Thirty Pieces of Silver?

It isn’t 30 pieces of silver; it’s 30 million pounds that Manchester City have dangled under Swansea City’s nose to prize Wilfried Bony away. It’s a shed full of money for the Swans to reject and I guess the sensible thing would be to snatch the cheque  from the Arab owners’ hands and deposit it as quickly as possible. But let’s not get ahead ourselves.

Wilfried Bony is the only consistent scorer the Swans have, and what price on Premiership safety if you subtract his goals and assists this season?

Okay; let’s be realistic. The Swans, similar to the majority of clubs, are a feeder club for the top six in the Premiership and any rich club on the continent that takes a shine to one of their players. Even the top clubs in the Premiership have lost star players to richer clubs. Ronaldo left Manchester United for Real Madrid and Gareth Bale beat the same path to Madrid from Spurs in pursuit of the Holy Grail. Likewise, Luis Suarez sought the pesos at Barcelona and left Liverpool struggling to fill the void. Unfortunately Liverpool made the same mistake as Spurs by attempting to replace their star player with five or six indifferent signings.

I’m sure Bony will perform well at Manchester City, but he should take note of what happened to Scott Sinclair who was transferred at his insistence to the same club from the Swans for 8 million pounds. He was on the verge of the England team when he was transferred, but regressed into a proverbial bench warmer. The number of appearances he has made for the Manchester first team can be counted on the fingers of one hand.

Bony’s transfer is not without irony. The Swans want 30 million while Manchester City value him at 27 million and at the time of writing continue to haggle over the asking price.  The Swans management should be insistent and inform the Arab owners that the price is not subject to negotiation. “Show us the money or Bony remains a Swansea player for the remaining months of the season. ” In many respects the January transfer window is a poisoned chalice for the smaller clubs when they run the risk of losing their best players to the bulging  cheque books of the top clubs. Maybe it’s time the men in suits reviewed the whole process.

January throws up another anomaly. the African Nations Cup and now the Asian Championship (whatever) are staged for the whole month. Bony is representing The Ivory Coast and is unavailable to whatever Premiership club holds his registration until the 1st February. The same restriction applies to the Swans’ South Korean midfield player, Ki Sung-Yeung.

The Swans have only scored one goal in each of their last six premiership games and can least afford to lose their top goal scorer. They have only managed to score a total of 25 goals in 20 fixtures, nine of which have come from Bony. On that basis the Swans could struggle to retain their Premiership status in the absence of their star striker. Sigurdsson is second in the goal scoring charts with four.

Thirty million pounds for Bony may appear to be good business, but relegation to the Championship would be disastrous and the profit made from the sale of Bony would pale in comparison. I sincerely hope I’m proved wrong. I’m just glad I’m not a Swansea City season ticket holder because I would feel I’ve been short changed.

 

 

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