If you ever find yourself wondering whether Pep Guardiola and Man City have made a mistake in the transfer market, give yourself a little kick on the shins.
“He wanted to leave. Everyone has their own life and he decided to move on. I would have loved for him to stay but he believed he would be better and happier there.”
Cole Palmer? Jadon Sancho? Gabriel Jesus? Raheem Sterling? On this occasion it was actually Leroy Sane, who could not resist the lure of the mighty Bayern Munich in 2020.
Eighteen months later and it was the turn of Ferran Torres to have his head turned on a swivel by the apex predators of Barcelona. “For everyone, if you want to leave because you’re not happy here, you believe you’ll be happy in another place, you have to go,” said Guardiola.
We will spare you the repetition because the mantra is always the same every time a player leaves Manchester City. This is a club that allows unhappy or unsettled players to leave on just one pretty simple condition: The buying club pays the asking price.
Bernardo Silva remains not because his exit was blocked but because nobody was willing to meet a reported £80m price tag. Kyle Walker remains not because his exit was blocked but because his teammates waged a campaign to keep him. Kalvin Phillips remains not because his exit was blocked but because the player himself has not agitated to leave (yet).
Palmer has left for Chelsea because the west London club were willing to pay an asking price that looked inflated for potential, and crucially Palmer assessed Mauricio Pochettino’s squad – which had just finished 12th and shed Mason Mount, Kai Havertz and Christian Pulisic – and suspected he would get more first-team football. He was right.
Those who cite Phil Foden as an example for Palmer (or more accurately, Guardiola) to follow should note that by the summer Foden turned 21, he had played 124 games for City and was such an England fixture that he was named in the European Championship squad. At 21, Palmer had played 38 games for City. They were not even remotely on the same-paced trajectory.
Guardiola will be repeatedly asked whether he ‘regrets’ selling Palmer but he invariably answers such questions as if regret is an alien concept. Even in January with Arsenal ahead in the Premier League title race, he laughed at the notion that he rued selling Jesus and Oleksandr Zinchenko. “Why? Because they are winning?”
“Both clubs agreed and that’s all,” does not pander to headline writers but it is at least consistent. You can absolutely hear him saying exactly the same thing if he outlasts Erling Haaland; every player is only useful for as long as they want to be at the club.
If you ever find yourself wondering whether Guardiola and City have made a mistake in the transfer market, give yourself a little kick on the shins. They have a history of pulling out of expensive deals and a history of selling players who thrive elsewhere, but rarely can you say that they have been proved wrong. Their record in the transfer market is nothing short of phenomenal, giving them a net spend roughly equal to Aston Villa over a five-year period in which they have won four Premier League titles.
Guardiola would be nothing other than pleased if Palmer ends up with over 100 caps and a cupboard full of trinkets from a long Chelsea career. There will be no ‘what ifs’ even if the Blues somehow pip Manchester City to a title with Palmer playing a huge part. Guardiola knows that City got a more-than-fair price for Palmer, who could not be persuaded to stay. Guardiola is the ultimate pragmatist when it comes to transfers; incoming or outgoing, every player has a price.
The media love to write in simple narrative arcs, featuring baddies and goodies and very little in between, with managers having ‘regrets’ and players having ‘points to prove’ but Guardiola refuses to play along with such nonsense. He is the hugely successful coach of the club with the most cohesive transfer policy among the European elite. The idea that he would lose any sleep over selling bit-part players is absurd.
Manchester City never spend more than they think a player is worth and never accept less than they think a player is worth. It should be impossible to argue with a policy that has helped make them the best team in the world. And yet…
