Monday 6 July 2009

Terry To City Makes No Sense


Not particularly fantasy football related, but as pre-season starts for most clubs & the transfer window hots up I'll be adding a few posts with my views on some potential rumours & confirmed moves.

It's become clear over the past 10 days that Manchester City's next target is Chelsea & England Captain John Terry. Rumours suggest a fee of £35 million will be required, and a weekly wage of £200k.

In my opinion, crazy money for any central defender, but crazier still considering Terry is not even in the top 10 centre backs in world football. If I was the man making the decisions at Chelsea I would happily let Terry go for £35 million & if I was the making the decisions at City I would look elsewhere. It seems more a statement by the money men at City (after the Kaka embarrassment) that they can go out & buy the England Captain, but if they took a step back I believe they could capture a better player for less money and less wages.

Ricardo Carvalho leaps to mind as a player who would probably jump at the chance and I feel he is better all round defender - he's quicker & has a better positional sense. He's less of a goal threat, but then you don't buy a centre back for goals. Chelsea would be far more willing to let Carvalho go, so it makes more sense to me. But hey, when you've got money to burn and you want to signal your intent to world football, maybe it doesn't need to make complete sense.

Just a side note - my favourite rumour of the day is Luis Figo to Tottenham. As a Spurs fan, it's a move I'd love to have seen 5 years ago, but didn't he retire at the end of last season? It's likely to be media rubbish, but if it were to come true and he came to England for one final flurish as a left winger he could prove an interesting fantasy option - despite the fact he enters his 37th year in November.

5 comments:

Chris said...

Couldnt agree more about Terry, I always felt he has been bailed out in his career by Ferdinand for England and Carvalho for Chelsea. Yes, he'll throw his face into a tackle for the team but so will Danny Shittu and I don't fancy dropping 40m on him!
Great job with the blog and good luck for the coming season. If you are playing the premierleague.com game, then i have a blog league going, which can be accessed from http://premierleaguefantasy.blogspot.com.

Assistant Manager said...

Hi Chris - thanks for the good wishes & for being the first to comment on my blog!

It's looking more likely by the day that Terry is on his way. As I mentioned if I were Chelsea I would take the money, but I think they're concerned that City signing their captain would make a huge statement and put them behind City in the pecking order for transfer targets. We shall see...

I do play the Premier League game so i'll be checking out your blog, just had a read & it's looking really good mate. Good luck to you too!

ToffeeDave said...

I disagree. Terry wasn't being bought for his skill as much as his leadership ability. Obviously not the best player on chelski, yet captain. Obviously not the best player on England, yet captain. Terry was being pursued to mold a dressing room of stars who need to gel to win anything and that's what Terry has done at Chelski and England.

Assistant Manager said...

It's a very good point Dave, not one I'd thought of in terms of Man City. He would've been of great use to them from that point of view.

When it comes to England however, with all center backs players fit I wouldn't have Terry in my starting 11, and therefore I would never pick him as my captain. I'd give Capello the credit for England's turnaround in fortunes. Terry was our capatin during the McClaren era and we were a joke.

Kellz said...

AM, on a side note, couldn't be happier to see your national team boys vs the mighty USA in the first group stage of the world cup! Gonna be super exciting!

And yes, way too much money offered to Terry, who did leave it up to speculation over the summer if he would move so who knows what will happen in January!

Post a Comment