City’s net spend table portrays club’s ultimate ambition!
Even though its been more than a decade since our take over, the media, pundits and rival fans beat City with the same stick. I find it hilarious and quite boring to be fair. Money has always been the term used to criticize City. I just have a simple question to ask all our critics. If you have a very old house that needs renovation, how the hell are you going to do it without spending money?
City were almost close to bankruptcy when we were taken over in 2008. So, the only way to make us competitive in the short term and also lay the foundations for long term sustainability was injecting money at that time. The owner just didn’t buy the best players and look for instant success. Instead he invested far money than any owner would into the development of youth facilities. The focus was always on re-building the club up from the bottom up.
I know this sounds like non-sensical, specially if you look at us spending 40 Million pounds on Sterling and things like that back then. But, the challenge was always to remain competitive in the short term while building for the future. This is a trap lot of clubs fall into, concentrating only on youth development or maybe just purchasing players for the short term. We have balanced both the elements very well and are now ready to reap the rewards of what was so meticulously planned a decade ago.
You don’t have to look farther than the net spend table for this season to understand how we have become a self-sustainable club who are able to balance out spending and sales in the transfer market. People might say that this season is an exception and you will resort to the same lavish spending from next season onwards.
The answer to that lies in the youth products coming through our academy and our great scouting network. We are potentially selling Sterling this season to Chelsea and his replacement is Cole Palmer. There is also James Mcatee who has out grown under-23’s football and is waiting to break through into the first team. Its not just only the youth academy, but also the great scouting network that we have created in tandem with the City football group.
For example, we have got Yan Couto for 18 million pounds and he is almost in the line to be a long term Walker replacement. If the players are not able to fulfill the complex demands of Pep, they are then sold on for Profits. Angelino is a perfect example. Both the player and Club win in this scenario. It is processes and systems like these that have helped City grow into one of the best in the world. More than money here, the important component is the immense love of our management for the club. This is just the beginning of what will be a dynasty and a gold standard of everything a football club should be.
Sustainability is a key factor in running a football club and we have achieved it through great management and efficient processes. The fascinating thing is that we are now set and ready to dominate the world with all our youth and scouted players. I doubt if we will see an other very big spending window in the transfer market and most windows will be very efficient like this one and i am extremely happy that we are again leading the way in terms of re-defining how a football club should be managed right from the top to the bottom
