Manchester City 19/20 season

BobbyManc

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Pep doesn’t like the “twin pivots” formation so I can only see them playing together if Dinho is started at CB or on the very rare occasion that he wants to keep things tight (eg Anfield or NWHL last season).
True, and to be honest Gundogan and Rodri would make more sense if Pep did ever decide to go for two CMs.
 

Mogget

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white text.

It’s the type of drivel that people on here say about United all the time.
United are run properly though. They may be very rich but it doesn't make sense for them to waste 40m, like in that example you used. City can just write it off so it literally doesn't matter if he'd cost them 40m or 400m.
 

BobbyManc

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United are run properly though. They may be very rich but it doesn't make sense for them to waste 40m, like in that example you used. City can just write it off so it literally doesn't matter if he'd cost them 40m or 400m.
That explains all the record signings we've made for £400m then. It literally doesn't matter to us if someone costs £400m, we can sign them with no repercussions. I can't wait for us to sign Mbappe, Messi, Neymar and Koulibaly this summer.
 

Hughie77

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That explains all the record signings we've made for £400m then. It literally doesn't matter to us if someone costs £400m, we can sign them with no repercussions. I can't wait for us to sign Mbappe, Messi, Neymar and Koulibaly this summer.
Bloody he'll can sign anyone for any money? No wonder there being investigated for Finacial fair play rules.

No repercussions ? It's already happening. Points deduction out of Europe that be the icing on the cake.
All the players who have gone there for the overseas cash bungs be running to the airport. No repercussions what a joke!
 

Mogget

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That explains all the record signings we've made for £400m then. It literally doesn't matter to us if someone costs £400m, we can sign them with no repercussions. I can't wait for us to sign Mbappe, Messi, Neymar and Koulibaly this summer.
I'm not saying you have, I'm saying you can. And am I wrong? If your owners really wanted to I'm sure they'd find a way to sign Mbappe. They have the funds to do so and they'd find a way around FFP.
 

Mb194dc

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Best team last year, add Rodri, Foden has also improved massively, Mendy should be fit and possibly sorted attitude out.

De Bruyne was knackered last year by world cup and injured most of the season. Will be fresh and probably fully fit again this year.

Jesus looking back in form judging by Brazil game yesterday at least.

City should get 100 points, at least again, need top that to win the league...
 

Treble

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Best team last year, add Rodri, Foden has also improved massively, Mendy should be fit and possibly sorted attitude out.

De Bruyne was knackered last year by world cup and injured most of the season. Will be fresh and probably fully fit again this year.

Jesus looking back in form judging by Brazil game yesterday at least.

City should get 100 points, at least again, need top that to win the league...
On the other hand, Kompany left, Silva and Fernandinho are getting old, Aguero as well. Think City will do quite well but the transition to a future without tose players might not be entirely unproblematic.
 

NoLogo

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Two top class CM's have joined English clubs in the last 24 hours and we didnt get either despite losing Herrera.
It's laughable really. We needed to strengthen the midfield even with Herrera still at the club. Woody and Ole better pull something better than Longstaff out of their hat or else we gonna fight with Wolves for 6th place next season.
 

BobbyManc

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Bloody he'll can sign anyone for any money? No wonder there being investigated for Finacial fair play rules.

No repercussions ? It's already happening. Points deduction out of Europe that be the icing on the cake.
All the players who have gone there for the overseas cash bungs be running to the airport. No repercussions what a joke!
The only joke is your inability to comprehend sarcasm.

I'm not saying you have, I'm saying you can. And am I wrong? If your owners really wanted to I'm sure they'd find a way to sign Mbappe. They have the funds to do so and they'd find a way around FFP.
Yes. Obviously.
 

Red Keane

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On the other hand, Kompany left, Silva and Fernandinho are getting old, Aguero as well. Think City will do quite well but the transition to a future without tose players might not be entirely unproblematic.
Surely they have sorted out that potential problem by getting Rodri? Likewise with D.Silva one would think they have already got his sucessors at the club in the form of Foden & B.Silva (and I would not be surprised they end up getting B.Fernandes this season or next).

