Manchester City kept pushing right up to the final moments of the transfer window, flexing the kind of financial muscle that can leave rival clubs wondering whether the chase is even worth it.
Under Txiki Begiristain, City’s transfer operation once felt measured and detached from the frenzy around them. This time, however, it looked much more like a full-scale spending surge. After stunning Europe with an £85million move for Ayyoub Bouaddi — a figure close to twice his estimated market value in June — and committing £116million to Elliot Anderson, most Premier League sides would have considered their central midfield rebuild complete.
City, though, did not stop there. Chelsea’s initial £120million valuation of Enzo Fernandez barely seemed to trouble them, and they ultimately paid £125million for the midfielder. Add in another £65million for Everton forward Iliman Ndiaye, and Manchester City’s deadline-day spending alone climbed to a staggering £190million.
To be fair, City have also become highly effective sellers, helped by an academy that continues to generate serious revenue. They brought in close to £90million from player sales last year, following more than £120million the previous summer. Rodri’s £65million move to Barcelona also reshaped the numbers, while the volume of outgoing players underlines a wider Premier League reality: in today’s inflated market, even recruitment missteps are not always punished.
Savinho is a case in point. Signed for £30million and handed the No 26 shirt once worn by Riyad Mahrez, he was expected to help fill that creative void but never truly managed it. Yet Tottenham, eager to reset their own direction, still agreed to pay a remarkable £75million for him, handing City a profit of more than £40million on a player who had delivered only modest returns.
Manchester City have agreed a £125m deal for Chelsea midfielder Enzo Fernandez
That follows their £116m move for Elliot Anderson from Nottingham Forest
Omar Marmoush proved another short-lived experiment. Brought in for £50million to ease the scoring burden on Erling Haaland, he struggled to make an impact against compact defensive blocks. But with Tottenham again willing to spend, City found another route to profit, with the final package for Marmoush set to reach £60million.
And then there’s also the bigger picture, here. Sure, it will bring the forces of holy hell raining down on those of us who point it out – accusations of bitterness and bias and the dreaded ‘red cartel’ conspiracy theory – but let it be said.
City’s capacity to pick off the best players of virtually any other club as it pleases them, this summer, has laughed in the face of that opaque and interminable legal process by which the Premier League’s 115 charges of alleged financial impropriety and evasion are being supposedly tested.
It’s approaching two years since the opening of the ‘Manchester City v the Premier League’ case and there are no longer even rumours or whispers as to when we might see a verdict.
Not so long back, the Manchester Evening News ran a line about City’s barrister David Pannick spending proportionately more time on House of Lords business and less on the City case. As if to say the whole thing is slipping away.
Bloomberg published a recent piece about the Abu Dhabis expressing interest in spending a fortune on British defence technology and ‘the 115’ being an awkward rider to Prime Minister Andy Burnham’s friendly first phone call with United Arab Emirates President Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan – who is the brother of City’s owner. City deny all the charges.
All that can be said with certainty is that their capacity to swoop for other Premier League clubs’ best players – Forest’s Anderson, Bournemouth’s Antoine Semenyo and Everton’s Ndiaye – yet face no legal outcome, positive or negative, depresses and maddens all who look for virtue and transparency in the game.
Everton are not far off their own third anniversary of being hit with a 10-point deduction, later reduced to six, for overspending by £19.5million – barely eight months of Erling Haaland’s vast salary – while in the throes of a relentless fight for Premier League survival. So it’s not hard to see why the departure of their excellent and much-admired playmaker Ndiaye up the M62 to City sticks in the throat for that club’s fans.
City also spent blew the rest of Europe out of the water by tabling £85million for Ayyoub Bouaddi – not far off double what his market price was back in June
After being hit with their own points deduction for overspending, it’s not hard not to see why the departure of their excellent playmaker Ndiaye to City sticks in the throat of Everton fans
Ndiaye wasn’t even City’s first choice. The club’s move for Liverpool’s Cody Gakpo collapsed by a process of deadline-day dominoes, so Ndiaye it had to be.
A product of Everton’s capacity to find and develop good players from the lower tiers – an honest, decent pursuit of value and talent – is about to find out whether he will be competing in the Champions League or Carabao Cup for City this season.
It was Grealish, a player signed for a City club-record sum when he was the bright new accessory, who Everton ended up with on Tuesday. He is open, generous, likeable and if anyone can extract the necessary extra self-discipline out of him then it will be David Moyes, a manager who has spent the summer trying to squeeze every last drop out of a limited budget.
Let’s hope it can happen. As the wait for that Premier League verdict extends towards a third year and City go on as if impervious to it, there would be something rather satisfactory about that.
