Agents and players hike prices not rich owners and it is because of PPV and so on. If he is there abouts at the end of the season and a good run in europe, he'll be ok, modern numptism demands he gets sacked if he doesn't win a trophy
They had the joint best defence last season. And they've now improved at left back and signed Clichy, so I wouldn't call it crap.
Tell that to Roman Abramovich. These people are definitely looking for results fast. This is not the way I would do things, but I'm not running the club.
Quality maybe, but not sure about depth. I don't think they have adequate cover for Kompany, Silva or Aguero if Tevez leaves. And Barry and Milner are hardly top class replacements for De Jong and Yaya Toure if either of those two is out, tho Nasri could help solve that problem if they move him to the centre. This. City have built a good team but I think they still need to cut out lots of the chaff from their squad to achieve a similar level of depth and consistency to Utd and possibly even Chelsea if AVB's new recruits bed in. They need their second string players (Dzeko, Barry, Milner, Kolo Toure and Lescott) to step up to a greater extent than they have already if they are to challenge for the title whilst being involved with the CL. And if they don't, then next summer they may need to dump a lot of them and add better quality backups.
Believe me i am not in denial but i am hoping if we have a good season in the PL and CL they will give him a chance next season, changing managers is not always the solution as has been seen many times, as you say "big money investors are a fickle bunch" so if we fail this season no doubt he will go.
Kolo Toure, who would cover for Kompany, is comfortably ahead of Jonny Evans, who would be replacing Vidic if he was injured, so I don't think there's too much worries there. I think the likes of Nasri and Adam Johnson can easily compensate if David Silva isn't available for a particular game. Similarly if Aguero is out they'll still have Balotelli and Dzeko, which isn't too bad. Are Barry and Milner any worse than most of the dross Man Utd have at centre midfield? I'd take Milner over Cleverly if I'm honest if I wanted performances right now, and he's your first choice midfielder at this moment in time.
The way Dzeko is playing at the moment i think he will start the majority of games, i think Balotellis bottom lip is going to get longer by the week.
Wouldn't Toure and Kompany be first choice central defenders? If that is the case then it would be comparing Lescott to Evans. Generally their first team defence isn't bad, Kompnay and Hart are very good, Richards has the potential to be very good, not sure about the left back though, Clichy or Kolarov, neither brilliant defenders IMO. Their main strength is, as you highlighted in attack. Strong options with the likes of Balotelli, Tevez, Aguero and Dzeko. Even if Tevez leaves, it's not exactly bad but they need to accept that they aren't going to play all the time and it's up to Mancini to provide the balance. Cleverly is not our first team central midfielder. Just because he has started two games in a row. Anderson perhaps, but not Tom just yet. He is in good form, that is why he is playing. If you compare our defence to City's defence, ours is miles better. Our midfield (including wide players) is probably even as a few of City's central midfielders are better than ours but some of our wingers and wide men are better than theirs. Their attacking force on paper is better than ours, but whether they can perform against everyone and at the highest level, we will have to see.
Football isn't played on paper though, and their defence outperformed yours last season. That's all there is too it. Agreed, he looks very good. The fact he's been written off after 6 months is a bit silly.
I agree in part matey, though when you buy in a bunch of players like that, there's the possibility of plenty of chaff, chaff can be egos clashes of personalities and just loathing of manchester as much as not playing well or not beng good enough. You of all people should see that average players can add up to more as a team so don't count those out just yet, nor count them as worthy either. I never for a sec thought they would be at uniteds level of consistency, surely you need aconsistent squad for that and a manager there for a bit of time too but you can only be looking forward to seeing Aguero playing this season, possibly with a content Tevez n co, if they can get it down they have enough to beat most teams most days and ye won the league last year not even doing just that.
Abro will ask about a player, how much, the other club does a bit of smiling and handrubbing and there you go, 30m for a 30 year old donkey
What has your drivel got to do with anything I just said? I said United were never handed big amounts of cash for doing nothing, they earned it by staying at the top, winning leagues and cups. They certainly never won the lottery like the City fan seems to suggest. I never once condoned City for spending that money. I am just arguing against the fact United were handed the money on a silver plate.
We were lead to believe he was a goal scoring machine (mostly by his many fans on facebook) so we had high hopes unfortunately it didn't materialize and he didn't impress in the majority of games he played, he admitted himself he struggled with the speed and physical side of the game here, he seems to have come on in leaps and bounds in the last couple of games and i hope it continues he seems a decent lad not a limelight hogging twat like some PL players we could mention.
As I think was said, Toure is more likely to be the partner for Kompany at City if fit. And Phil Jones or Chris Smalling would replace Vidic ahead of Evans right now - the only reason Smalling wasn't in at CB against Spurs was that he was at right back. And regardless of what you think about the individual qualities of the players, with three first choice defenders out our defence was still good enough to keep a clean sheet against another of the top six. Silva seems to play more in the centre for City, almost in the role Rooney plays for Utd or Suarez for Liverpool. That type of player is often hard to replace - Liverpool's reliance on Suarez has already been discussed on your board, and the importance of Rooney to Utd has been widely acknowledged, even when he was off form. City may not be as dependent on him now Aguero has arrived, but they still don't seem to have another player who can play quite like he does, so if he's out or off form for a while that will give them a big test. That's my point - those five players I mentioned are arguably better than Utd's comparable five backup players (Berbatov, Cleverly, Fletcher, Evans and Jones). And yet when Utd call on those players they tend to do a job and we get the result, whereas when City call on theirs they don't. That's the problem all title winning managers have to face - how to get a result when players and missing and things are against you is much more important than how to get a result when all your players are firing and everything is going your way. Having enough to beat most teams most days isn't enough to win the league. After all, City won 21 out of 38 games last year, so they did beat most teams most days. But you also have to have that little bit extra to beat teams when it isn't your day, like Utd did against West Brom, Blackpool and West Ham last year. You can moan all you like about the decisions we got in those games when trailing by a goal or two, but the fact is that when we got those opportunities we took them and turned zero points into three points. That's what makes the difference in the league.
yeah but I know what you are but what am I I think that if city finished 16th last season, you'd care a whole let less.
wtf does that mean? you mean the best squad of players in terms of ablity/quality? then no. 1.Barcelona 2.Real madrid 3.Then Man sh..itty
Phil Jones was on the bench against West Brom when Vidic came off and it was Evans who came on, not Jones, so I'd have to disagree with that. Maybe Toure is Mancini's first choice centre back, but the fact is Lescott has proven a good premier league centre half with his performances for Everton and recent performances with City. He's ahead of Jones, Smalling and Evans at the moment, probably not for long in Jones' and Smalling's case, but he is at this moment in time. I didn't say anything about Man Utd's defensive qualities, I was merely saying City's third choice defender, Toure or Lescott, is better than Man Utds one in my opinion, which is why I disagree with your comment that they have no depth or cover for Kompany at centre half. So surely the argument could be made, that City are actually stronger than Liverpool and Man Utd are in that particular area in terms of depth? Silva isn't as good as Suarez and Rooney in my opinion, but they've got much better depth than us in that position as Nasri is better than anything any of our teams have in that position as back up for those players.
