Zabaleta says Kevin De Bruyne proves money really buys success

Kevin De Bruyne made a switch to Manchester City from Wolfsburg during the summer

Manchester City full-back Pablo Zabaleta has insisted that his club must continue spending big in order to reclaim the Premier League title, Mirror reported. Zabaleta believes City’s mega spending has been justified by the success of Kevin De Bruyne, who has hit the ground running both in domestic league and European competition.

To be successful in the modern game, spending big money has become more or less a necessity. Teams like Barcelona, Real Madrid and England’s Manchester City are ready to splash the cash to acquire the services of top players during the transfer window. The latter have been heavily criticised over the years by many for their ‘buy success and trophies’ approach, but it didn’t seem to bother the club owned by billionaire Sheikh Monsour.

Despite receiving all the criticism, City went ahead to pay Wolfsburg £54 million for Kevin De Bruyne and £49 million to Liverpool for Raheem Sterling during this summer’s transfer window. While City’s rival Manchester United invested a lot of money in revamping their squad, acquiring the services of Anthony Martial, Memphis Depay and Morgan Schneiderlin.

Belgium’s Kevin De Bruyne has become an instant hit at the Etihad Stadium, scoring 5 goals and adding 5 assists to his name already this season. Ahead of the Manchester derby Argentina international Zabaleta says the former Wolfsburg playmaker’s arrival highlights the need for the club to keep paying out big transfer fees in order to keep one step ahead of their title rivals.

“Football is like that. If you want to bring in big players you have to pay crazy money sometimes,” Zabaleta said.

“I understand that, but probably today with television contracts you have two teams in Spain who can pay the money, a few teams in England, and Bayern Munich in Germany. Paying big fees is the only way you can bring in big players.”

“Manchester City demand a successful season with trophies and the only way we can do that is to bring in top players like Kevin. He has made a great start to the season and Kevin is probably one of the key players for us at the moment.”

“Somebody was talking about him as a possible player of the year, but it is too soon to be talking about that. We need players at the club who are hungry for success and Kevin is scoring great goals at the moment.”

“He is doing really well and hopefully he can continue in that way. It is the same with Martial. He is a quality player. I know United paid a lot of money for him but at the moment he is doing really well for them.”

City are currently second in the league with 21 points and victory will see Zabaleta’s team overtake leaders Arsenal at the top of the Premier League.