When is enough, enough?

The final week of any summer transfer window brings the last opportunity for clubs to finalise their squads until the New Year. Transfer deadline day is one of the most exciting, if not most drawn out, days of the season, with deals happening right up to (and in some cases beyond) the cut-off point. However some managers, who are lucky enough to already contain squads bursting at the seams with quality players, still insist that they require more, which begs the question: when is enough, enough?

Mancini complained his squad was too small

Only a week before the new season had kicked off, Manchester City manager Roberto Mancini drew a few surprising looks as he insisted his current squad wasn’t big enough to challenge for the season ahead: ‘To be competitive, we need more.’ he moaned. ‘We’re missing players, we don’t have enough for the whole season and it’s a problem. We haven’t managed to get all the players we want and it is important we get them now in the next seven days.’ Was Mancini seriously implying that City, in their current state, are not competitive? Surely even the most ardent City fan would struggle to come up with a genuine argument to back their manager’s words.

At the time of his statement, City actually had a competitive senior squad of around 24 players which include some of the biggest names in the Premier League – that’s even before you count the likes of Emmanuel Adebayor, Wayne Bridge, Craig Bellamy, Roque Santa Cruz and Shaun-Wright Phillips, all of whom were unwanted by the Italian manager but were still on City’s books. But his very public pursuit of Arsenal’s Samir Nasri begged the question: is he really needed in Manchester? Of course, any quality player would be a welcome addition at any club, and a strong squad is essential in order to challenge. But City already had that – and Nasri isn’t the final new face Mancini wished to add. So when is enough, enough?

Much has been made of the club’s wealth and investment in pursuit of honours, but I’m not getting into that. Whether that’s the right or wrong way to go about things is not the issue here. After all, City are far from the only club in world football to attempt to spend their way to the top. Of course this country has seen it done twice before during the Premier League era, with first Blackburn back in the mid-90’s, then more recently on a grander scale Chelsea, who achieved virtually instant success on the back of massive investment. During this time, Chelsea too became guilty of an apparent thirst for signing players to bulk out a squad that just didn’t need it. Names like Scott Parker and Steve Sidwell represented such signings, and that’s even before we mention the costly Andriy Shevchenko – though we won’t blame the manager for that one.

This is not just aimed at the ‘newly’ rich though, and not just a Premier League occurrence. It has been happening on the continent for years, with the established ‘big clubs’ – and still does. Real Madrid in particular has been guilty for many years. Whether their motives have been for commercial gain (shirts sales etc), or to simply ensure that their competition is unable to strengthen – by gobbling up any quality, that they themselves have no real need for (see Sergio Canales’ recent story as proof). They too, currently have a plethora of talent on their books but it still didn’t stop manager Jose Mourinho to moan last season about the ‘need’ to buy another striker. Even Barcelona’s eventual capture of Cesc Fabregas drew from an emotional need, rather than any actual need for the player. AC Milan, particularly during the mid-90’s were another ‘big club’ who were guilty of hovering up the best of what other clubs had, even when their squad had no apparent need. Some players have to take their share of the blame too though – those that know their moves are motivated more by greed than by actual playing time are a disgrace to the sport.

The situation is made all the more frustrating when it stops the next generation of players progressing up to first team level. Manchester City has one of the best youth academy set-ups in this country, with an excellent track record. Not so long ago it produced names like Shaun Wright-Phillips, Joey Barton, Micah Richards, Stephen Ireland and Daniel Sturridge to name but a few, who were all given opportunities to shine and become established players in their own right. The current crop of youngsters will not be afforded the same opportunities, and find their path even tougher as the squad continues to fill up with more and more expensive established stars.