Manchester City’s transfer policy means they can wait for Jack Grealish to reach their level
By Sam Lee Feb 18, 2022 37
Is there any player, or any position, that Manchester City would ever actually miss?
Their 5-0 win over Sporting Lisbon on Tuesday night made them the fastest team to reach 200 Champions League goals and not only did they get over the line without a striker, but it also could be argued they did it without a left-back or a right-back either.
And there was no need for their £100 million summer signing. Jack Grealish is expected to be out for another three or four weeks with a shin injury, as first reported by the Telegraph, despite a suggestion by Pep Guardiola after the story that he could be back within days. It is the same injury that kept Grealish out for three months this time last year when he was with Aston Villa.
Gabriel Jesus, a jack-of-all-trades forward who has helped City through many tough assignments, was not available for the last-16 tie’s first leg either, although he is expected to return to training next week.
The ease with which City swept past Sporting, while not even at their fluid best, means it makes little sense to dwell too much on what they didn’t have on the night, but the absence of Grealish and Jesus, as well as Kyle Walker, made for a surprisingly light-looking bench.
Had this been a tougher assignment and City needed a spark, the senior options available were Nathan Ake, Oleksandr Zinchenko, Fernandinho and Ilkay Gundogan. All excellent players — and Guardiola would probably find a way to get Gundogan inside the six-yard box as often as possible — but it’s hardly the array of attacking talent that might be expected.
There were five promising academy prospects on the bench, plus Brazilian teenager Kayky and 36-year-old reserve keeper Scott Carson, highlighting that City don’t have the biggest squad around.
The players who did the damage on the pitch in Lisbon were a reminder that they may not be the biggest, but surely they are the best.
You can’t call them that without acknowledging the money spent, but you can’t acknowledge the money spent without looking at what other clubs do with theirs.
It may seem like punching down but it really is such an obvious example that it bears repeating: Manchester United have the most expensively assembled squad in world football at present.
The Athletic showed that City have only spent more than £65 million on a single player once, whereas neighbours United have done it four times. Romelu Lukaku has already left, Paul Pogba could leave the club for free for a second time in the summer, and Harry Maguire is currently under fire for his performances. Jadon Sancho gets a pass, because it’s his first season at Old Trafford.
CIES Football Observatory research highlighted United as the biggest “net spenders” over the past decade, ahead of City in second, Paris Saint-Germain in third, Barcelona in fourth, Arsenal in fifth and Juventus in sixth. Bayern Munich and Liverpool in 14th and 15th, respectively, can probably feel pretty good about themselves (and they often do) but most of the top 10 serves as a list of football’s greatest underachievers.
CIES net spend since 2012
Manchester United
-€1075m
Manchester City
-€984m
Paris Saint-Germain
-€941m
Barcelona
-€650m
Arsenal
-€583m
Juventus
-€561m
AC Milan
-€432m
Everton
-€429m
Aston Villa
-€424m
Having lots of money helps most when you know what to do with it.
The article linked to above also shows City are responsible for 37.5 per cent (six of 16) of all transfers costing between £55 million and £64 million, which neatly highlights both their approach to the market — which has been very successful — and how much money they have been able to invest.
City’s finances have been the source of much controversy, with the Der Spiegel allegations that they breached UEFA’s Financial Fair Play rules still being looked into the by Premier League, despite the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) dismissing the allegations, saying that there was “insufficient conclusive evidence” to uphold UEFA’s earlier finding against City, while some matters were too old to be subject to their processes.
All that intensifies the interest in Grealish, the first £100 million British footballer and the man who City broke their unofficial cap of £65 million to sign.
The real conversation around the 26-year-old should not be whether he should be getting more goals and assists given his price tag, but that City can afford to spend such a sum on one man and not even need him to drag them up a level immediately.
They can afford to wait for him to adapt his game, like the majority of their other recent signings, because of how well the group of players they have put together in the past four to five years is performing.
Is that awkward or admirable? It’s not easy, that’s for sure. Just look at that financial information again and find the big-spending clubs who can reinvent their brightest academy prospect as a false nine, or their rangy centre-half as a right-back, or their right-back — who previously hated playing on the left — as some sort of left-sided, deep-lying creative force.
It’s no wonder City are the subject of such debate and scrutiny.
It’s dizzying trying to keep up with them, both on and off the pitch.
