The comings and goings of a transfer window can help build and demolish a football fan’s expectations for the approaching season. With no domestic football played during the summer months in Britain, the transfer of plays fills newspaper back pages and bar room chat. Much of the talk this year has been surrounding Manchester City’s transfer activity – both real and rumoured.
Ever since Sheikh Mansour became the majority shareholder in Manchester City in September 2008, the club and the Emirati’s billions have been watched with eager eyes as manager Mark Hughes has his pick of the world’s footballers.
After famously pipping Chelsea to the signing of Robinho last season – and with midseason additions of Wayne Bridge and Shay Given – the club has shown that they lack no ambition when it comes to signing players.
The biggest talking point of the transfer window was the signing of Argentinean Carlos Tevez – believed to be for around £25m – as the striker became the first player to move between the two Manchester clubs since Terry Cooke in 1999. Tevez, along with fellow new signings Roque Santa Cruz (£17.5m) and Emmanuel Adebayor (£25m), adds firepower to a squad that already contains the likes of Robinho, Benjani, Craig Bellamy and Shaun Wright-Phillips – while Valeri Bojinov and Jo remain on the clubs books but will spend the 2009-10 season on loan elsewhere.
Man City – whose defence looked suspect last season – also got tongues wagging about their potential signings at the other end of the pitch. Papers carried weeks of gossip about the arrival of Chelsea skipper John Terry moving to Manchester, but this was eventually dismissed and all talk died when Hughes completed the signing of Kolo Toure from Arsenal.
After being involved in one of the most drawn out transfer sagas of 2009, Gareth Barry’s move to the Eastlands was relatively quick and he was soon followed by former Aston Villa teammate Stuart Taylor.
As football clubs seem to become more of plaything for rich men than ever before, the chances of high profile transfers seems to grow as rapidly as newspapers can make up rumours about would-be transfers about which players will be taking flights to Manchester to meet their new employers.
Football fans are now looking forward to the start of the 2009-10 season and for Manchester City fans at least, this will be the most promising season they’ve had to look forward to for a long time.
Adam Singleton writes for a digital marketing agency. This article has been commissioned by a client of said agency. This article is not designed to promote, but should be considered professional content.
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