Yaya to City/Man. City transfers thread

http://www.guardian.co.uk/football/2010/jun/17/yaya-toure-manchester-city-barcelona-move

Its been going on for a while now and it looks like we have won the race to sign him. Hopefully it will be completed soon and if it is i will be very happy, i think he will do very well in the prem and he and de jong will be very strong in the centre of midfield, with Vieira and Barry for back up.

Sgoater1 wrote:http://www.guardian.co.uk/football/2010/jun/17/yaya-toure-manchester-city-barcelona-move

Its been going on for a while now and it looks like we have won the race to sign him. Hopefully it will be completed soon and if it is i will be very happy, i think he will do very well in the prem and he and de jong will be very strong in the centre of midfield, with Vieira and Barry for back up.

Sgoater1 wrote:http://www.guardian.co.uk/football/2010/jun/17/yaya-toure-manchester-city-barcelona-move

Its been going on for a while now and it looks like we have won the race to sign him. Hopefully it will be completed soon and if it is i will be very happy, i think he will do very well in the prem and he and de jong will be very strong in the centre of midfield, with Vieira and Barry for back up.

To be honest - Debaser will love it .

Thank you!

Jaime wrote:Thank you!

Still can't believe Barca are going to let him go!

TM wrote:

Jaime wrote:Thank you!

Still can't believe Barca are going to let him go!

Barça don't have a choice...Guardiola and the club want him to stay but when the player wants to leave, there's nothing you can do (apart from offering a ridiculous new contract...and he already got an improvement/extension last year).


But no doubt millions of idiot journalists and fans will keep repeating "I can't believe Barça swapped Toure for Cesc" over the next season

Couldnt they just say "no..you arent leaving"?

They are more than just a club after all, so I assume they're masters of negotiations or something.

They could stop insulting him by playing busquets

borocooper wrote:Couldnt they just say "no..you arent leaving"?

They are more than just a club after all, so I assume they're masters of negotiations or something.

As I said, the club has already told him they want him to stay. But that doesn't really work nowadays, in the end the player has the most power.


What 110% says is probably the solution - make him first choice again ahead of Busquets. But Pep apparently doesn't feel that Yaya should be an automatic first choice.

Then as that is the case kas, Barca have to shoulder the blame for letting him go.

Its all very well saying you don't have a choice, but you're entirely responsible for that state of affairs.

kas wrote:

borocooper wrote:Couldnt they just say "no..you arent leaving"?

They are more than just a club after all, so I assume they're masters of negotiations or something.

As I said, the club has already told him they want him to stay. But that doesn't really work nowadays, in the end the player has the most power.


What 110% says is probably the solution - make him first choice again ahead of Busquets. But Pep apparently doesn't feel that Yaya should be an automatic first choice.

So Barca do have a choice..and they dont have to say they want him to stay. They need to say he cant leave. Then make him a regular starter.

You sometimes say silly things about your club.

Yes that's true but how do we know he still wants to leave anyway for more money? If he was leaving for pure, 100% football reasons, would he really choose Man. City? As I said above, last season he was a starter and got a contract extension/improvement in the summer, yet is unhappy.


But let's be honest, this argument will go nowhere so I'll admit it - Barça are stupid and entirely to blame for letting him go. Pep and Rosell and Laporta are all idiots

Congrats City, you're getting one hell of a player. I can't believe we're swapping him for Cesc

Its not really an argument. I just dont get why you say things like "there's nothing Barca can do" as if the people there cant put a foot wrong.

borocooper wrote:Its not really an argument. I just dont get why you say things like "there's nothing Barca can do" as if the people there cant put a foot wrong.

I don't get Kas at all here. This is Barcelona's foult without a doubt. When you put a world class player, who has had two good seasons at the club, on the bench for somebody who is rather unproven and has yet to hit the same heights as Yaya it is not strange why he would want to leave.

So far I haven't heard of many clubs going in for him and City isn't exactly a small club either. It is obvious that they are going places so unfair to say it is purely a monetary issue.

Someone leaving Barcelona for Manchester City (who aren't even in the CL, and have 20m euro De Jong, English boy Barry, plus possibly more new signings for the DM/CM position, so Toure's not necessarily a guaranteed starter) isn't purely a monetary issue? Give me a fucking break

Toure has a track record of this too. His agent has been talking about money and threatening to get his player to leave since pretty much the first season he got to the club.

As for why Busquets was preferred to him, it's not some behind-the-scenes conspiracy as Jaime would like us all to believe. Let's not forget that Toure was clearly looking unfit at the start of the season, had a few dodgy performances when he did play, and also missed a month-and-a-half during the ACN and with a subsequent injury.

