As you may be aware by now, Manchester City are about to complete a deal for Valencia winger Ferran Torres.
Pep Guardiola and co have identified the Spaniard as a replacement for Leroy Sané following his move to Bayern Munich and have pushed ahead with their plans this week.
A deal is now in the final stages, and that’s caused a bit of anger in Valencia, who are not happy to be losing a potential star of the future for a relatively low fee.
Indeed we saw that this week, with journalist Carlos Bosch covering the situation in Super Deporte and laying the blame for it all firmly on the club’s ownership.
He didn’t let Torres off either mind you, criticising the player for leaving Valencia as the ‘weak party’ in negotiations with Manchester City.
He covers the forward’s impending departure to Manchester City in Super Deporte today, comparing it to Paco Alcácer’s move to Barcelona in 2016.
That was also a controversial switch that left plenty in Valencia upset, but Bosch argues that there’s the way he did it in the way Torres has done.
The journalist explains that Alcácer did something that Torres did not, he ‘stood up for himself’ by telling Valencia he wanted to go to Barcelona and then did it publicly too.
Torres did neither, staying silent when Valencia were offering new contracts and letting his current deal run down so he could be the ‘beneficiary’ in a sale.
Therefore, Valencia ended up in a ‘weak negotiating position’ because of the player’s ‘strategy’, and that has forced them to accept a smaller price than he’s worth as he could have went on a free next year if they didn’t.
The bottom line for Bosch is that while Alcácer was honest with Valencia, Torres was not and that is unforgivable in his eyes.
The sentiment is clear; it is Torres’ fault that Valencia have had to accept a low offer from Manchester City, although he does concede the club’s approach ‘leaves much to be desired’.
Whether Torres or City will care is up for debate.
