JULY 31 — With just two weeks remaining before the onset of the new English Premier League (EPL) season, the lack of activity in the summer transfer market has been eye-catching.
Since the end of last season, reigning champions Chelsea have released Joe Cole, Michael Ballack and Juliano Belletti, who made a combined total of 69 league appearances in 2009/10, and made just one significant signing – Yossi Benayoun from Liverpool.
Similarly, Manchester United have only added striker Javi Hernandez to Sir Alex Ferguson’s squad, and the young Mexican seems to be earmarked as "one for the future" rather than the immediate regular strike partner for Wayne Rooney that most pundits agree is needed as Dimitar Berbatov continues to frustrate and Michael Owen’s powers continue to decline.
Elsewhere, Liverpool raised some eyebrows with the free transfer capture of Joe Cole, filling the gap in personnel created by Benayoun’s departure, but they could still face the prospect of losing two of their most important players: the discontented Javier Mascherano and Fernando Torres. At least Steven Gerrard has stated his intention to stay at Anfield.
It’s also been a quiet off-season at Arsenal, where French striker Marouane Chamakh has been the only notable arrival while regular first-teamers Eduardo, William Gallas, Sol Campbell and Philippe Senderos have all headed through the "out" door.
Even Tottenham, who were expected to be propelled by qualification for the Champions’ League and manager Harry Redknapp’s famously insatiable appetite for new signings, have been conspicuous by their absence from the market. Brazilian defensive midfielder Sandro is due to join from Internacional as soon as their Copa Libertadores campaign comes to an end (possibly next week), but other than that there’s been a whole lotta nothing at White Hart Lane.
Of course, there is still plenty of time before the transfer window slams shut at the end of August, and it would be surprising if the next fortnight fails to deliver a tranche of high-profile, big-money signings to the upper reaches of the EPL. But until now the only serious movers and shakers in the transfer market have been, predictably, Manchester City.
As belligerent chief executive Garry Cook publicly stated earlier this year, City are on a quest to become the "biggest and best football club in the world" – and you’d better believe they’re serious. City have the money to turn their naked ambition into silverware-laden reality, with billionaire owner Sheikh Mansour clearly prepared to spend whatever it takes to turn his club into regular trophy winners.
Already this summer, City have splurged more than 400 million ringgit on Spain forward David Silva, Ivorian powerhouse Yaya Toure, German defender Jerome Boateng and Serbian utility man Aleksandar Kolarov...and that’s just the start with Fernando Torres, Mario Balotelli, David Luiz and James Milner among the next batch of superstars reportedly within their sights.
There can be no doubt that City’s spending will continue to dwarf the transfer activities of their EPL rivals, simply because they have far more money than anybody else.
Or, more precisely, Sheikh Mansour has more money than his fellow club-owning high-rollers – by their standards, Roman Abramovich at Chelsea, the Glazer family at Manchester United and the clownish pairing of Tom Hicks and George Gillett at Liverpool have fallen upon hard times in recent years, and no longer have the resources to compete with Mansour.
The blueprint for success already exists, with Mansour doing no more than trying to emulate what Abramovich achieved with Chelsea a few years ago – taking a moderately successful club and lavishing untold fortunes on world-class players until they are transformed into EPL champions and Champions’ League contenders.
However, Abramovich also had the foresight (or possibly the fortune) to appoint the peerless Jose Mourinho, who was able to take the owner’s money, spend it on the right players at the right time, deal with the subsequent pressure and create a genuine team.
It’s no easy feat to mould a disparate and culturally diverse band of inordinately wealthy and amply-egoed young men into a coherent team, fostering an environment where everybody is prepared to work for each other and sacrifice personal gain in deference to the success of the group. But that’s exactly what Mourinho achieved at Chelsea (and has since replicated at Inter Milan), and now it’s the challenge facing City manager Roberto Mancini.
The pressure on Mancini is mounting by the day. Although he knew the programme when he arrived at the end of last year, and can never have been in any doubt that trophies are an essential requirement, the time to deliver is rapidly approaching.
Last season’s fifth-place finish for City was a forgivable failure – coming as it did in the first year of their self-titled "project" – but anything less than a trophy in 2010/11 would surely be judged in the harshest terms. Mansour has provided the money, now Mancini must deliver the trophies.
For everybody else, it’s simply a question of hoping that City’s superstars fail to gel as a team. Because if Mancini can do what Mourinho did and create a team that comes close to equalling the sum of its parts, nobody else stands a chance.
* The views expressed here are the personal opinion of the columnist.
