Manchester City: Time to move on from Toure

Manchester City midfield maestro Yaya Toure continues to be the subject of continual transfer rumour. Perhaps it’s time to just let him go.

In life, nothing lasts forever. There are a few notable exceptions to this rule, like any rule, of course. Take Winrar’s free 30 day trial period, I’d still be in it 10 years later if I didn’t join the rest of humanity in making the jump to 7zip aeons ago. Also, if Gautama Buddha is to be believed, change is forever, though that’s a touch too deep for me to ponder at this time of the day/year.

Regardless, everything is for a season, football highlights this more than many other examples I could raise. A player comes, he’s amazing, he gets older, he gets slower, he’s crap and subject to heckling on the park and off, repeat the process with newer and younger talent. The ebb and flow is so remarkably consistent that it may well be the proof to Buddha’s aforementioned thought, if I’m understanding him right.

So it is, with apologies to those who only have recently bought his shirt (where have you guys been?), it’s time to let Yaya Toure go. That all sounds a bit dramatic. It’s not an unheard of concept that incoming Manchester City manager Pep Guardiola will probably give Toure the heave-ho during his great Summer clear-out of 2016. The media openly talks about it, including Thierry Henry in a post-match analysis following City’s 2-1 win over West Brom, the fans know it, heck, even Toure seems to know it.

More from Man City Editorials

It’s not so surprising. Pep dealt Yaya before and all the more so is he likely to do it again. He just doesn’t fit into the Guardiola Game, you see. That youthful, speedy, tricky “Barcelona-esque” game you expect from, well, Barcelona, and just about every other team that Pep has remade in his image. Even more than that though, it’s obvious that Guardiola will attempt to meet expectations of an immediate impact at the Etihad.

While that’s all plugging away in the background, we have to bear witness to Yaya’s agent Dimitri Seluk making a right old idiot out of himself with increasingly stupid and unacceptable statements to the media. Take the most recent example, I present you with some choice snippets from an obscenely long and ridiculously over the top rant, as reported ad nauseum by the Daily Mirror:

"“Now, it’s a struggle for them to even qualify for the Champions League and, in my opinion, I don’t think they will finish in the top four.When Yaya was ready to move to City, Begiristain said to him, ‘Why do you join that club? Manchester City is a s**t club, you should not be going there.’So I challenge Txiki. I challenge him to walk out in front of the fans before the game against Paris Saint-Germain and kiss the City badge. He won’t do it because he isn’t interested in the club. He has no feelings for Manchester City. The only thing that Begiristain is interested in kissing is Sheikh Mansour’s money.In fact, if City win the Premier League next season, I will pay Txiki’s salary myself. But if City don’t win the Premier League next season, then he has to leave the club”"

Blah, blah, blah, you get the idea. Manchester City’s ownership are massive failures and I would be saying this even if they had agreed to my extortionate terms to keep Toure around when he’s already paid £230,000 a week. Truly, if brains were dynamite, Seluk wouldn’t have enough to blow off his hat.

Whether he’s right or wrong about player cohesion, concern over the Guardiola appointment, the unfair treatment of Yaya and basically everything else he feels it necessary to subject us to, it’s not the time nor the place for his mindless, verbal diarrhoea.

Manchester City have a second leg in the quarter finals of the Champions League, the first time in club history they’ve made it this far, in which they stand a genuine chance of progressing. They hold the keys to reaching the competition again next year. All these things are much more important than the constant drama about Yaya. Sorry Seluk, we’ve long since moved on from your emotional blackmail about someone who will remain, despite your best efforts, a City legend.

For you see, that’s football. The sun rises and sets and, for Toure, it’s dusk. He will genuinely go down as one of the best and most influential during City’s very best years. We’ll be watching and talking about Toure magic for many, many years after he moves on.

Next: Manchester City 2 West Brom 1 Match Report

Even so, at 32 years old, Yaya isn’t the same as he was before. He’s slower, less creative, less involved. Still brilliant, but getting less so. With the likelihood high that he will move on from City this year, it’s only right for Citizens to move on from him too, just as they have from so many other bright, shining stars around the blue moon. His legend will remain behind in his place and, that too, I suppose, will be something that can last forever.