Seems just when we show good signs of recovering our early season form, City head off in the opposite direction. It's incredible that such a talented group of players can turn into such a mediocre team. Something is seriously wrong at City, and not necessarily just the Manager. My suspicions are that player jealousy caused by salary differences and egos, is playing as big a part as poor management, which on the face of it is also a serious problem. Pellegrini has not been able to keep City at the level of expectation of the fans or the rivals of his team, and almost certainly not the owners.They are used to their money getting them anything on earth they desire. Even if they recover form, top 4 is the best they can expect now. That will certainly mean a new man in charge next season, and I suspect, a lot of their players wanting to leave. It's a sharp contrast for us, who were ourselves at the top of the " buy big and win " tree for some time. We are a much better run Club now, and though still able to make big purchases, seem to have understood there is a need to balance the books more efficiently, and create a real team spirit.
City have aged, and although they have continued to spend on players they have not bought adequate replacements for the important ones.
City have a significant problem looming re their squad. It's one of the oldest in the league and they are struggling to make the home grown quota and will continue to do so if they lose the likes of Milner, Lampard and Richards etc in the summer. With FFP increasingly taking a hold, they wont be able to just spend, spend, spend either. Next season will be interesting for them.
You look at Mangala and Fernandinho, two 30M plus purchases that never really improved their team and had guaranteed starting positions. Same for Jovetic whilst the jury will be out on Bony for now. And City are not really selling for big money. Whereas other teams have bought players that step right into their teams (Fabregas, Costa, Willian, Matic, Ozil, Sanchez etc) Also City's cheap signings like Demichelis and Sagna have not done anything at all whilst the likes of Zabaleta, Clichy, Kompany, Dzeko, Nasri and Toure have started their decline due to age. Only players that can hold their heads high for them this year are Aguero, Silva, Milner and Hart.
you're right cp. something is really wrong there at city... im genuinely scratching my head whilst trying to remember the last time they made a good signing..
Their key players are still Hart, Kompany, Silva, Aguero and Toure. All players who have been there a while now. They need a freshen up and more consistency from their next group of players like Nasri and Navas. Did enjoy Navas saying we're going to slip up at some point.....a mere few hours before they lose at Palace!
When did they last make a big money signing who's been worth the money? A long time ago. Some awful buys in that squad. Jovetic, Navas, Mangala ( so far), Fernandinho, Sagna, Kolarov, Clichy, Demichelis, Negredo, Bony (so far). Since they had all the money available for every good player they've signed, they've probably brought in three poor ones.
He's the one I just don't get. At ALL! they have aguero there 17 goals, they HAD negredo and shipped him out, even though he was decent last year. they have deko who they dont play, because they dont supply him how he likes it. so why not sign some one who can supply your strikers, instead of stockpiling them in order of ever decreasing quality ? ?
There seems to be a lack of direction George, no obvious link between the players they sign. It's as if they just grabbed every good player they could and tried to turn them into a team. Right now they look like a couple of old gypsies tied together with a lump of rope !! That said they'll probably now go and wallop Utd !!!
We did similar in fairness to them. SWP, Torres, Sheva, Crespo, One thing I will say about City, is that they often play best against the bigger sides (domestically not in Europe!), so I wouldn't be surprised if they get a result v United. Form would suggest otherwise but I think it'll be a draw myself. Which would be the perfect result for us. In fact, I would be very happy with 3 draws this weekend for the games involving the top 4
Exactly, I would be surprised if City fail to thrash Manures!! Where is this coming from? All of a sudden Manures are world beaters? Virtually we have 12pts lead (not due to game in hand) over City, Goons & Manures (this is still my 2nd to 4th), thanks to the following fixtures and possible results. Manures vs City (City win) Goons vs US (We Win or Draw) Us vs Manures (We win) Manures vs Goons (Manures win)
That's a bit harsh. Granted this lot aren't doing to well (i actually think a lot of it stems from Pellegrini being stupid playing a midfield of 2 involving toure and fernandino, and when you do that its basically a midfield of 1 as Toure has become such a lazy ****) but a lot of these guys (demichelis, Negredo, Fernandino and Kolarov) were key to their title run last year and i thought were performing very well.
Demichelis was crap, he's actually been a bit better this year but was an absolute liability last year hence why they spent big on Mangala. Negredo was very good though, can't see why they let him go at all. Fernandinho did a job, a bit like Ramires for us. Like you say, they played their part as most players do in a title winning side. I think the point is, is that they haven't brought in a really top player for a while and continue to rely on the same small group. Their best players are still the ones that were the best players 3-4 years ago. Where as us for example probably only have Terry and Ivan (and Hazard to a lesser extent). Courtois, Matic, Fabregas, Costa have all joined in the last 15 months. Their squad needs freshening up IMO.
100% agree they need to freshen up their squad. I think fernandino is pretty good (been off the boil a bit recently) but think thats a bit harsh when you're stuck with Pellegrinis gung ho tactics and Toure and Silva who are hardly the best defensively/work wise. I've seen Matic struggle a bit (he's normally a man mountain though) especially in the big games when trying to cover too much ground because again Fabregas is not exactly the greatest worker.
City's main trouble last year was FFP I think. They weren't able to spend what they could in previous seasons through fear of incurring penalties from UEFA. They still dont draw in the same water as we do, as we have been at the top of the English game for a lot longer and have been doing well (a lot of the time ) in the CL for over a decade now. They are in a very precarious position financially speaking. Our youth production line, worldwide fanbase and sponsorship deals far outweigh City's and they just aint drawing in the moolah outside of their home town like we are able to do. FFP has really hit them hard, otherwise I think we would have seen a lot more newer faces at City last summer.
Scratch most of that and tell the truth, you've been able to spend your arses off and take losses year after year because of no FFP and RA's money pit. City's title haul from their first few money seasons is the same as yours was, 2. Unlike Chelsea, City had to deal with FFP whereas Chelsea did not and could continue the investment without fear of sanction. Yes, after all that, then FFP comes in and yeah, you're gonna be in a good position after being allowed to incur big losses in your project to grow the club. The only difference here is City have had to deal with FFP before the investment starts to pay off, and Chelsea hadn't.
Not that I am saying Chelsea did anything wrong, I am not in the "oh you bought the league" camp and never was, I believe investment should be allowed, football is a business after all. All I mean is, if City had not to have to deal with FFP like Chelsea didn't then City would be more competitive this season because they would have signed players in the summer.
Thats pretty much what I said. We had been at the top of the game for longer than they had before FFP kicked in, and were able to build a bigger fanbase and revenue stream on the back of that, before the sanctions came in
Don't think you'll find anyone disputing we were fortunate compared to City in that we got in ahead of FFP. Bo was just explaining why they are currently suffering a bit. Had Roman invested in us 10 years later no doubt we'd be in a similar boat. All FFP will do is probably put off investment in middle tier clubs now. You only have to see how quickly Monaco are back peddling.
And they did a hell of a job at Chelsea too. It's odd reconciling pre RA Chelsea with current Chelsea, two completely different clubs. An estimated 500m fans? mind you the criteria for these estimations are vague at best, like United fans, anyone who said they liked to watch united was counted as a supporter even if United were not the club the gave their alliegence to, but still, it was a well run project.
