Rebel Raheem is finally getting his wish to move to Manchester City, and while City’s mega wealthy owners probably aren’t too arsed that they’re paying well over the odds for Sterling, the rest of the footballing world wasn’t too impressed.
Given Sterling is homegrown, young and a winger, City were obviously happy to agree a £49 million fee for him, but let’s be honest, if Sterling actually lives up to that amount of cash, the majority of people will be in for an unpleasant surprise.
Sterling is apparently worth more than Alexis Sanchez and Eden Hazard after half a decent season, so God knows what Harry Kane will eventually go for, and while £200,000 per week and frequent rests on the bench to keep his fatigue in check might seem like a stellar deal for the player himself, we think City have been ripped off.
Of course, Sterling isn’t the only player to go for far more than he’s actually worth, so here are five players we think might actually make City feel they’ve got a bargain for their money.
Fernando Torres
Where to even begin with Torres. The £50 million flop actually made Shevchenko look positively lethal during his time in a Chelsea shirt.
He will probably always be known for that goal at the Nou Camp and the orgasmic reaction from Gary Neville (there’s a sentence you never thought you’d read), but essentially Torres joined a long line of Chelsea flops, and will probably – and slightly unfairly – always be known as the biggest one of the bunch.
Mangers came and went, and the Blues even resorted to Rafa Benitez in order to bring the best out of the forward, but it was all in vein. Torres was a total disaster and got called the weakest character Carlo Ancelotti had ever managed in a dressing room.
£50 million, 110 appearances and 20 goals later he was shipped off to AC Milan, who returned him to Atletico Madrid, where he is at least loved by the fans.
Andy Carroll
With Torres and terrible January buys comes Andy Carroll, who Liverpool decided would be the ideal £35 million candidate to reinvest their Torres money in, and much like Supermarket Sweep at Southampton was a total disaster last summer, the move for Carroll shows that failing to buy well isn’t a new problem for the Reds.
Carroll was a huge flop, and not only was he far more miss than hit when it came to being in front of goal, he also managed to spend half his time on the treatment table.
Newcastle and Mike Ashley probably sat back and laughed all the way to the bank as they saw Liverpool struggle to shift Carroll, eventually taking a paltry £15 million for him – after which West Ham fans learnt exactly what it meant to have a donkey who was constantly injured.
It speaks volumes that Liverpool fans are rejoicing at the cash they’ve managed to extort for Sterling and almost all of them have used Carroll as a reference point for how to pour your money down the toilet.
Juan Sebastian Veron
Chelsea fans might roll their eyes at this one but it is Manchester United who really f*cked up when it came to the Argentinian, who became the most expensive transfer in English football when he made the move from Lazio back in 2001, for a whopping £28.1 million – and on a five year deal no less.
Failure to acclimatise to the top flight of English football, not to mention the injury issues he suffered when his career finally looked like it was getting started meant Veron was never going to live up to his own lofty expectations, let alone those of anyone else.
The best thing United fans will probably say about Veron is that they shipped him off to Chelsea, who were even stupider than United were to pick up someone who was a proven Premier League flop (*cough Falcao, cough*) and the fact that Fergie lost the plot and scared the shit out of half the press when he launched into a tirade to defend the player, calling Veron a ‘f*cking great player’ and the press ‘all f*cking idiots’.
Robinho
The fact that he didn’t know if he had joined Chelsea or Manchester United said it all.
The Brazilian had actually joined newly wealthy Manchester City for just under £33 million and while his first season was ok, his second was awful as he found himself spending most of his time on the bench after which he eventually secured a loan move to Santos.
It just proved that City had more money than they knew what to do with, and even after all this time, that still seems to be the case, with the graveyard of wingers especially prominent at the Etihad, and if Sterling joins a list that includes Robinho, Shaun Wright Phillips, Scott Sinclair and many more, it won’t come as much of a shock to anyone.
David Luiz
If Jose Mourinho turned water into wine, people probably wouldn’t express as much shock as they did after the Chelsea boss managed to convince Paris Saint Germain to pay £50 million for the defender.
Luiz might be a nice guy. He might even have a pretty cool haircut. But one thing he is not is a good defender, so to see him go for a mammoth fee, especially after his ‘display’ for Brazil during the World Cup really did take the biscuit.
He may have come back to score against Chelsea in the Champions League, but he was terrible against Barcelona and only manages to occupy the bench for Brazil after becoming the poster boy for what not to do when you’re the home nation and want to bring pride to the country during a major tournament.
