’t as far ahead in terms of revenues as is often made out. Despite what all the doomsters might have you believe, City’s revenues are eminently catchable by a United punching their weight and Real Madrid once they complete their stadium upgrade.

So City fans should enjoy these days. They’ve been a long time coming and they probably won’t last forever. It truly is a special time to be a City fan.