GettyImages

Solbakken: Lambasted City's transfer dealings

City travel to the Danish capital for a third round knock-out tie on Thursday night which promises to be a very hot encounter at a sold-out Parken Stadium. And Solbakken has further raised the temperature by suggesting City's Abu-Dhabi investors, who were willing to pay over £100million to sign Kaka from AC Milan, are ruining football with absurdly large transfer bids.

"The amounts of money that has been mentioned are incredible," Solbakken to Danish paper Ekstra-Bladet. "I think that such incredible sums will take part in destroying football."

"They are creating too big a mental distance between what we call reality and then Manchester City.

"The hardest part for City is that they, by tradition, are not a big football club and therefore all the money in the world does not make a difference for them," Solbakken said.

"They brought in Wayne Bridge even though he is only marginally better than what they had already and that says how hard it is to get the best players even though you have lots of money."