Lifelong Manchester City fan and music legend Roy Harper sent Vital Manchester City the following.
This season’s transfer window is becoming a very cagey affair, bordering on boring. It needs to be loosened up by the sale of a couple of players. But who’re they going to be? Who’s going to grease the wheel that starts the Sale?
City obviously doesn’t want to bid first for Dzeko because they need to know what Wolfsburg are prepared to accept before they make an offer. £50 million is obviously way off the mark, but £30 million probably is too. His actual market value at this time is probably £25+ million, but no one seems to want to put the first bid on the table. This is very understandable. The market for anything other than footballers has been depressed since the world recession hit home. This means that another of our entertainments over these last few years, the transfer window, is this year something of a damp squib. This is reflected in the mad scribblings of every two-bit journalist from The Ross Sea to Nuuk. All of them trying to stir something up that isn’t there. Yet.
Live performance by Roy Harper, circa 1986
So which transfer’s going to load the starter’s gun? It certainly won’t be Bellamy to Spuds, if that even has a chance of happening. That would be just be the equivalent of spraying a bit of WD 40 onto a rusty nut. Various quotes this morning seem to have been made more as false leads or bait than anything else. None more so than Ancelloti’s apparent ‘They (City) will also get Dzeko and Kolarov.’
In this climate, City can’t afford to do anything other than perhaps make their presence known and then stand back until a situation comes to the boil, either because the player wants a move, the agent gets the jitters and becomes trigger happy, or because the club in question really needs the funds to be able to buy before it’s too late to acclimatize an incoming purchase…or any of the varying permutations therein.
In Ancelotti’s case, I think he’s just trying to get someone, be it Juventus, City, Roma or Wolfsburg, to make a false start. Which automatically gets the old yellow cone placed behind the starting block no that track, and ensures a wee smattering of demoralisation. It’s all becoming like a Dutch auction at the moment, where everyone waits, watching the price drop, ¤50 million… ¤45 mill… ¤42 mill… ¤40 mill… ¤40M… ¤38M… ¤35M… ¤32M… ¤30M…knowing that the first bidder wins the auction. ¤28M…Sold! Dzeko is sold to the bidder on the phone!
While us lot stand in the wings, watching paint dry. Quite exciting paint in our case, but still paint. So who’s going to be the big lump of grease that kick starts this window? Especially after everyone’s just seen some of the world’s greats being not so great in teams they don’t play in that often.
Is the World Cup Final really clogging it all up? What’s Torres really worth in that form? Will Schneider really move? Will someone make a move for Schweinsteiger? Or Diego Forlan? Or has the World Cup just been a convenient smoke screen for all of them? Especially the ones who are tightening their purse strings, and wishing the punters and their paid speculators would go away?and only come back again when the turnstiles re-open.
Beyond The Door 2004 – Interview with Roy Harper
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