We can accept the rumours that Robinho may want to move on from Manchester City, given that he headed home to Santos in January and seemed really quite happy not to be in Eastlands. We suppose it’s just about conceivable that Zlatan Ibrahimovic might leave Barcelona despite having had a pretty good season in which he kept Thierry largely out of the side and scoring 23 goals.
But if the Daily Mail are really going to suggest that Manchester City and Barcelona are set to do a swap deal, they need to get some more believable numbers together than these:
Mancini worked closely with Ibra at former club Inter Milan. The Swedish international moved to Spain last summer in the deal that saw Samuel Eto’o, and £40m go the other way.
Barca value Ibrahimovic at £45m and would expect Robinho, whose loan with Santos ends in August, plus £10m, for the player.
If Barcelona value Ibrahimovic at £45m, they either consider Samuel Eto’o to be worth £5m - which would be odd given his starring role in the Inter team who just successfully won everything - or they are prepared to make a substantial loss on Ibrahimovic in a single year.
But it doesn’t stop there. The deal for Ibrahimovic - £10m plus Robinho - values the Brazilian at £35m. Wait a minute. Given that the Manchester City man has been, relatively speaking, a flop, who was farmed out to Brazil after demanding to go back home, how can it be that his transfer value has actually risen since Manchester City spent £32.5m on him? In what way could Barcelona possibly consider that a good piece of business?
What’s even more curious is the headline’s suggestion that Barcelona are being tough on their selling price for their striker with these (presumably fictional, admittedly) numbers:
Manchester City outcast Robinho opens door to swap with Zlatan Ibrahimovic as Barcelona set high valuation for Swede
“Moneybags” City, as they are dubbed in the article, may be spending over the odds on players, but if such a deal would go through that would surely represent extraordinary value given how much Robinho’s stock has plummeted on these shores. Hell, if Portsmouth owned Ibrahimovic they’d probably still be loathe to do that deal.
