“ASTONISHING” is how the sports director of one club pillaged by the Premier League describes financial terms that seduced his star player. “Totally ridiculous” is how one Champions League coach who made a career through his judgment of a footballer labels the gaudiest elements of this summer’s spend.
With Kevin de Bruyne en route to Manchester following the agreement of an initial £53.8m transfer fee, 19 of the 20 Premier League clubs have made a foreigner their most expensive purchase. Bournemouth’s £8m investment in the uncapped English defender Tyrone Mings simply serves to underline the hyperbolic cost of young homegrowns.
After one summer of Financial Fair Play enforced economising, Manchester City are not only paying a fee that Liverpool say could rise to £49m for the mercurial Raheem Sterling, they have taken Patrick Roberts - an 18-year-old forward who is yet to score a goal in senior football - from Fulham for a sum that could breach eight figures.
Then there is City’s extraordinary deal for De Bruyne. Wolfsburg tried hard to retain the Bundesliga’s player of the year, offering to double the Belgian’s annual salary to more than €10m. City are understood to have presented De Bruyne with a performance-related package worth up to £70m over five years. “He’s had an astonishing, astonishing offer from City,” said Klaus Allofs, the sports director of far-from-impoverished Wolfsburg. “I would prefer to keep him, not to get the money.”
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All this for a player who didn’t fancy the challenge of playing his way into Jose Mourinho’s first team the last time he was a Premier League club’s employee. And, it is said, he was not City’s first choice to reinforce their right wing. City have been spending extraordinary sums to achieve it, but at least the division’s early leaders have been strengthening their problem positions. Across Manchester, Louis van Gaal and Ed Woodward are playing a high-stake game of musical chairs where their most ambitious targets sit exactly where they started.
United need a new centre-back, Woodward helped Sergio Ramos to a pay rise at Real Madrid. United need at least one more forward, Woodward has pursued Gareth Bale, Cristiano Ronaldo, Karim Benzema, Harry Kane and Sadio Mane without landing any yet. Pedro wanted to join from Barcelona; Woodward stalled so long over a payment structure that Chelsea nipped in and signed the Spaniard overnight. Van Gaal handled David de Gea, his best-performing player, so poorly that the goalkeeper agreed to join Madrid. Then followed that by falling out with Victor Valdes.
At least the more expensive of United’s acquisitions (Matteo Darmian, Memphis Depay, Morgan Schneiderlin and Bastian Schweinsteiger) are performing solidly. Of last summer’s £165m outlay on transfer fees, only Daley Blind ranked in Van Gaal’s first XI in terms of Premier League minutes played. It is hard to argue that Petr Cech was anything other than an astute signing for Arsenal. Could Arsène Wenger have done more? Yes. Does his caution have merit? You only have to look at past windows to see that.
Chelsea’s hierarchy failed to grasp the lesson of last season’s success. Departing from a structured strategy of buying early and precisely, the champions are now playing a dangerous game of catch-up. Pedro should prove a strong acquisition, yet one made by default and at the expense of a low-income loan for Juan Cuadrado. Abdul Baba Rahman’s fee was inflated, although the club did well to recover four-fifths of Filipe Luis’ purchase price from Atletico Madrid.
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Not moving quickly enough for the central defender Jose Mourinho badly needs has cost points, confidence and, Everton insist, any chance of securing John Stones. He, of course, is English. And his price? Well, it’s astonishing.