When Real Madrid, a bastion for unabashed, unfocused hyper-spending in the modern game, can’t keep up with the competition anymore then you know something’s going slightly awry.
Real coach Jose Mourinho has publicly admitted that even he cannot compete with Manchester City’s imperious financial position anymore, after watching one of his choice summer transfer targets disappear into the Eastlands ether from before his very eyes.
The player in question is one Aleksander Kolarov, the 24-year-old full-back that Mourinho had outlined as a key addition to his newly-acquired squad of misfits, ragamuffins and global superstars.
City finally signed their £16 million trinket last month (an almost insignificant investment considering the raft of £24 million+ players that signed at roughly the same the time) but only after seeing off Mourinho’s Spanish powerhouse in the pursuit of the much-fancied Serbian international – which was a considerable feat in itself.
However it seems that, rather than an honourable(ish) duel between two evenly matched potential suitors, the race for Kolarov’s signature was much more one-sided with City simply gazumping Real by offering a simply unmatchable financial package.
Not that Mourinho is bitter about the whole ordeal, telling Sky Sports News;
“I understand that if someone wants to compete with [Man City] for a player it is very difficult, they are dominant in the market. The player they say they want is the player they get.
I was interested in Kolarov when I came here but I couldn’t compete with them as they went to values that I couldn’t. If they have the money they can do it, if they have the ambition to win the Premier League they can do it.”
Sounds more like a back-handed slight than a glowing appraisal to me and when asked to comment on the speculation linking Madrid with a move for Man City striker Emmanuel Adebayor, Mourinho continued in a similar vein;
“The historical dimension of Real Madrid and Manchester City you can’t compare. But the economical dimension you can compare.
So I think at the minute City is the club to keep their best players and to buy the players that nobody expects them to buy.I don’t think, just one year after buying Emmanuel from Arsenal, he’s the player to leave.”
What is the world of football coming to when even the ‘richest club in the world’™ cannot compete with these pugnacious, Arab-fuelled, nouvelle-riche Goliaths?
Manchester City’s transfer policy is seemingly very much akin to a large, sky-blue meat grinder.
The fresh meat is forcibly crammed in at the top (regardless of the need for it) and then systematically pounded through the chamber season on season until eventually the gristle and rind is shat out in useless kernels and swept away to who cares where.
It is a policy that inherently creates a lot of waste (i.e. surplus players), but I suppose when you have no feasible limit to the amount of money you have at your disposal, you can afford to have someone else do your recycling.
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