The perennial struggle to sell

I can't believe that we may be getting 21 million for Xhaka.

He did have a career best season for us of course. But the surprising thing about the figure, for mine, is that he's 30 and it's Bayer Leverkusen. It's not like it's Bayern.
 
I can't believe that we may be getting 21 million for Xhaka.

He did have a career best season for us of course. But the surprising thing about the figure, for mine, is that he's 30 and it's Bayer Leverkusen. It's not like it's Bayern.

Fair play and just shows up Utd's inability to sell,however maybe if we stopped paying high wages to mediocrity that might improve
 
Fair play and just shows up Utd's inability to sell,however maybe if we stopped paying high wages to mediocrity that might improve

We've been doing that for years too, and as a result we've been unable to shift players - Mustafi, Sokratis, Soares, Mari, Willian (thank jeebus he did the right thing), Eddie Nketiah, etc.

We have been just as terrible as United at selling players, so it's about time we got a decent price for someone.
 
In this week episode of How do City do it…




Last Summer City sold these guys to Southampton;

Gavin Bazunu - GK - £12m
Romeo Lavia - MF - £10.5m
Samuel Edozie - DF - £10m
Juan Larios - DF - £6m

Between 2019 and last summer there were 5 other Academy/Non First team players sold from
City to Southampton.

10 players going one way from one PL team to the other in 4 years, and all of them being academy players who have basically zero appearances for the first team and most of them sold for £10m or more.

It feels weird to me, but hey maybe the scouts at Southampton really like the City academy players…
 
Citys youth teams are very good to be fair and the path to the first team is extremely difficult, so it makes sense that they leave and City get some decent money for them.
 
I dont think it is suspicious. City get immediate cash for good players who have no prospect of immediate first team football which a team like Southampton can offer. For Southampton these are players that have been selected, coached and trained at City so have the best start really. Look even Darren Fletchers kids at City! The proof of the success for Southampton is taht they are likely to sell Lavia this summer for more than the paid for all of them. Also its a win win for City as the sell on / buy back clauses mean they can reap the rewards if they make good progress. Hopefully we can get to that status soon.
 
In this week episode of How do City do it…




Last Summer City sold these guys to Southampton;

Gavin Bazunu - GK - £12m
Romeo Lavia - MF - £10.5m
Samuel Edozie - DF - £10m
Juan Larios - DF - £6m

Between 2019 and last summer there were 5 other Academy/Non First team players sold from
City to Southampton.

10 players going one way from one PL team to the other in 4 years, and all of them being academy players who have basically zero appearances for the first team and most of them sold for £10m or more.

It feels weird to me, but hey maybe the scouts at Southampton really like the City academy players…

Southampton's DOF is City's former academy director. Understandable why he'd rate their young players pretty highly.
 
We've been doing that for years too, and as a result we've been unable to shift players - Mustafi, Sokratis, Soares, Mari, Willian (thank jeebus he did the right thing), Eddie Nketiah, etc.

We have been just as terrible as United at selling players, so it's about time we got a decent price for someone.
What kind of wages was he on with you out of curiosity?
 
Surely this will start to pick up after we have signed Onana, Mount and likely Hojlund
 
Surely this will start to pick up after we have signed Onana, Mount and likely Hojlund

You’d hope once we’ve done our core business the outgoings will follow. Don’t see too many reasons for waiting and not selling now but hey-ho
 
In this week episode of How do City do it…




Last Summer City sold these guys to Southampton;

Gavin Bazunu - GK - £12m
Romeo Lavia - MF - £10.5m
Samuel Edozie - DF - £10m
Juan Larios - DF - £6m

Between 2019 and last summer there were 5 other Academy/Non First team players sold from
City to Southampton.

10 players going one way from one PL team to the other in 4 years, and all of them being academy players who have basically zero appearances for the first team and most of them sold for £10m or more.

It feels weird to me, but hey maybe the scouts at Southampton really like the City academy players…

A tactic that paid off last season
 
City consistently ship zero appearance youngsters for 10-15m, whilst we can't even get that sort of fee for Brazilian internationals.
 
You’d hope once we’ve done our core business the outgoings will follow. Don’t see too many reasons for waiting and not selling now but hey-ho

Yeah IF that still doesn't make it pick up pace then I will feel very concerned
 
City have an excellent academy. They did exactly what Chelsea did before them: Realized that since academy investment didn't count toward FFP that they could blow away rivals in spending huge at the academy level, both on facilities and on inducements to bring the most talented players into the fold, and create a pipeline of top level talent that could then be sold off once they were ready for senior football and count as pure profit in order to underwrite spending on top players at the first team level.

