Real Madrid vs Manchester CIty: Battle of the transfer quality & quantity.

This transfer season as you may seen has been dominated by 2 teams; The original faces in Real Madrid and new contenders Manchester City. Each team has signed 6 and 7 players respectively as of the time this article has been written (and rumors suggest that Real Madrid wants to sign 1 last player in this transfer window). Both clubs have been splashing the cash and have caused mixed opinions on their signings. Let us take a look on their signings these season shall we:

Real Madrid:

Angel Di Maria (ARG) from Benfica, €25 M.
Pedro Leon (ESP) from Getafe, €10 M
Sergio Canales (ESP) from Racing Santander, €4.5 M
Sami Khedira (GER) from VfB Stuttgart, €14 M
Ricardo Carvalho (POR) from Chelsea, €8 M
Mesut Ozil (GER) from Werder Bremen, €15 M

Total Spending: €76.5 Million.





Manchester City:

David Gonzalez (COL) free transfer
Jerome Boateng (GER) from HSV, €10.4 M
David Silva (ESP) from Valencia, €25 M
Yaya Toure (CIV) from Barcelona, €24 M
Aleksandar Kolarov (SRB) from Lazio, €16 M
Mario Balotelli (ITA) from Internazionale, €24 M
James Milner (ENG) from Aston Villa, €26 M + Stephen Ireland (IRE)

Total: €125 M + 1 player.



Quality indeed these players being brought in of course, but what bothers me is the quantity of the money being spent AND the amount of players being brought in. Seriously, it FREAKS me that these teams just couldn't work and deal with what they have. The difference in both these teams are that Real Madrid looks more likely to win anything while Man City looks to be heading into a mediocre title challenge.

Real Madrid has lost their legends in Raul Gonzalez and Guti Hernandez because they both just wanted a new challenge and they leave being highly regarded for their services in the past and Coach Jose Mourinho just had to by players to cover these departures. Mesut Ozil and Sergio Canales are there to replace Guti while Mourinho is still in the market to by a striker.

While Man City... they're just buying players for fun with good quality players have to be kicked out because of these signings. Players such as Craig Bellamy and Fans 2008 player of the year Stephen Ireland has left while rumors suggest Robinho, Roque Santa Cruz, Jo, and Emmanuel Adebayor are looking to leave. Critics have been doing their job mostly on the signing of James Milner because he has been exchanged with arguably a better player in Stephen Ireland, and the capture of talented young striker (but temperamental) Mario Balotelli.

Both these teams though share a single similarity, which is having rivals who are a bit stronger. Real Madrid's biggest rival Barcelona only spent big bucks on David Villa (Valencia) and Adriano Correia (Sevilla) compared to Real's 6 signings currently. While City's rivals, Chelsea and neighbors Manchester United had spent little amount of money on only few players, with Chelsea signing 2 players and United signing 3. Even with the small amount of transfers among their rivals, Barcelona are still favorites to win the La Liga while Chelsea and Manchester United looks more stronger in many ways compared to Manchester City.

Money can't buy you love, but we will see at the end of the season whether it could buy a good football team.