The players who got away - Manchester City targets and Mancini's excuse

Robin van Persie – City could have offered him twice as much money as United pay him and he still would have been donning red this year

Manchester City manager Roberto Mancini has been speaking ahead of tonight’s Manchester derby about last summer’s unsatisfactory transfer dealings. He blames the insufficient quality brought to the club for City’s failure to put up a respectable defence of their first title since 1968. He has a point in that the players that were delivered to him were of a vastly inferior standard compared to the players he requested, but the players that he wanted all made legitimate choices to not join. It wasn’t just a case of City not getting deals done, the players also chose to go elsewhere.

Mancini said “We had a chance to get three or four players who could improve our team but we didn’t in the end. Now it is finished.” Those players were Robin van Persie, Eden Hazard, Daniele De Rossi, Daniel Agger and Javi Martinez.

So, let’s look at those players one by one to see what might have been and if anything could have been done differently.

Robin van Persie – City are believed to have matched Arsenal’s price but van Persie was a childhood Man United fan and had his heart set on Old Trafford. City could have offered him twice as much money as United pay him and he still would have been donning red this year. Mancini blames the lack of goals on not getting van Persie but he didn’t have him when he won the title, which City won on goal difference with a potent attack. City didn’t add a striker.

Eden Hazard – City were thought to be in pole position for Hazard but then Chelsea lifted the Champions League. Hazard had a choice of a team that was won more trophies, including 3 titles and now a Champions League, in the last decade or a team that had just won its first title. Chelsea had greater cache, considering they have achieved all of the recent success during Hazard’s teenage years, so he associates them with success. City signed Scott Sinclair instead.

Daniele De Rossi – De Rossi was Mancini’s first choice signing to provide a huge upgrade over Gareth Barry. However, he would have had to be prised away from his childhood club Roma where he is second only to Totti in the pecking order. There is an understanding in Italy that De Rossi wants to win a league title with Roma. City signed the much inferior Javi Garcia instead.

Daniel Agger – Agger hasn’t had a good year for Liverpool but was seen as an ideal footballing defender alongside Kompany with the flexibility to play in a back three. City weren’t willing to pay the eye watering £27m asking price and so he stayed at Liverpool despite his obvious interest in joining. City have left the days of spending way too much for players just because they are moneyed well behind them. City signed the impressive Nastasic instead.

Javi Martinez – Bayern are a huge club with historic pedigree and two recent Champions League final appearances. They are at least the financial equals of Man City and he might even have got wind of the Guardiola move. No contest.

We can see that City only really had a realistic chance of Daniel Agger who came at an absurdly high transfer fee which City can’t afford to keep throwing about if they are to be Financial Fair Play compliant and pursue their new Holy Grail of the Champions League.

If City had signed all of the above, Mancini believes they’d have won the league and would still be in the Champions League. Well, sure. But it would have cost upwards of £150m to do so which is more that what even Chelsea spent during the early Abramovich owned years. It just doesn’t fit in with City’s FFP obligations.

Clearly, it suits Mancini to blame as many different people as possible for City’s struggles this year, and he is right to complain about the lack of quality brought in during the transfer window but until City build up a more consistent winning reputation, their performances in Europe this year won’t help, they won’t be able to compete with the most prestigious teams in Europe for the prime signings.