Donovan to Man City?

Well my previous post became obsolete within about three hours from posting as Roberto Mancini, who's in the US as part of City's pre-season tour suggested that they were looking closely at Landon Donovan and had sent a scout to watch him at each of the four US World Cup matches. Now I'm as anxious as the next American fan for Donovan to be playing in Europe, and especially England, but there are several reasons why signing for city would be a horrible idea.

1) He wouldn't play regularly. Although many of these players are going to be leaving City before the season, here's a list of their current attacking options: Emmanuel Adebayor, Craig Bellamy, Carlos Tevez, Roque Santa Cruz, Jo, Felipe Caicedo, Shaun Wright-Phillips, Vladimir Weiss, Adam Johnson, David Silva, and Steven Ireland. Of those, Ireland, Jo, Caicedo, and Bellamy probably won't be there. But I don't think Donovan would play ahead of Johnson, Adebayor, Tevez, or Silva. And City will probably not play more than three of them at the start of any match. So Donovan, in the event City are behind, would be the second option off the bench.

2) Donovan plays better when there's not so much pressure on him. Donovan was excellent in 2002, but in 2006 with everyone expecting him to lead the US to World Cup glory (well maybe that's a little bit of an exaggeration, but he was expected to be awesome), he rather flopped. His successful move to the Premier League last season was with Everton who were well down in the table when he arrived. The only pressure was to avoid relegation, which they had no trouble in doing whatsoever.

3) Likewise, a smaller club would be better for Donovan. He talked about how he had a nice relationship with David Moyes and how he felt that club really cared about him when he was with Everton last year. That's not something he would be able to get at a big club like Man City.

4) The players at Everton are nicer. Who would you rather have as a teammate, Emmanuel Adebayor or Mikel Arteta, Richard Dunne or Kolo Toure, Nigel De Jong or Jack Rodwell?

5) Who wants to play for the richest club in the world? Maybe opportunists, but for people who care more about football than about money, it's not the place to be.