Maguire and Zaha sagas reveal major shift in Premier League power structure
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Since time immemorial the biggest clubs have cherry-picked the best players from those traditionally deemed to be smaller in stature than them.
It’s a long-established and fundamental law from the jungle and this law applies even if both clubs involved share a division.
Examples of this are a thousand-fold but given that Manchester United have this week finally completed a two-year chase for Harry Maguire, while Arsenal have spent most of their summer knocking on Crystal Palace’s door asking the same question about Wilfried Zaha’s availability, perhaps looking back to the mid-noughties is apt.
In the summer of 2004 Wayne Rooney was England’s golden boy, a phenomenal talent of such rarefied brilliance that nobody doubted he was destined for the very top. A mere month after he excelled at the Euros Manchester United swooped with a bid just shy of £30m.
If nobody doubted his genius similarly everybody was seemingly on board with this. It was the way things were. A natural progression. The best players needed the biggest stages.
All told for such a high-profile development it was a relatively straightforward move and this despite the fact that Rooney was a born and bred Evertonian.
“I’m excited to be joining a club as big as Manchester United. I feel this can only improve my career,” the player said on his unveiling.
Eighteen months later Arsenal flexed their might and standing and also indulged in a spot of Premier League shopping for a boy wonder.
Their purchase of Theo Walcott was generally met with approval by the general public who delighted in the prospect of one of England’s brightest hopes being coached by Arsene Wenger. If Southampton were presumably aggrieved to lose such an exciting teen so prematurely – Walcott was just 16 at the time of the switch – what could they realistically do about it?
Arsenal were Arsenal. Southampton were Southampton. It was the law of the jungle, the inevitable circle of life.
Fast-forward to the present day and the Gunners have this time failed in their efforts to dislodge a lightning quick winger from a club considered to be their inferior.
After seeing an initial bid of £40m – to be paid in instalments – for Wilfried Zaha rebuffed by the Eagles they returned with an improved offer of £55m plus Reiss Nelson on a season-long loan but again they received short shrift.
Palace viewed Zaha to be a pivotal figure and the price was £80m. Take it or leave it.
Not even the player’s desire to move on from Selhurst Park swayed matters so the Gunners left it, or at least turned their attentions to Lille’s Nicolas Pepe instead.
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As for United’s long-standing interest in Harry Maguire, they were informed last summer by Leicester City that a fee it the region of the £75m paid by Liverpool for Virgil van Dijk would be needed to prise him away from the King Power Stadium.
A year on déjà vu occurred and Leicester were seemingly immovable on their £80m asking price. So it was that a world record fee was agreed. So it was that Leicester could – subjectively – laugh all the way to the bank after pocketing an obscene profit on a player they purchased for just £17m two seasons ago.
The difference between now and 2004 of course is very simple. Money. An abundance of money for all.
In 2018/19 Leicester and Crystal Palace earned £237,543,293 between them and that staggering sum equates to power.
For all of the hand-wringing – some of which is entirely justified – at the increasing insanity of transfer fees and the mind-blowing wealth circulating around the highest echelons of football, surely this is a welcome by-product of both? Clubs are no longer pushed around. Clubs can afford to stand their ground.
The law of the jungle is changing.
Perhaps this shift can prevent the elite from widening the yawning gap between the top bracket and those that fall beneath them.