Manchester City prioritizing Messi over Koulibaly
Despite Manchester City’s biggest need coming in central defense, they are putting their chances to sign Lionel Messi before any other signings.
Manchester City appear to be taking a massive gamble this summer. Despite a major need in central defense, the club have reportedly decided to roll the dice on their chances of freeing Lionel Messi from Barcelona before making any other moves this window.
In an ideal world, City and Messi will be able to quickly convince Barcelona to allow the player to leave Catalonia and then get a deal over the line for Napoli’s Kalidou Koulibaly, but the transfer grows more complicated by the day. Messi has skipped the start of pre-season, believing that he is no longer a Barcelona player, but La Liga responded with an official statement supporting Barcelona’s claim that his termination clause expired.
There remain several hurdles to jump through, and therefore, City are smartly proceeding with caution. If the club immediately splash big money on a player such as Koulibaly, it gives Barcelona leverage, as they can effectively price City out of the Messi sweepstakes by charging a massive fee. Even though in my view the honorable thing would be to accept the request of their greatest ever player, this Barcelona board has been characterized by low blows in the past, and I fully believe they would take any advantage they could over City.
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Something has to give. Either Messi will change his mind and slowly crawl back into the team for at least one more season, or the board will finally decide to play ball. I find it extremely difficult, in either scenario, to envision the current impasse continuing into the season, so I believe Messi will give in and decide to play, or Barcelona will let the player go. When that decision comes, especially considering that Barcelona need to rebuild and are guaranteed to lose the player for free next season, the smarter move is to take at least some fee for a 33 year old and get the player off their wage books.
City must be ready when that moment arrives, and that is why they have put this move at the top of the list. City still need to bring in Koulibaly, but they are proceeding wisely, and all they can hope for is a quick resolution, especially with the Premier League season fast approaching.