Manchester City fan, blogger and VMC member, Lando78 sent us the following article. His blog can be found at 5-1blogspot.com
The entire City squad are a bunch overpaid money-grabbing mercenaries, or so the media, pundits and fans alike would have you believe.
Since the Arab takeover last summer and in particular the arrival of Robinho from Real Madrid City have been the number one target for the media vultures, ‘Loads a’ Money’ impersonators and ‘Boo Boys’ alike. No signing has been spared their wrath from the January arrivals Santa Cruz, De Jong and Bellamy to the summer arrivals of Toure, Adebayor, Tevez and Gareth Barry.
To understand what a mercenary is we have to look at the very core of the word. A Merc is a private soldier of fortune who fights for personal wealth or gain, rather than for a good cause or overwhelming patriotic feeling.
So in footballing terms a mercenary can be seen as anyone who leaves his own team for financial or personal gain. A player who no longer has the affection for their team in which they started their careers or at least joined very early on.
Putting that into context, almost all footballers are mercenaries, in fact so is the person sat behind the keyboard (as he left JD Sports for Allsports in 1997), and the person reading his article at the minute for that matter. So, lets all take a moment to see who are the truly world class Mercs and see how many of them play for the team in sky blue.
The List:
20. Robinho £10m Manchester City Age 25
18. Dimitar Berbatov £11m Manchester United Age 27
18. Joe Cole £11m Chelsea Age 27
15. Damien Duff £12m Fulham Age 30
15. Gary Neville £12m Manchester United Age 34
15. Petr Cech £12m Chelsea Age 27
14. Emile Heskey £13m Aston Villa Age 31
11. Ashley Cole £14m Chelsea Age 28
11. Fernando Torres £14m Liverpool Age 25
11. Nicolas Anelka £14m Chelsea Age 31
10. Didier Drogba £16m Chelsea Age 31
9. John Terry £18m Chelsea Age 28
8. Steven Gerrard £20m Liverpool Age 29
7. Frank Lampard £21m Chelsea Age 31
6. Michael Ballack £22m Chelsea Age 33
5. Ryan Giggs £24m Manchester United Age 35
4. Rio Ferdinand £30m Manchester United Age 30
3. Wayne Rooney £37m Manchester United Age 23
2. Michael Owen £38m Manchester United Age 29
1. David Beckham £125m England Age 34 Ex -Rag
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