And as Hem Fet and I were discussing in the Barça thread a couple of weeks ago, there are genuine tactical reasons for playing Busquets over Toure in some games. His dive in the Inter game has made the Busquets backlash quite ridiculous. He's a decent player, not Lucas.

I don't get the "Unproven" slur either - so an unproven player should never play? How do they become proven then? Maybe Madrid should keep playing Raul and shouldn't have given Higuain a chance?

Would I (and most others on this board) play Toure more often? Yes. But Pep feels otherwise, and the team isn't exactly collapsing because of this single decision.

Hey hey hey. Those behind the scenes conspiracies are true!!!!

I am sure there would be other teams interested in Toure but not given the price tag that Barcelona have no doubt slapped on poor Yaya. I don't think you can say that Toure is choosing City over any other club but at the moment they seem to be the only club offering anything near Barcelona's valuation. If he wants to play, City are probably his only option - CL or no CL.

Also kas the comparison to Raul and Higuain is a bit silly because it was a case where Raul was clearly past it whereas Toure is still clearly in his prime and every bit as good as Busquets if not better in most aspects of the game.

Probably the only thing we can all agree on in all of this is that Pep is an idiot and Barcelona are c*nts.

News is we have sent medical team out there and hope a deal to done on monday....would be class signing and a key one to the structure of our team.

Also Krasic agent has said we are the most likley destination for the Serb, seen a bit of him in the champs and for serbia and looks decent, how do people think he would do in EPL if we get him ?

kas wrote:
As for why Busquets was preferred to him, it's not some behind-the-scenes conspiracy as Jaime would like us all to believe. Let's not forget that Toure was clearly looking unfit at the start of the season, had a few dodgy performances when he did play, and also missed a month-and-a-half during the ACN and with a subsequent injury.

And as Hem Fet and I were discussing in the Barça thread a couple of weeks ago, there are genuine tactical reasons for playing Busquets over Toure in some games. His dive in the Inter game has made the Busquets backlash quite ridiculous. He's a decent player, not Lucas.

Come on Kas, u know deep down this is all bullshit.

Guardiola for some reasons always prefered Busquets to Toure from the off, so this is nothing new. May i remind u in Guardiola's 1st season he was frequently picking Busquets ahead of Toure at the start of the season(that was when Toure's agent started mouthing off in the press, rightly so coz Toure was one of their best perfomers in Rijkaard's last season)), and the excuse then was not for Toure's 'lack of discipline'(the one that is currently used) but for his 'lack of mobility'. I remember Barca fans buying that excuse judging from their posts on the Barca thread, but then Toure started more games as the season progressed(they went on winning the treble with Toure playing a key role - no talk of lack of mobility at all) and all Barca fans on here started singing from another tune "Toure - the best DM in the world". New season starts, AGAIN Guardiola prefers Busquets to Toure, but this time he stood by Busquets throughout the season. And now the excuse is, he's not disciplined enough, and Barca fans are buying it again . I'm sure if another manager comes in and picks Toure ahead of Busquets, they'll start calling him the best DM in the world again.

You know if the difference between the 2 players was marginal you'd understand the manager going for the lesser one based on some minor details(depending on how he wants to play) but that's not the case here. Toure is clearly the superior player.

kas wrote: I don't get the "Unproven" slur either - so an unproven player should never play? How do they become proven then? Maybe Madrid should keep playing Raul and shouldn't have given Higuain a chance?.

I love the way u change your tune so often when it suits u Kas.

So u go from telling me at the start of last season that relying on our current crop of DMs was our main problem since none of them is world class - you even said that's tantamount to Barca relying on Busquets(that's the level our current crop are, all your words Kas) instead of the world class DM that is Toure - to now advocating for the use of Busquets on a consistent basis?

1. Busquets *is* more "disciplined" than Toure. By this we Barça fans don't mean fouling/cards, but positionally. You mention his first season, and this attribute was indeed especially noticeable in his first few games - he'd always be in the right place to step in and win the ball.

I remember Hem Fet coming back from a game at the Camp Nou and posting "btw, watch out for this kid Busquets, he has a knack of being in the right place at the right time and I'm impressed with his calmness on the ball".

Toure is more of a box to box player, keen to wander, but has adapted his game to meet Barça's requirements and just sit in front of the defense most of the time. That's not his natural game though, and you know it.



2. The "tactical reasons" I refer to are not bullshit. I don't make stuff up. For your reference, the point which Hem Fet and I (as well as a few other Barça-supporting friends of mine in real life) agree on is this - both Toure and Busquets are prone to losing the ball.