Rather their bigger problems lie with replacing both Kompany (as a defender & captain, especially the latter since none of their current players have the leadership qualities to wear the armband) & Aguero (surprised they have not been linked to Dybala more than they have) as well as keeping Pep at the club and dealing with UEFA over FFP.

How they address those 4 areas will end up deciding how much success they have in the long-run.
 

Treble

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Surely they have sorted out that potential problem by getting Rodri? Likewise with D.Silva one would think they have already got his sucessors at the club in the form of Foden & B.Silva (and I would not be surprised they end up getting B.Fernandes this season or next).

Rather their bigger problems lie with replacing both Kompany (as a defender & captain, especially the latter since none of their current players have the leadership qualities to wear the armband) & Aguero (surprised they have not been linked to Dybala more than they have) as well as keeping Pep at the club and dealing with UEFA over FFP.

How they address those 4 areas will end up deciding how much success they have in the long-run.
Sure, they already have signed players who can succeed the older stars. But whether they will be as good as Silva, Aguero, Kompany and Fernandinho is far from certain. They might surpass them or fail, only time can tell.
 

Foxtrot

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Fully expecting them to retain the title again.
Nah you will win the title next season. In fact, I would even have a sizeable bet on you to win the title.
Ps: Every team I bet loses. Wish me luck.
 

wr8_utd

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It's going to be yet another season of praying for City to keep winning games so Liverpool don't win the title.
 

BobbyManc

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Ohhhh hit a nerve! Worried . Be even more when saint pep buggers off,
Well I guarantee when Pep does leave we won't make a worse job of replacing him than you did when Ferguson left. Nine years later and you've still yet to make one good appointment.
 

Gentleman Jim

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Ohhhh hit a nerve! Worried . Be even more when saint pep buggers off,
Crapping ourselves.

Pep will probably leave in about 2 years time but the rest of the backroom team will likely remain. There will be an appointment of a Manager who plays the Guardiola way with most of the same players who are storming the league at the moment. Don't forget that we won quite a few bits of silverware recently before Pep arrived.

If by some chance it turns to shit most City fans will say we've had a great ride and roll with the punches
 

ExecutionerWasp001

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Well I guarantee when Pep does leave we won't make a worse job of replacing him than you did when Ferguson left. Nine years later and you've still yet to make one good appointment.
Has it really been 9 years since SAF retired. Was sure it was 2013 when we took our title back & he went out as the most successful manager in the history of the British game. Ah well you know best.
 

Gentleman Jim

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Has it really been 9 years since SAF retired. Was sure it was 2013 when we took our title back & he went out as the most successful manager in the history of the British game. Ah well you know best.
When Pep goes City will be a team stacked with class players with many years of peak level football left in them unlike the ragbag of a squad Ferguson left behind.
Your title winners of 2012/13 was the epitome of a one man team (I'm excluding the GK).
You know full well that Pep won't be around long enough to take Alex's numbers away from him so you can make boasts that will never be disproven.

Both men were/are geniuses but their careers took different paths and comparisons to determine who was the greater of these two superb Managers can only be in the eye of the beholder.
 

ExecutionerWasp001

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When Pep goes City will be a team stacked with class players with many years of peak level football left in them unlike the ragbag of a squad Ferguson left behind.
Your title winners of 2012/13 was the epitome of a one man team (I'm excluding the GK).
You know full well that Pep won't be around long enough to take Alex's numbers away from him so you can make boasts that will never be disproven.

Both men were/are geniuses but their careers took different paths and comparisons to determine who was the greater of these two superb Managers can only be in the eye of the beholder.
Don't get salty now. SAF rebuilt Utd numerous times & was the biggest spender in 1 of his 20 PL seasons. He did all this without having to take a sabbatical every few years. The fact that he decided to call it a day after nearly 3 decades of managing 1 of the worlds biggest clubs in no way denigrates his achievements.
 

Lentwood

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Why are City signing players after winning the league? Surely they should follow the blueprint for success defined by SAF and the Glazers, whereby you allow all of your best players to leave/retire, before throwing money at players seemingly at random in a bull market whilst changing managers like socks?

