Filed under: Manchester City, Premier League, Football
Sergio Aguero joins Manchester City from Atletico Madrid for a club record £40 million. It looks once more as if the English can at least outbid Spanish clubs, even if they can't outpass them.What a timely lift just when it was beginning to look as if there might be a talent drain away from the Premier League, begun by Cristiano Ronaldo's move to Real Madrid two summers ago.
We shouldn't get too carried away, however. You sense that Aguero's destination is England simply because Real and Barcelona didn't want him or couldn't fit the striker in their squads. Besides, Cesc Fabregas looks destined for Barca any day now.
Beyond those two, cash-strapped Spanish clubs will take what they can get for their players these days, even if Atletico wanted more but had to settle for £40 million due to Aguero having the sum written into his new contract last season (supposed to be taking him to 2014 with them, by the way) - down from the £53 million that would previously have triggered a move. Ah, the delights of transfer dealing.
Meanwhile, as a result of the signing, it looked increasingly likely that Carlos Tevez - also not to Real or Barca's taste - would leave City for Internazionale of Milan. And while Manchester United might soon recruit a world star in Inter's Dutch playmaker Wesley Sneijder, that could have a lot to do with the Italian club raising the money to pay for Tevez.
While the Premier League, as it enters its 20th season, has clearly become the competition that most overseas television viewers want to see for its pace and passion, most players would still largely prefer the lifestyle in Spain or Italy if they can get it.
London will always attract some wanting a year or two's culturally interesting experience, but otherwise the majority are over here for the bigger money on offer. In Aguero's case, that is around £200,000 a week.
Worth it? The pedigree says yes. He has scored more than 20 goals a season for the last four years, blossoming after Fernando Torres left Atletico for Liverpool. At 23, he is a good age, and now a fixture in the Argentine national team.
It could take some time to bed in at City, however, with Robert Mancini's transfer policy and tactical plan still unclear. Even when - rather than if - Tevez goes, City still have Edin Dzeko, Mario Balotelli, Craig Bellamy, Emmanuel Adebayor and Jo on the books as strikers. For a while, anyway, until they are forced to knock them out cheaply to get them off the wage bill.
This for a team that was often playing with a lone striker last season, Yaya Toure running late from deep as support, a tactic that won City the FA Cup against Stoke at Wembley.
Does it mean that Mancini has accepted the need for a more offensive line-up more regularly if City are to overhaul their more attacking rivals Manchester United and replace them as champions?
After all, in modern English football, the dynamic has changed; defences can lose you titles, as Arsenal have demonstrated, but attacks win them.
We shall see, and although Mancini had the last word over his critics last season as City finished third, he remains Italian in both nationality and outlook; a belt-and-braces defensive kind of manager, who likes to play two holding midfield players not one, even if he was a talented opener-up of defences himself. Scorpions don't stop stinging just because you ask them to.
It is, then, for Aguero a cautious welcome. Nice to see you, to see you nice - and we hope you show more class on the field than you did over your Atletico contract. Let's hope, too, the boss sets up a team to allow you to produce your best and us to enjoy a really top overseas talent again.
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Source: http://www.fanhouse.co.uk/2011/07/30/sergio-aguero-manchester-city/
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