£34.1M

Yesterday the Manchester Evening News published a piece about the need for City to off-load some players. This, basically, was partly to do with the need to downsize the ‘foreign contingent’ and partly to allow some breathing room with regards to our spending restrictions following our FFP punishment.

 

So I got the calculator out…

 

In relation to any pursuit of Ross Barkley, the article states that City were once put off by Everton’s valuation / asking price and so I thought, why; how much were they asking and how much cash could we possibly muster?

 

After the (fee-paying) purchases of Fernando, Zuculini, Caballero and Mangala we will have overspent the £49M allowed by £0.9M…and so we now HAVE to sell. But I wanted to look at the realistic sale prices of those who are most likely to leave us before the end of August.

 

First of all, I’m forgetting two of those “possibles” for now. Unless he comes kicking and screaming on the manager’s door for a move I’m just not entertaining the idea of Alvaro Negredo leaving us in the summer. Unless he WANTS to go so badly, of course, why the ‘eck would we possibly want to let him go?

 

As for Yaya Toure, I’m simply hoping for a ‘kiss and make up’.

 

So…

 

- £0.9M plus £12M for Javi Garcia, £7M for Scott Sinclair, £7M for Micah Richards and £9M for Jack Rodwell. That leaves us with £34.1M to spend if we are to remain within the FFP punishment rules. So, I say again, how much do Everton want for the young England international? Surely that would be enough plus some spare to get him a taxi from Merseyside?

 

And I’ve been quite conservative with some of those valuations of our players - I can see us getting a few quid more for Garcia at least and, perhaps, Jack Rodwell could command double figures too. But then again I can see any possible suitors wanting to pay a smaller lump sum for Jack; adding further instalments dependant on appearance due to his injury record.

 

Whatever the exact figures are I’m confident that we’ll have enough to spend on an attack / creative-minded midfielder if Pellegrini wanted to. And should Yaya be on his way then, of me, it’s gotta be either two coming in or one hell of a stellar name (with the funds available from the sale of the Ivorian and most of the afore mentioned).

 

Canny

 

Manchester City have been very clever in the rejigging some of the players’ contracts. Samir Nasri, for example, has signed a new, 5-year deal that sees his weekly wage come DOWN. The reason? Apparently they’ve loaded it up with many ‘incentive payments’ and, as it turns out, incentive bonus payments don’t count towards wages for FFP rules because they’re not guaranteed payments. Very cute City.

 

I’m sure more City players will be now put on these types of contracts and it won’t be long before other teams follow suit either. However, I bet it won’t take UEFA long to catch on and change the rules…

 

But it seems we’re not the only canny ones in the area.

I’ve recently been scratching my head as to why Manyoo think they can spend, spend and spend some more and [seemingly] be exempt from the FFP rule. As it turns out, all along they’ve had lined up one hell of a MASSIVE kit deal with Adidas worth a whopping £750M over ten years!

 

I won’t go into the details of what, exactly, the deal will see the sportswear company do at the club. However, one analyst has stated that with other club sponsorship deals already in place; this season alone will see the Stretford team pull in £140M! Put another way, sponsorship alone could see Manyoo spend their reputed £200M on players this summer and, in effect, will only have spent £60M before income from other sources.

 

Drat, drat, and thrice drat!

 

Someone at the club deserves a pat on the back and a bonus that’s for sure. As much as it pains me to say it, “well done them” - they are now RIGHT back ‘in the mix’ long term once again…