When you’re the reigning Premier League, FA Cup and Champions League holders, as Man City are, it shouldn’t be too difficult to attract players to your club.
Not only do the champions have best-in-class on the pitch, but in Pep Guardiola, they have the game’s pre-eminent coach on board too.
As a player, why wouldn’t you want to jump on the bandwagon?! You’re almost guaranteed success, playing in a team that are streets ahead of most of their opponents in terms of tactical nous and the ability to execute the patterns of play that Guardiola demands.
It looks as though one player may have escaped their clutches, however, and there’s nothing at all that Man City can do about it.
“The deal (for West Ham’s Lucas Paqueta) is off so at the moment there are no more conversations between the player side and City and the same between clubs,” Fabrizio Romano said on The Debrief podcast.
“Let’s see how this investigation will go, if it will change the story in the coming days.
“At the moment City are focusing on Jeremy Doku but the Paqueta deal was very advanced on the club side and the player side. It was going the right way.
“Then the story of the investigation changed the process of the of the negotiation.”
It is important to stress that there is still an ongoing investigation and nothing has yet been proven, but the likelihood of it going through is minuscule now
It’s changed City’s focus and, as a result, the transfer market, as Guardiola now has to look elsewhere.
Paqueta played, and scored in the match against Chelsea on Sunday afternoon, and we can expect David Moyes to continue picking the player until he’s told otherwise.
The Brazilian is the East London club’s record signing, and is arguably their most creative player, so it was only ever going to take a huge City bid to prise him from the club in the first place.
Moyes may have been willing to allow Paqueta to leave for a handsome financial return, but he won’t be pleased to lose him for any length of time because of an FA ban.