Wednesday 9 June 2010

Sport: Touré will go to City

Another day, another Yaya Touré story in the Catalan press.

Today it's Sport again, reporting that the deal for Yaya Touré is close to finalisation. As ever, I'm not going to quote anything but just give my impression from the mangled Google translation of the article.

The body text does not seem quite as definitive as the headline, but the parts all seem in place. A fee is apparently agreed, closer to €30m (£24.8m) than the 35m (£29m) Barcelona first wanted. This was never the sticking point, though, but rather our agreement with the player and his agent.

So the real news is then the claim that we have a deal 'in principle' with Yaya Touré, making him one of our highest paid players, comparable to Adebayor and Tévez. That, and the presence of his brother at City, are said to have convinced him to join us. Apparently it will be done 'in days.'

I don't know. Transfer sagas are tiresome enough when experienced through Sky Sports News. But transfer sagas mediated by Google Translate are something else. This sounds like movement from what his agent, Dmitri Selçuk said a few days ago:
"Everything has changed with City, because they talk a lot but then afterwards they don't appear to be a rich club but rather a bankrupt one."
But then it's obviously in his interest to say things that aren't true. I just don't know what's going to happen here.

6 comments:

Nicholine said...

Is it me, or have City been very quiet in the transfer market? I know that it's a strange time given the World Cup but I would have thought that we would have moved sooner before prices become inflated due to the visibility the global coverage brings.

Gratian said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Gratian said...

The comment about us being more of a bankrupt club I think emerged after City made a bid using the old fashioned method of writing it on a bit/piece/sheet of paper rather than e-mailing it which his agent seemed to find amusing and strange and thought the computer at City was broken. The agent of his seems to be a bit of a nob-end to be honest.

mikegillett said...

Barca paid 9 million for him three years ago, he's down the pecking order there ,so really how good is he ??? wouldn't pay more than 15 million for him, come on City get a grip

Blue Moon said...

My concern with Yaya is that it basically forces us to put Kolo in the first XI no matter his form, and it forces us to keep him as the captain. What happens if Kolo's skills erode even more? Can we bench him without having not one but two players upset? As much as I like Yaya, I hope this doesn't happen. My 1st choice central defense would be Kompany and Boyata tbh...

BlueGriff said...

It seems amusing that Barca value Toure at £29m when wanting to sell him, but Fabregas at £30m when wanting to buy him. I know who I would rather have...Not too convinced Toure is the player we need in the midfield