Note: There are still Utd fans who defend the lack of spending between 2005-2011(ish) claiming "we didn't need to spend because we were already good"
 

FootballHQ

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It's going to be yet another season of praying for City to keep winning games so Liverpool don't win the title.
Liverpool will be 10 points off Man. City this season imo. People underestimate what a huge effort they made to push Man. City to the last game with 97 points.

Don't forget Salah and Mane are playing in competition that will finish a week later than Copa America and they also played World cup and then gruelling season. They will be knackered and Liverpool don't have the depth upfront Man. City do (although Origi can obviously score crucial goals).

Think Liverpool will drop points early on and Man. City will disappear into the distance pretty early.

The real chaos will be 3rd-7th.
 

wr8_utd

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Liverpool will be 10 points off Man. City this season imo. People underestimate what a huge effort they made to push Man. City to the last game with 97 points.

Don't forget Salah and Mane are playing in competition that will finish a week later than Copa America and they also played World cup and then gruelling season. They will be knackered and Liverpool don't have the depth upfront Man. City do (although Origi can obviously score crucial goals).

Think Liverpool will drop points early on and Man. City will disappear into the distance pretty early.

The real chaos will be 3rd-7th.
I think City have a really difficult run from mid Nov to mid December where they face Liverpool (A), Chelsea (H), Newcastle (A), Burnley (A), United (H) and Arsenal (A) back to back. Even if they do manage to pull away a bit at the start, they're going to pulled right back into the race at the end of these fixtures. I'm not sure if City will be able to do the 90 point season for a third year running.
 

Jack - City Fan

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Rodri confirmed. (Sorry if im late to the party) Honestly haven’t seen a minute of football from him but the general consensus seems to be he’s a good pick up. Glad we’ve not had another window of standing still. Would love to see us pick up a leader of a centreback to replace vinnie but sadly players like that don’t grow on trees.
 

Gentleman Jim

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Don't get salty now. SAF rebuilt Utd numerous times & was the biggest spender in 1 of his 20 PL seasons. He did all this without having to take a sabbatical every few years. The fact that he decided to call it a day after nearly 3 decades of managing 1 of the worlds biggest clubs in no way denigrates his achievements.
You’re right.
Pep once took a sabbatical when things behind the scenes at Barca led to him not enjoying the job anymore. What a weakling, eh?
Ferguson cut his managerial teeth in relatively low pressure situations where his triumphs and mistakes were not held up to such close scrutiny.
Young Managers (even multiple trophy winners) sometimes need a change of scenery to advance their skillset. Pep travelled to New York, learned English, consulted with other great coaches and players in and out of football and returned in a different country with a decent command of yet another language (German) ready to manage another top club.
The difference between you and me is that I have no problem in acknowledging the Genius of Ferguson. I don’t have to put an asterisk after his achievements (although I could in some cases) as that would be somewhat disingenuous. I have yet to see you (in all your many guises) praise Pep or any other of the City staff for anything without a sour postscript. Perhaps you can point to an example of where you have done so and prove me wrong?
In his way Ferguson was a better Manager than Guardiola is but Pep has some talents that outrank his.
Suffice to say that they are both geniuses but they had/have flaws and leave it at that.
 

Gentleman Jim

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I think City have a really difficult run from mid Nov to mid December where they face Liverpool (A), Chelsea (H), Newcastle (A), Burnley (A), United (H) and Arsenal (A) back to back. Even if they do manage to pull away a bit at the start, they're going to pulled right back into the race at the end of these fixtures. I'm not sure if City will be able to do the 90 point season for a third year running.
To be fair, City had a couple of nightmare runs this season just gone and overcame them well. The CL exit was the downside of the this.
The points that City dropped were largely in fixtures that they could reasonably be expected to win.
Of course that was then and this is now. The new season could bring many surprises than none of us could envisage at the start of the season.
 

Hawks2008

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Two top class CM's have joined English clubs in the last 24 hours and we didnt get either despite losing Herrera.
Pep and Pochettino are fools signing foreigners from farmer leagues, didn't they know that for only 20m they get a hungry passionate homegrown premier league proven lad who is literally Carrick!! More proof that Pep is bald.
 

