Man City rarely make a mistake when it comes to the transfer market.
Despite being one of the richest clubs in world football, the Manchester club have been very shrewd operators when it comes to buying and selling players, which will be evident once again this summer as Pep Guardiola looks to bring in four or five new faces.
Florian Wirtz was Man City’s top target ahead of the 2025/26 season, but the Premier League giants decided to pull out of the race due to the finances needed to get the deal over the line.
City previously took this approach with a current Liverpool player, and Paul Scholes has now admitted that the decision was a huge mistake.
Photo by Robbie Jay Barratt - AMA/Getty Images
Photo by Robbie Jay Barratt – AMA/Getty Images
Man City made a mistake by not signing Virgil van Dijk
Man City were in the race for Virgil van Dijk ahead of the January transfer window in 2018, as it became clear that the defender would be leaving Southampton, however, the Manchester club would not pursue the deal as strongly as Liverpool due to the £75m transfer fee attached to the move.
With City recently doing the same thing with Wirtz, the Van Dijk transfer saga was brought up on The Overlap Fan Debate, and commenting on that historical event, Scholes thinks the Manchester club made a big mistake when it came to the current Liverpool captain.
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“Well, it was funny. I thought it was interesting because you think of Liverpool heavily linked with Florian Wirtz, and City pulled out of that one for financial reasons,” Jamie Carragher said.
To which a Man City fan replied with: “And you know, it’s mad. We pulled out of, whether you want to read into it that he’s rejected City or whatever, that might be the case.
“City actually pulled out the Van Dijk deal as well. And whether that’s the same thing or not, if you watch the documentary in 2017/18, City sometimes pull out of these mega deals.”
To which Scholes replied by saying: “That was a mistake.”
Sol Campbell believes Vincent Kompany was a better player than Van Dijk, however, they would have formed a lethal partnership had the Dutch star moved to the Etihad Stadium in 2018.
Van Dijk has been praised tenfold ever since he left Southampton, with BBC pundit Stephen Warnock labelling the centre-back as “phenomenal” recently, as the 33-year-old has gone on to become one of the best centre-backs the world has ever seen.
Man City certainly made a big mistake by leaving the race for Van Dijk in 2018, but the Premier League giants had their reasons.
Photo by Michael Regan/Getty Images/Getty Images For The Premier League
Photo by Michael Regan/Getty Images/Getty Images For The Premier League
What happened between Man City and Virgil van Dijk
When it comes to Man City walking away from the race for Van Dijk, the reason for doing so was very simple, as the Manchester club’s Chairman, Khaldoon Al Mubarak, was not keen on Southampton’s asking price for the defender.
This was seen during the Man City version of the Amazon Prime series, “All or Nothing”, as Al Mubarak was heard being hesitant over Van Dijk’s transfer fee.
“Come on, you cannot be serious. Ultimately, if it makes sense for us we will do it,” the City Chairman said via ESPN. “If it doesn’t make sense, we are perfectly comfortable in walking away. To do that, there’s only a few clubs in the world that can do that.”
In hindsight, Man City know they made a huge mistake regarding Van Dijk as not only did they miss out on the centre-back, but they allowed Liverpool to strengthen significantly, which has brought the Reds plenty of success in recent years.