Goaters 103 wrote:Lets play devils advocate for a minute - I feel like doing this as this whole load of bollocks could have been nipped in the bud by Ya Ya yesterday, but instead he chose to feed it & make it worse, so quite frankly fucl him. He and his agent have chosen to piss into our tent after we've just won the league, and without any possible justification. For this, and for the look on my 9 year old sons face when he heard that Toure wanted to leave, I feel sick to the pit of my stomach.
Now, at age 31 and with 3 years left on his contract City hold all the cards here, and the player wont be going anywhere unless we decide its in our own interests, no matter what that buffoon of an Agent thinks or does.
Clearly the player has been tapped, either by Barca, PSG or someone else via his Agent so thinks he can manufacture a move or crowbar more money out of us. I'm of the opinion that both he and the agent have overplayed their hand here in a major way, and the club have played this spot on by saying absolutely nothing, and letting Ya Ya and his agent hang themselves in the court of public opinion. We are a much stronger club than we were when Tevez kicked off, and probably even wiser for it too.
However, Ya Ya's age and given his contract situation, his value as a sellable asset will never be higher, and from this point on it will only depreciate as will his skills in cent midf where he has 1-2 yrs left at the top level, even in a best case scenario. Then he'd have to play right up top, or parked in the back 4.
Assuming we could get Barkley, Pogba or even a swap for Cesc Fabregas, would/should we sell him? If it suits us, then yes, but only if it does suit us and that's the key. His fee would be north of £30m, wages astronomical, so who can actually pay this? Real, Barca maybe, Chelsea, PSG perhaps but that's about it - a small pond, even allowing for the dead cert Napoli/AC Milan loan offer as long as we paid the wages, paid them and fed Berlusconi's cat.
Bottom line, what do City do? At the moment nothing, but if any of the aforementioned 3 poss replacements above can be had, Id strongly consider getting shut if the fee was north of £30m and the deal was right for us. Given Ya Ya's advancing years, maybe this is a blessing in disguise, we'll see.
What the past 48 hours has reminded me is why Pablo Zabaleta is my favourite City player; no agenda, no bullshit, total commitment.
Ya Ya will always have a place in this clubs heart, but the past 3 summers mean he will never be adored the way Vinny, Zabba, Mr Silva or Sergio currently are and will be unless they choose to shit on us via the press & in public. I somehow doubt they ever will.
Spot on post that, quality.
If Yaya just wanted to leave and say that he fancied a challenge elsewhere to finish his career and that he'd been proud to have been a part of what we've achieved etc, I think we'd have been more understanding. The fact he's got his agent and himself (see his BeIn Sports interview) giving it all this "disrespect" lark is laughable. It's actually disrespect to us, the fans, the ones who actually turn up week in week out to see the team do the business.
Yaya needs to look at the way Vinny and Zaba handle themsleves and take a lesson from them. Like you said, it's why we love Zaba so much. Is it any surprise the chants for him have been the loudest at the Etihad for ages? Absolutely not.
