Garrido fires Blues warning

City defender stunned by developments

Last updated: 4th September 2008   Subscribe to RSS Feed

Garrido fires Blues warning

Garrido: Shocked

Related links

Teams

Players

Also see

Javier Garrido believes Chelsea will now have to 'live in Manchester City's shade'.

City announced on Monday that a takeover deal had been agreed with the Abu Dhabi United Group for Development and Investment (ADUG).

The new investors helped to finance the signing of Robinho from Real Madrid for a British record transfer fee of £32.5million, and Dr Sulaiman Al-Fahim has already set out his ambitious plans for the club.

Spanish defender Garrido admits that the news is still sinking in, while he insists the players had no idea what was about to happen.

"It happened to be the squad's day off. Like all the lads, I was at home and just watched everything unfolding in the media," Garrido said in The Sun.

"I'm still totally knocked out by what's happened and even now I cannot quite believe it.

"So much has happened so quickly but it seems there is still so much more to come.

"There was total secrecy about what was going on and nobody even whispered a word about it to us, the players."

Confident

City have now been labelled as the 'new Chelsea' and Garrido feels the spending power of the club will worry the rest of the Premier League.

He said: "Manchester City slapped down a £32.5million bid on the table in an upfront payment for a brilliant Real Madrid striker that Chelsea were trying to sign.

"Our club has sent out a warning to Roman Abramovich that City are the new Chelsea and so they and everyone else are now going to have to live in our shade."

Garrido is confident that City can enjoy immediate success, as he feels it will be easier to sustain a challenge with the new financial backing.

He explained: "Last season we went off like a bullet but the truth is we were not sufficiently used to going head to head with the big guns.

"We ran out of steam a little. But now the boss has got an unlimited budget, anything is possible."