Saturday, 24 July 2010

Yaya's decision

Yaya Touré has been talking about what drove him to join MCFC:
‘In football, you don’t know what is going to happen tomorrow. But for me, I wanted to play with my brother one time. It was very important for me.

‘Now I have signed for Manchester City and I am very happy. My brother and I want to make great things happen at this club. I am sure we will do it.’

Toure’s claim will only intensify a rivalry between City and United that reached white hot levels last season.

The Ivory Coast midfielder, who will earn £200,000 a week at Eastlands, added: ‘Manchester United are a big club — one of the biggest in the world. But I chose Manchester City because they had not won anything.

‘It is a very nice feeling to come in and see everything changing. For me, that is very important. It is an interesting challenge.’
No-one's going to pretend the £200,000 weekly wage didn't influence him. But I do think there's something in his point that it is more interesting for a player to join a club on an upward journey than one sitting on a higher plateau. Of course, it involves trading down on prestige. But there must be an attraction in making yourself a central figure in a story of progress than a peripheral figure in a story of maintained achievement.

This applies to all of our signings, really. And it's probably less of a factor than the money. But for players who want to be wanted and remembered, to make themselves heroes, there is some logic to it.

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