Manchester City Thread

I'm not hurting. I expected to lose as soon as I saw the teamsheet.

Effort it not the issue. The issue is that the manager is as tactically inept and stubborn as Wenger is.

He goes into a game where the opposition had 4 central midfielders and he goes with 2, only one of which has any mobility off the ball. Both CBs and CMs are surrounded and exposed. Doesn't matter what our CBs did, drop deep or press, they're fucked.
He needed to flank Yaya with Dinho and Milner and go with a 5 man midfield, and at least have Navas on the bench because Nasri is always awful away from home at the tough grounds.
 
You were terrible when you switched to a 5 man midfield though, even worse in fact.

Look I agree that Pellegrini isn't the best of managers but Coty do have lots of very overpriced and overrated players.

Considering the vast sums of money you spent since the Shieks arrived, the squad is pretty poor and needs revamping.

Silva and Aguero would walk into any team in the Premier League - apart from them, you have an average-good squad but nowhere near the quality that Chelsea, Real Madrid, Bayern etc can boast.

Basically City have signed too many fernandos, Milners, Rodwells, Navas and Bonys and not enough Agueros and Silvas.
 
We weren't worse. Before that 2 passes were slicing through the midfield every single time. Either way, it wasn't a CM 3 and by that time LFC had their tails up.

We need to have a good summer but there is clearly enough there to do better than we did today.
We lack a manager who can win us points when our superior players aren't on song or the opposition are just playing really well. He has lost us far more points and games than he has won us.
 
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City were ok until Liverpool started using the width and speed. City will always control a match when it's narrow and through the middle w/ no real wingers. Those goal(s) were sublime :) . Liverpool at (H) will always be tough , the pitch looked awful . Yaya looks off the pace and tired. Almost like a case of slight malaria. City lost too many games that normally would not have last season.
 
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The banner has been at every Anfield game this season I think - City fans also sharing their thoughts as well yesterday.

I THINK it's either related to ticket prices OR the Premier League's greed. Or both?
 
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TikTikTikTikTik said:
Whats that about?
Click to expand...

It's about ticket prices in the Premier League being ridiculously high and there's no cheap option.

Just look at last weeks Europa League game for example, the home leg tickets started at around £45 and went up to about £60 for standard seats, whereas the away tickets were £11 ffs
 
Fantastic that fans complain about it and it together.
It would be even better if they voted with their feet and would boycot some matches: buy tickets and not fo to the stadium on matchday. But that is utopic.
 
More reports that Simeone wants the City job.

I would love to see the Man in Black prowling along our touchline! Exactly what we need.

Cue the contract extension...
 
And why would City be interested in Simeone ? Why would a club that wants to play interesting attacking football and would die for bringing in Guardiola, would hire Simeone ?
Feels like when Abramovich wanted to hire Guardiola and ended hiring his complete opposite.
 
We probably won't go after him but we need someone who will be more pragmatic when we face the elite teams like Barca, Real, Bayern as well as the tricky away games like LFC.
I'm sure Simeone could afford to be more attacking when he is the one managing the best set of players in the league rather than being the underdog
 
Something interesting I read on footie365;

Perhaps there is an obvious explanation for City's inability to keep on keeping on. At 29.6, they have the oldest average age in the Premier League, more than a year ahead of both QPR and Leicester in second and third. By way of comparison, the average age of Liverpool's starting line-up on Sunday was 23.6. Is it any wonder they had more energy when it mattered?

When Pellegrini looked to the bench for a spark, he saw Gael Clichy (29), Martin Demichelis (34), Frank Lampard (36) and James Milner (29). Even the exceptions, Fernando and Wilfried Bony, are 27 and 26 respectively. More worrying still is that five of the seven substitutes were signed during Pellegrini's reign.
Click to expand...

That is going to be a big issue in the coming few seasons.
 
they will just buy new young players...no issue if you have money like City have...

what is almost certain, there won´t be a product of their own academy soon playing in the first team i guess..
 
In theory though to meet ffp it is going to be hard to get decent money for the older players to then buy the younger players.

But we all know there are ways of getting around it :PP
 
Non of the top clubs in England need to sell in order to buy. Obviously it helps, and they're gonna do it if only to keep the squad size under control, but CFC, MCFC, AFC, MUFC all have enough funds without selling.

Age of the squad doesn't concern me. A few young players signed over the next couple of windows and 1 or 2 of the likes of Lopes, Iheanacho, Barker, Denayer, Rekik promoted and there's no issue.

