IAN HERBERT: Man City and Liverpool showed rivals how it is done

There was no noise about Manchester City’s pursuit of River Plate’s prodigious young striker, Julian Alvarez. 

When it became clear that his agent was travelling to Manchester this month, the propagators of what masquerades as transfer window ‘news’ assumed that Old Trafford was the destination.

Some brief amusement was then taken in a 2020 Argentinian radio interview Alvarez gave, in which he said he played for City on the FIFA video game. And then it was announced that he’s signed for that club.

It says everything about the way City’s player acquisition system works that they’d been following Alvarez for some time. 

There’s a reason why Txiki Begiristain, City’s director of football starts his annual holiday on September 1, the day after the summer window. And why, when it’s over, he dedicates his every working hour to analysing the playing requirement, identifying three or four names for each in priority order, then going about securing them.

That’s why City – whose Abu Dhabi billions have always obviously helped – secured 22-year-old Alvarez, a striker they’re comfortable about sending back on loan to River Plate until at least July.

There’s been the same kind of calm calculation about Liverpool, whose sporting director Michael Edwards had been tracking the Colombia and Porto winger Luis Diaz for years, signing a £37.5million agreement with the Portuguese club side long before Tottenham – in their classic, frantic fashion – plunged into the fray late on with a £50m bid. No chance.

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