Search icon

Football

25th Jan 2018

Manchester United fans are fuming about Manchester City signing La Liga star

Do they have a point?

JOE

They’re calling double standards.

Manchester City are on the verge of signing Athletic Bilbao defender Aymeric Laporte, according to reports.

The runaway leaders in the Premier League are looking to make reinforcements as they chase a quadruple, still competing in the four major competitions. With their biggest weakness being central defence, they are looking to sign Laporte as a long-term investment for the future.

The 23-year-old has a £57m buyout clause that City are willing to trigger and with the huge wages City are set to offer him, he will be a very expensive investment, albeit one highly likely to pay off.

However, this has angered some Manchester United fans.

United have of course just signed Alexis Sánchez from Arsenal with Henrikh Mkhitaryan going the other way. As Sánchez only had 6 months remaining on his contract, the transfer fee was substantially lower than his talent is worth. Many reports in the media therefore included the wages that United would be paying the Chilean throughout his contract when reporting on the financial aspect of the deal.

United fans have pointed out that this isn’t the case regarding Laporte, calling double standards and bias.

Do they have a point?

The transfer market is already inflated enough, if all transfers were reported like this, the numbers would be even more mind-boggling.