Other sides have become more competitive at the academy level and the new FFP rules don't exempt academy spending in the same way anymore. But there is a lag effect and City will continue to reap the benefits of this strategy for a while.
 
The fact we cannot command a fee by selling players is astounding to say the least. I guess it goes down partly to incompetency. Maybe it improves this time as we have potentially a whole team for sale.

Henderson

B Williams Eric Bailley Mcguire Alex Telles

Mctominay Fred

Van de Beek

Martial Elanga Sancho

Maybe a starting 11 for a lower midtable team
 
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The fact we cannot command a fee by selling players is astounding to say the least. I guess it goes down partly to incompetency. Maybe it improves this time as we have potentially a whole team for sale.

Henderson

B Williams Eric Bailley Mcguire Alex Telles

Mctominay Fred

Van de Beek

Martial Elanga Sancho

Maybe a starting 11 for a lower midtable team
We have more to sell. Kovar, Bishop, Shoretire, Savage, maybe also Pellistri all could be sold
 
In this week episode of How do City do it…




Last Summer City sold these guys to Southampton;

Gavin Bazunu - GK - £12m
Romeo Lavia - MF - £10.5m
Samuel Edozie - DF - £10m
Juan Larios - DF - £6m

Between 2019 and last summer there were 5 other Academy/Non First team players sold from
City to Southampton.

10 players going one way from one PL team to the other in 4 years, and all of them being academy players who have basically zero appearances for the first team and most of them sold for £10m or more.

It feels weird to me, but hey maybe the scouts at Southampton really like the City academy players…


Meanwhile, we get less than a million for Ethan Laird.
 
In this week episode of How do City do it…




Last Summer City sold these guys to Southampton;

Gavin Bazunu - GK - £12m
Romeo Lavia - MF - £10.5m
Samuel Edozie - DF - £10m
Juan Larios - DF - £6m

Between 2019 and last summer there were 5 other Academy/Non First team players sold from
City to Southampton.

10 players going one way from one PL team to the other in 4 years, and all of them being academy players who have basically zero appearances for the first team and most of them sold for £10m or more.

It feels weird to me, but hey maybe the scouts at Southampton really like the City academy players…

Well people on here are now wanting us to sign Latvia for three or four times as much, so I guess that initial fee was worth it?
City have a much better academy than we do and they'll produce better quality players overall.
 
Well people on here are now wanting us to sign Latvia for three or four times as much, so I guess that initial fee was worth it?
City have a much better academy than we do and they'll produce better quality players overall.

City don’t have a much better Academy than we do.
 
It’s almost like City have a contact at Southampton that is ‘influenced’ into paying these huge sums for academy players to help balance the books.

Dodgy as feck.
 
Our fans publically put down players but want to sell them as shiny new toys. If we sold Rashford last season of Oles, we wouldnt get over 40-45mil. If we shut up about Maguire & just eased him out the starting XI - he would have been sold by now, a good player not playing great for us. The ones likely to be sold are less publically put down (but not completely) like fred & mctomminay , but we are a rich club underperforming historically in the CL that therefor overpays players contracts to make them sign for us & sometimes to even stay with us (de gea, ronaldo), effecting homegrown contracts as a result.

Ive said it before, if i could trade a prior Cl win to swap our fanbase for liverpools then i would instantly - the way they support their players of varying quality is delusional but beautiful & is why they win CLs like vs Milan in 2005 through complete fluke because of support of their average squad. We would never win that Cl vs milan because of a lack of support, we only win a CL when we are no doubt the best team in the world (notice first citys treble & our treble, best itw only with shit support). We win less cls than capable & then overpay for contracts as a result.

Rinse & repeat.
 
Maybe we need to wait until WHU have actually sold Rice, think they agreed a fee but he hasn't had the medical yet. Selling someone like Maguire will be complicated due to his wages which have risen even more due to CL qualification. Either he has to realised playing will be better for him so take a paycut or we need to take on some of his wages. Maybe they feel the transfers of the likes of Fred and McT could be completed pretty quickly when they start happening. People are complaining when we do not know what is going on behind the scenes and neither do the press.
 
Well people on here are now wanting us to sign Latvia for three or four times as much, so I guess that initial fee was worth it?
City have a much better academy than we do and they'll produce better quality players overall.

People keep saying this, what is it based on? Are their youth teams really successful?
 
People keep saying this, what is it based on? Are their youth teams really successful?
Yep. I believe that they have won both the U21 and U18 Premier League in each of the last three years. I might be wrong but I think it is unprecedented.
 
When can we expect the Qatari league to step up to the plate? Is there a Qatari league?