Man City to Embarrass Themselves with Buffon and Totti Bids?

By: Daryl | January 21st, 2009

This Man City business is getting sillier all the time. After the high profile attempt to capture Kaka ended like this, followed by a possible tantrum from their other high profiler Robinho, you’d think the new Man City regime might have learned a lesson.

And that lesson should have been: Don’t run before you can walk. Don’t put the cherries on top until you’ve built the cake. Don’t… well, you get the idea.

But according to some (Google translated) reports from Italy, Man City still have representatives in Italy trying to sign at least one high profile footballer. And if they’re really chasing Gigi Buffon and Francesco Totti then Man City are about to embarrass themselves big time.

Here’s why bidding for either of those players would be the stupidest thing Man City could do right now:

1. City’s reputation is still reeling from the Kaka bid.
2. The club can’t really afford another high profile knock back

And so they’re going to bid for two players who are inextricably linked with their respective clubs? Totti’s been at Roma for 20 years and Buffon (though he’s had his recent injury problems) is so loyal to Juve that he stayed with them for that season in Serie B.

Neither of those guys are going anywhere. Especially not to spend the later years of their career at a non Champions League club.

Do Man City think that just because they got Robinho they can get anyone? Truth is that the Robinho transfer was a unique situation with a player who just wanted out of Madrid and really wanted to play for Chelsea. It wasn’t necessarily a sign of things to come.

You know who Man City should look at? Blackburn Rovers.

When Jack Walker pledged to spend Blackburn to the top in the early 90s, the first thing the club did was put in a bid for Gary Lineker. I remember reading about that bid on teletext and laughing. And I wasn’t the only one, everybody laughed.

So Blackburn got sensible and signed David Speedie and Mike Newell. And David Speedie and Mike Newell did the business. Chris Sutton and Alan Shearer came later.

There are only ten days left of the January transfer window, and Man City should use those ten days to get serious and make some proper signings. Signing Nigel de Jong is a start, the bigger names can come later.

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