I don't think for a minute we lost to Liverpool because of the age of the players anyway. Silly tactics was the culprit. Just flooding the midfield would have given the likes of Aguero, Toure, Silva the chance to show their superiority.
 
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Godot, imo you blame Pellegrini too much.
Despite all the spending, i see an unbalanced team with a shaky defense, and a midfield that has no back-up for Touré. Ferando and Fernandinho are not good enough.

Imagine what would happen if Aguëro would leave...then you have a team that has to fight for a CL place.

I got that same feeling with the Chelsea team of the first Mourinho era, a very good team, but something is missing. City might win the EPL (i doubt it this season) with this bunch of players, but they will never win the CL with them. Not even with Guardiola or with Simeoni
 
We have a shaky defence because the manager leaves us wide open in midfield. Terry looked finished before Matic was signed and when he doesn't play Chelsea have looked vulnerable too - at least earlier in the season.

And if the squad is unbalanced and shaky at the back then the manager is even more idiotic for not reinforcing his team selections against such weaknesses when we play good teams.

Even against Leicester our midfield was getting bypassed too much. The mere quality of individuals like Silva and Aguero meant we ended up winning but we had very little control from midway through the 2nd half. He's leant on the quality of individuals and has done nothing to win games through sheer tactics ever since he's been here. I can count plenty of games which we have lost or drawn where he has been at fault. I struggle to recall 1 instance of him making the difference. His tactics have even embarrassed us on a few occasions.
 
city should have never let de jong leave. imho he's more reliable as cmf/dmf and less injury prone than both fernando and fernandinho.
 
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That point from F365 is exactly why I 'worry' about City/ am interested to see the FFP implications.

It's relatively easy with excitement, momentum and so forth to put together one entirely new, class squad. And tweaking that over time is possible by spending 'only' 100m a season. But to completely redo the spine will take a ton of spending, because you risk having a few duds for every success.

Who in two years time in City's current squad do we think will still be 'top CL' level? Kompany has been the most important player, but he looks on the wane. The rest of the defence is okay, not great. The midfield isn't top quality - and Toure will be gone by then.

Leaves Silva and Aguero imo as the only 2 genuinely top class players. Silva should be fine, pace isn't a part of his game, but I do wonder if Aguero is going to want one more challenge in his career.

Maybe not this summer (especially if a new coach comes in) but next summer I expect to see an enormous outlay from City on new players.
 
Hopefully in the summer we target the likes of Schneiderlin (would protect our defense superbly - excellent positional sense), Koke/Pogba, Bale/Isco/Sanchez/Depay/Reus and add some stability infront of the defense and some more energy in midfield/attack.

Kompany is going through a sticky period after a couple of injuries in quick succession, he definitely doesn't look right, but until I see reason to suspect otherwise I still think he is in the top 3 CBs in the world because form is temporary and he has been a beast for 5 years.
Mangala will hopefully see a better 2nd season and I think the rest are good enough. We just need to not be so open in CM. Would be tempted to sell Kolarov and get in a new LB but the money it will take to significantly improve the midfield is going to be significant.


-----Aguero
Bale--------Silva
---Yaya--Koke
---Schneiderlin

or

-----Aguero
Isco--------Silva
---Yaya--Pogba
---Schneiderlin

Would be a dream summer (couldn't sign Bale and Pogba, craaaazy money)

Realistic? dunno. Much depends on what others do as well. What has to happen tho is we have to stop signing backup players and instead 'demote' a couple of the current starters to 'backup' positions. eg. Nasri and Fernandinho.

The squad needs a higher quality core of 13/14 players and less numerous similar level 'lesser' players.
 
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what a disgraceful performance by man. city players. all of them. without any motivation, idea, so bloodless...

pellegrini should sack himself in a gentleman manner.
 
Barca, be afraid, very afraid!

Can't believe he had Dzeko basically playing a number 10 role. That's worse than using Fellaini there.
We have one of if not the best 10 in the world in Silva and he shunts him out on the left. And then he takes him and Yaya, our best 2 passers, and goal threats, off when we need 2 goals. He should have subbed Dzeko for Nasri at HT at least.

He's already sacked himself. Won't be here next season. Wouldn't be surprised if Kidd and Vieira are in charge come WBA after Messi n co bum us midweek
 
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Yep. We need to pick up form quickly.

Next 2 games are WBA and WHU at home so we should have a chance of doing that (you'd think so anyway)
 
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