Premier League Notebook Heading into Week 21

The biggest deal of the January transfer window will soon be completed. Wilfried Bony is set to leave Swansea City for Manchester City for around £30 million within the next few days, although it might not be until the end of the month (or the start of February) before Bony actually makes his debut for the club.

In reaching the deal, however, City are rectifying perhaps the biggest mistake of the summer transfer window—serving as a reminder that sometimes the most important transfer deal is not the player who comes in but the one who leaves.

City could perhaps never have known they would suffer such a horrible injury crisis to their forward players toward the end of 2014. Nevertheless, the decision to offload Alvaro Negredo (on loan initially, with a permanent deal to come in the summer) left Manuel Pellegrini perilously short of options a few months down the line.It has become accepted wisdom that elite sides, or at least ones looking to compete domestically and in Europe, need four top-class strikers to rely on. Even if a side often plays with only one striker (as Pellegrini tends to do with City), it is generally necessary to have four players vying for that spot—just two injuries at the same point in time would leave the club short of flexibility and rotation options in a crucial position.

Considering Sergio Aguero, Edin Dzeko and Stevan Jovetic are hardly the most hardy of forwards, allowing Negredo to leave was a risky move that has proved misguided—on the pitch, at least.

Of course, part of the reason for Negredo's departure was Financial Fair Play related—if, as seems likely, the club had deemed Negredo not quite up to the required standard after a hit-and-miss first season, then the chance to shift his wages from the balance sheet (and recoup much of their outlay on him down the line) was a prudent economic decision, if a sketchy footballing one.

But the spate of injuries to City's forwards as 2014 drew to a close—a run of injuries that eventually saw James Milner picked as a false nine—underlined that City are a striker short. With the season now heading toward the point at which trophies are decided, buying another forward became a priority.

In light of that, the Bony signing makes a lot of sense. The Swansea striker has nine Premier League goals already this term, and he offers a combination of physicality, technique and finishing ability that none of City's current strikers present in the same combination (Dzeko is similar but less refined). If anything, the Ivory Coast forward is an improved version of Negredo, one with a longer, more reliable track record in English football.


Source http://bleacherreport.com/articles/2323796-premier-league-notebook-heading-into-week-21