Emmanuel AdebayorIt appears that Emmanuel Adebayor's promotional brochure has done the trick. He has today completed a medical at Man City and looks set to join Mark Hughes' Manc revolution in a £25m deal. So with the Tevez deal that's £50.5m of Arab money that Hughes has spent on strikers this week. Based on their combined goals scored last season that's approximately £1.6m per goal. If you factor in the £17.5m for Roque Santa Cruz and his goal return last season the figure then becomes £1.8m per goal. Value for money? I think not.
It's fair to say that the three strikers hardly set the Premiership alight last season. The notoriously lazy and disinterested Adebayor managed just 10 league goals (16 in all competitions), the oft-injured Santa Cruz netted just 6 times all season (4 in the league), and (the admittedly bench-warming) Tevez scored just 5 league goals (15 all in). Yet this return has apparently prompted Hughes to splash out the GDP of a minor African nation to acquire their services.
It's fair to say that the three strikers hardly set the Premiership alight last season. The notoriously lazy and disinterested Adebayor managed just 10 league goals (16 in all competitions), the oft-injured Santa Cruz netted just 6 times all season (4 in the league), and (the admittedly bench-warming) Tevez scored just 5 league goals (15 all in). Yet this return has apparently prompted Hughes to splash out the GDP of a minor African nation to acquire their services.
Roque Santa CruzFormer Man City player Dennis Tueart is quoted as saying: "The big challenge for managers now is to manage extremely wealthy young men, who do not need to work beyond their football careers." He couldn't be more right. If Adebayor couldn't be bothered to apply himself for a top four side, how the hell can he be expected to put the effort in for a mid-table side when he knows that win, lose or draw he'll still go home to his Cheshire mansion, fleet of sports cars and trophy wife?
Santa Cruz has also shown himself to be something of a fair-weather player. Last term he seemed to be putting in the bare minimum of effort in the knowledge that he'd almost certainly be leaving Blackburn at the end of the season. If this is the strike force that Hughes thinks will graft and shoot them to the top of the table he's sorely mistaken. At least Tevez has something to prove, he'll want to show the red side of Manchester what they're missing, so he may well end up being worth his transfer fee.
Ludicrous fees and bad attitudes aside, just how many strikers do Man City have now? It appears that Hughes intends to field a team something like this next season:
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