The difference is that Busquets loses the ball when his usual one touch passing (which, when it succeeds 8 times out of 10, is a huge benefit in allowing us to counter) fails.

Toure loses the ball after dribbling around aimlessly for a bit, trying to find a pass or decide whether to keep driving towards goal. The latter hurts us more because players have already started moving up-field along with Toure. It's only easy to understand this point when you see either situation happening a few times in actual games.

So yes, there are genuine reasons to play Busquets over Toure in some games. For example, a team against whom you don't need to win a physical battle, and who prefer to sit deep rather than pressure you. Toure's dribbling and shielding of the ball is much more useful in the latter situation, where Busquets would end up falling down under pressure. I wasn't happy that Toure didn't start against Inter.



3. I'm not sure about lack of mobility last season, but it was certainly an issue this season, as I stated above when talking about Toure's lack of fitness.



4. The big problem with your post is that you seem to have convinced yourself that all Barça fans rate Busquets higher than Toure and that the former should play in every game, and that we *want* Toure to be sold.

This is clearly not true, as quite clearly mentioned in at least 2 different places in my post above, and as you can easily figure out by reading opinions of Barça fans anywhere. When Toure goes, we do expect another DM as a replacement (but if Cesc comes, then unfortunately there won't be a DM signed).



5. Coming to the point about Arsenal, I don't recall what discussion I had with you at the start of the season...but surely it's pretty obvious that there's a big difference between a team of 9 Busquets+Gallas+Almunia, which is pretty much what Arsenal is these days, and a well functioning world class team with experience, and 1 Busquets?

The ideal way to blood a youngster is to gradually introduce him into a winning, settled team where if he does make a mistake, the others can make up for it. Which is what Pep did with Busquets, before suddenly playing him a lot more this season for a combination of reasons (I remain convinced that Toure's lack of fitness at the start was a big part of it...and another point I just remember is Keita's amazing run of form in the first 2 months. You just couldn't drop him).


Again, nowhere have I advocated for Busquets to be "used on a consistent basis". Supermadrid seemed to be saying that an unproven player should never play, but I disagreed with that, saying that if an unproven/young player is talented, he should be rotated and get enough chances to improve and build his game, so that he is comfortable if required to step in when the established player gets injured. The Raul/Higuain analogy was obviously an exaggeration to get my point across.

This is clearly different to Arsenal's approach, which is guaranteed to fail (a quote by Hansen applies here) and is probably the disagreement I had with you.

btw, the commentator in the Brazil-IC match just now reminded me of one other reason which may have had a role in Yaya choosing City - Kolo Toure is also there. So fair enough, maybe it wasn't just money when his choice came down to the English clubs.

http://www.goal.com/en-gb/news/3277/la-liga/2010/06/21/1988410/barcelona-director-general-joan-oliver-admits-yaya-toure-exit-is-

Dont know how true it is but the mail has broken the story we have a agreed a deal to sign Silva for £29m. I hope its true, Silva and Yaya would mean our midfield is looking quality alongside the likes of De Jong, AJ, Barry, Ireland, SWP and Vieira.

Just 8 more signings and your 50 man squad should be more or less complete And good luck to your academy players

kas wrote:Just 8 more signings and your 50 man squad should be more or less complete And good luck to your academy players

How many strikers have Barca signed in the last three seasons?

For how much money?

How many games has Bojan played in that time?

Bojan's shit anyway.

MaloudaOntheDanceFloor wrote:Bojan's shit anyway.

so not really a good example

Don't Panic wrote:

kas wrote:Just 8 more signings and your 50 man squad should be more or less complete And good luck to your academy players

How many strikers have Barca signed in the last three seasons?

For how much money?

How many games has Bojan played in that time?

I know the answers to these questions and can illustrate that it's not the same situation as City, but what's my incentive if I do so? Genuine discussion or another exercise in debating skills?

kas wrote:

Don't Panic wrote:

kas wrote:Just 8 more signings and your 50 man squad should be more or less complete And good luck to your academy players

How many strikers have Barca signed in the last three seasons?

For how much money?

How many games has Bojan played in that time?

I know the answers to these questions and can illustrate that it's not the same situation as City, but what's my incentive if I do so? Genuine discussion or another exercise in debating skills?

Not the same situation at City, but a damn sight closer than the situation at most football clubs.

I just find it immensely hypocritical of any Barca fan to be taking the moral high ground on spending money on transfers. It's like Arsenal making out they are paupers, or Man Utd fans whinging that Chelsea's wage bill is higher than theirs.

But please, by all means demonstrate to me that you're not talking a load of casuistic gobshite.

MaloudaOntheDanceFloor wrote:Bojan's shit anyway.

I imagine so are most of Man City's academy players.