Barton's Clause For Concern
As this year's January transfer window draws to a nervous conclusion, it has once again proved to be an underwhelming month of rumour and general inactivity. Nothing much ever seems to happen in this mid-season transfer window apart from unhelpful speculation and general unsettling of players, managers and fans. Personally, I think it's time to rethink the whole transfer window thing.
Without tempting fate, it now looks like our "crown jewels" of Barton and Richards will stay for a while longer, having learned from SWP's badly advised move to the greener grass of Stamford Bridge, where he now commands a regular place on the bench. It looks like both have realised their chances of international honours are greatly improved by staying at Eastlands as bigger fish in an albeit smaller pond, but nevertheless will be playing week in, week out and catching the eye of the England selectors.
The down side from all this, is that it's now public knowledge that Joey has a clause in his contract whereby an offer of £5.5m for his services allows another club to talk to him. Although it would now appear that he'll stay this time around, he'll be viewed as fair game in the summer when clubs are more serious about new signings.
It seems that such clauses are now common practice, but why did City allow such a low trigger value? What were City's commercial people thinking about when with Joey's potential, they agreed to such a derisory valuation? If City are now considering waving a new contract in front of Joey, they need to ensure that any future financial thresholds are set much higher; we just can't afford to give our best players away on the cheap.
But with every dark cloud comes a silver lining..... if reports are to be believed, it now looks like Joey has parted company with agent, Willie McKay.... allegedly !
6 comments:
January transfer hanky-flapping always seems to be unsettling, but let's be glad the lads stayed put and hope they mean it in the summer.
I think the £5.5m is a reasonable starting point. If circumstances change and he wants away no doubt this could spark off a bidding war in the close season, which could see the figure go much higher, especially if in the meantime he gains an England cap.
If Carrick is worth £17m and Ashley Young £10m plus, it would be criminal to even consider selling Joey for less. City are very fortunate to still have an appreciating asset as he nearly went to 'Boro for around £5m last season. We need to make it harder for predatory clubs to steal our best players, not easier !
Surely if its a 5.5mil transfer clause, then how can we get more!? explain that
People should remember that last year we were struggling to get Joey to sign a new contract and that we risked losing him for a lot less than £5.5m. Middlesborough's bid last January was for £3m and he'd have been worth even less than that now if he was still on his old contract.
The club took the calculated gamble of agreeing a new new deal that meant that we could lose Barton for £5.5m, rather than risk losing him for nothing. If you need evidence that this was the right thing to do you only need to look at the Distan situation - if he insisted on such a release clause in any new contract wouldn't you be happy for him to sign it, rather than lose him for nothing this summer?
For all we know, Distin may have a similar escape clause, but I think the Barton situation is different. Joey is young and yet to realise his full potential, whereas Distin, now approaching 30 is unlikely to develop further and has arguably already peaked in terms of his attractiveness for a really big move - don't get me wrong, I hope he stays at Eastlands as he's a classy defender. The point I was trying to make was that I think City's commercial people need to become as sharp as the players agents and not capitulate so easily in contract negotiations and agree to clauses that don't come anywhere close to a players current or potential value. City just can't afford to sell our best players on the cheap.
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