- Sep 12, 2005
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I think it's pretty clear that he wanted to move primarily because he felt that there was no path to first team football at a club that spends 200m every summer on whatever whim their manager du jour dreams up. It was probably also the case that he wanted to go back home to London which served as a convenient excuse for essentially going on strike. City wouldn't allow him to move to a domestic rival while under scholarship so he did what was best for his career and went to one of the best clubs in world football for developing young talents.
There's a better path to our first team than Dortmund's - Dembele had already made a significant impact in Ligue 1 before signing last year - he'll have Reus, Goetze, Kagawa, Schurlle, Pulisic and Yarmolenko to compete with. Realistically if he'd joined us and impressed in training he'd only have Eriksen, Son and Lamela in competition for a place. City were powerless to stop him moving to another British club if that was what he wanted.