Jerome Boateng signs; Building for prolonged success - Transfer policy

Yesterday saw the confirmation of the signing of Jerome Boateng on a five-year contract. The twenty-one year-old now leaves for the World Cup with even keener City eyes trained on him. This deal has been said to have been sorted for months now and we were only really waiting for the confirmation after reports of leaving parties and talks with Mancini have teased us along.

He is thought to be in line to challenge for the right-back slot before trying to claim his preferred central role - although, if we are to see him play for Germany this summer it is likely to be in the role played by Zabaleta, Micah and Nedum here at City.

A twenty-one year-old, this deal shows further intent to build a side for the future. Hughes was tasked with building a side immediately capable of challenging at the top and he succeeded in acquiring the necessary Premier League experience for such a challenge. Apart from signing Vieira as an experienced body in midfield when de Jong and Barry's legs were tiring, Mancini now has the luxury of building for the future. People will argue that Johnson was an existing target when Mancini arrived, but Mancini was impressed enough with the run-around he was giving City in the FA Cup tie to sanction the transfer.

People weren't expecting Johnson to go straight into the side, but it is the level of hunger and ambition of these younger players that City would be wise to tap in to. You don't get players who have the winning experience, but you don't get complacency either.

The only real comparison to our current state are the Chelsea of Abramovich's 2003 takeover. Their approach did appear fairly scattergun - and they made amazing losses on players (Del Horno, Duff, SWP, Shevchenko) that I am sure we are destined to see (Jo, Robinho, Santa Cruz) - but a number of players from their first couple of transfer windows have helped build a stable team - Cech, Drogba, Joe Cole, Carvalho, Essien - this added to players who have lasted the takeover, most notably Lampard and Terry.

This stability for me is key. We want to be signing players who will be together 'writing the history of City' for the next ten years - growing with the club and through the experiences of the club - so that their first trophies are City's first trophies. The attachment to the shirt will be greater for these players and we should have a greater loyalty and desire from them. This is the ideal anyway and, if our current Hamburg recruits are anything to go by, Boateng could fit the mould perfectly.