Manchester City is preparing for a transfer window in which they shatter all current spending records by English clubs. Even by their own standards, this one is going to be big. The word in England is that more than £200 million is available to Pepe Guardiola – even without players leaving – to turn them into challengers for next season’s title.
A lot of their players will be departing; some of them appear to be Newcastle bound, as Ashley splashes the cash to try to turn his newly promoted side into Premiership stayers. With Benitez at the helm, they’ve got the right man, and the money is on hand to help them make the jump. They are linked with a variety of City’s fringe players, and that will free up space in the squad and even more money for Guardiola’s revolution.
One name being linked to them is Alexis Sanchez of Arsenal, and although he would prefer Spain it’s a move nobody should rule it. He can play a wide role as well as through the middle; that alone would limit Patrick Robert’s opportunities at the club.
Monaco midfielder Bernardo Silva – a dazzlingly talented Portuguese who will light up the world when he really hits his stride – is on the list too, and he plays wide right or behind the striker, the exact spot which Patrick wants to make his own.
They are after a £30 million deal for Benfica defender Nelson Semedo; that doesn’t hurt Roberts, but it’s indicative of what Guardiola wants to do. He’s going for glitz and glamour, and the purely functional will be left at the side of the road.
One of Patrick’s problems will be that he wasn’t a Guardiola signing. A new manager has no loyalty to the players who were brought to the club before he arrived, and Pepe brought with him a reputation for being a guru that he is now scrambling madly to uphold. He knows the City team he inherited wasn’t good enough, and that his signings last year had the feeling of Lastminute.com about them; he will take no such chances this time around.
So the talented winger will probably go on the pre-season tour with the club. And he’ll play. And knowing Patrick Roberts he will play well, and dazzle the opposition and look great in the team. But he doesn’t have that star man reputation. He doesn’t have that killer rep. Even City fans who liked the look of him when he arrived sneer that he’s been playing in a backwater these last two years and thus probably hasn’t improved very much.
And in their arrogance and ego, and in Pepe Guardiola’s desperate need to buttress his own rep, and in the board’s desire to be seen to be the biggest club in world football and with the superstar squad to prove it, lies our opportunity, and not just for one more loan year.
Patrick Roberts gets it. He understands what Celtic is. And he knows too that if he comes here and spends another three or four seasons at Parkhead that he will be a sensation and that the big move back to the EPL will come along again if he wants it to. That’s why I refuse to give up on the idea of seeing him stay in the Hoops for another campaign at least.
That’s why Brendan Rodgers has said we’ll wait and see if there is a deal to be done.
The board knows that this kid has the skills, that he has the support of the fans and that he would be a saleable asset and not simply a cog in the wheel. This makes sense on so many levels, and whilst I don’t want to see Patrick Roberts’ dreams shattered I think they will be, at least insofar as Manchester City is concerned.
But there are other dreams, perhaps even better ones.
And Celtic know it, and soon enough Patrick will know it too.
I think we might yet see him grace us with another Champions League campaign at least. I write this not in expectation, but in hope. But it’s a hope grounded in reality.
Don’t stop believing. Celtic certainly won’t.