The Brooding Menace of Manchester City's Transfer Window Ambitions

When the Abu Dhabi Group took over Manchester City and bought Robinho at the beginning of the season it seemed that English football had gone crazy. Manchester United and Chelsea fans all around the world screamed from the rooftops about how money doesn’t buy success.

All the while, Alex Ferguson secured the services of yet another £30m player in Dimitar Berbatov, and Chelsea added the services of Deco and Scolari to a multi-million pound squad that missed out on domestic and European success by the skin of its teeth.

The irony of it all was a sight to behold.

Money alone doesn’t buy success, that much is true, but without it these days you haven’t got a hope in hell. Which is why I believe acquiring the other components for success are really the easiest part of Manchester City’s plan for world domination.

As this year’s season began though, the buzz of Manchester City’s new found wealth seemed to wear off as it became painfully obvious that they were just the same old unpredictable Manchester City.

I personally didn’t expect anything less.

Robinho is an amazing player, he has proven that already, but Diego Maradona he isn’t. Dragging Manchester City to the Premiership title on his own in the manner of Maradona at Napoli just isn’t going to happen I’m afraid.

So as the January transfer window looms the brooding menace of Manchester City’s ambitions casts a dark cloud over the Premiership once again. The stories of City’s possible transfer targets are starting to hot up.

Terry, Buffon, Kaka, Ronaldo, Fabregas, and Torres have all been mentioned. It’s been reported that Mark Hughes has been instructed to draw up a list of the world’s top players in every position and that these players will be the transfer targets in January.

The problem with all this though is that, although I do see Manchester City having a good chance of crashing the "Big Four" party eventually, there just seems to be a little bit of naive optimism in drawing up a list like this.

The Abu Dhabi group’s aspirations are reminiscent of the American who tried to buy the magnificent Tower Bridge in London and ended up taking home the rather less impressive London Bridge. Some things simply aren’t for sale.

Robinho was very much a one-off in that respect. His utter horror at being used as bait to lure Cristiano Ronaldo to the Bernabeu during the transfer tug-of-war between Manchester United and Real Madrid saw him well and truly throw his toys out of the pram and offer his services to the highest bidder seemingly regardless of the short-term career prospects.

While Robinho’s arrival can only increase the allure that Manchester City has to the world's best players, you have to wonder how many of them would gamble their immediate future the way Robinho has.

Not many in my opinion.

The world’s best players obviously want as much money as possible—who doesn’t?—but just as important as that is the platform to acquire a place in the list of all time greats. Which is something that Manchester City, despite all their money, can’t currently provide.

So unlike Chelsea, who had the lure of top-level football at the beginning of their take-over a stumbling block has arisen for City’s management and owners. Which will come first, the chicken or the egg?

Will top quality players bring top-level football to Eastlands? Or will top-level football bring top-quality players? To say the January transfer window is going to be interesting would be a massive understatement. There is no doubt that Manchester City will recruit players, but whom?

Of all the transfer targets the most interesting is Gianluigi Buffon. Defence must be a priority for City, having leaked so many goals recently, and who better to bring in than somebody widely regarded as the world’s best goalkeeper.

With Juventus having recently proven they can manage without him and also looking to finance their new 40,000-seater stadium, he could be a realistic target.

Kaka is one I can’t see though. Players like him, Torres, Gerrard, Ronaldo, Messi, and Terry are the players I see as simply not for sale. Clubs cling to these players for dear life their success on the pitch relies on them.

The money they make for the club in merchandising along with the exposure they bring, dwarfs any transfer fee that we normally see in football.

My opinion though is just that, an opinion. The reality is that the power of money in football will be tested to its limit in January.

The slightest chink in a club’s armor will be exploited to the fullest and with the world’s finances in total disarray there could be a few more chinks than anybody has yet realized.

Should they manage to bring in players of equal quality to Robinho, Richards, Elano, and Petrov who can relegate some of their current first team talent to squad players, then they will be well on their way to creating a squad that can challenge for a place in the Champions league.

The more realistic, and probably wiser, option though is to target the next generation of worldclass players. There are countless ambitious players around world waiting for an ambitious club like Manchester City and every year a new generation emerges.

In addition to the young stars of the future world football is full of players capable of being the next big thing now. Sergio Aguero, Klaus-Jan Huntelaar, and Roque Santa-Cruz are just three of the many quality players that the world’s richest clubs didn’t have room for in the summer.

So whether Manchester City can attract top players from big clubs in the January transfer market, or if they have to wait a little bit longer to assemble a team of worldclass players that the world hasn’t yet heard of, it’s just matter of time before they are competing for trophies.

Having the money to be able to rip it up and start again means that Manchester City simply can’t fail.

It’s less a case of can they win trophies, and more a case of when. If the short history of the Premiership tells us anything, it’s that money does buy trophies.

The Fall and Imminent Rise of Manchester City Football Club

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