Treble

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https://www.skysports.com/football/...rofile-makes-premier-league-domination-likely

When Pep Guardiola arrived, for all the funding available, he inherited a tricky situation. Eleven of the 22 players to start a Premier League for City in the previous season were over 30. A further five were already 28 and another, Kelechi Iheanacho, was still a teenager.
This sort of busts the myth that Guardiola inherited a great squad. It was an average, aging squad with several top players (no wonder it finished with as many points as LVG"s United). He had a massive rebuilding job on his hands.
 

ExecutionerWasp001

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Ferguson cut his managerial teeth in relatively low pressure situations where his triumphs and mistakes were not held up to such close scrutiny.

The difference between you and me is that I have no problem in acknowledging the Genius of Ferguson. I don’t have to put an asterisk after his achievements (although I could in some cases) as that would be somewhat disingenuous.
I never mentioned any comparisons between SAF & Pep in my OP. You brought up the comparisons. I cannot let what you said go unchallenged though.

SAF broke up the Old Firm domination of the Scottish League (one of the few managers in history to do so) He then joined Utd & had the thankless task of waking a sleeping giant & putting an end to Liverpool's domination. To say that he didn't face pressure & scrutiny is absolute rubbish. You then say you don't want to be disingenuous but there are asterisk's against his achievements. This is the definition of being disingenuous. Would appreciate if you could tell me about some of these asterisk's.

I will admit i don't have much love for Pep. I'm not sure what i'm supposed to find so awe inspiring about his story so far though. He took over a Barca side with some of the worlds greatest players coming into their peak. He then went to the biggest club in Germany. He's then gone to City who have financial dominance over a weakening league. I will give Pep credit as in he knows how to pick his jobs. I don't see anything in his record that put's him anywhere close to SAF though.
 

robinamicrowave

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https://www.skysports.com/football/...rofile-makes-premier-league-domination-likely



This sort of busts the myth that Guardiola inherited a great squad. It was an average, aging squad with several top players (no wonder it finished with as many points as LVG"s United). He had a massive rebuilding job on his hands.
It's somewhere between the two, I think. The quality of our squad at the end of the 2015-16 season is always vastly overstated on here because of what Pep's managed to achieve since. We were nowhere near capable of winning the league that year, and certainly not capable of achieving 90+ points. But with that being said, we had still massively underachieved by finishing with just 66 points - the only reason we finished 4th that season was because you just so happened to be playing West Ham in their last ever game at Upton Park. We won the League Cup and reached the Champions League semi-final but that shouldn't excuse our abysmal league form and dry performances after October.

The squad Pep inherited had major problems brought on by two or three years of neglect. Hart was finished after the Euros, Zabaleta was heading over the hill, Kompany was never fit, Otamendi was still a nightmare at this point, Demichelis had stayed a year too long and Mangala was a mess, Clichy was on his way out, Yaya was too, Delph was always injured, the less said about Fernando the better, Navas was broken, Bony was a disaster from day one, and even Sterling was still inconsistent. The only genuinely reliable and quality players we had to give to Pep were Fernandinho, David Silva, De Bruyne, and Aguero. Looking back now, people say everything was "made for Pep" at City, and on a structural level I'd say that's true, but on the pitch? No way. A lot of City fans were actually worried that Pep would be pissed off with the state of the squad he was given.

In the end what Pep did was spend the 16/17 season analysing our strengths (skilful, world class attackers to choose from, a couple of promising youngsters to develop) and weaknesses (ageing and unfit defence, limited midfielders) - he treated it as a "foundation year". That 4-0 defeat at Everton in January 2017 was awful but it changed everything. At the time, that was our fifth league defeat in 21 games. It took a further 73 league games for us to lose another five times (the 3-2 defeat to Palace last season). We've spent a lot of money under Pep but out of all the signings we've made, I'd say only two have been duds: Bravo and Nolito. Every other signing we've made since then has come in and performed to a reasonable standard at the very least. Mendy's not played much but injuries are injuries.

It's one thing to spend money, it's another task entirely to spend it wisely. Of the squad who finished the 2015-16 season, it's highly likely that only five players (Sterling, Aguero, De Bruyne, D. Silva, and Otamendi) will be on the bus to West Ham for the first game of the 2019-20 season. Compare that to United, who are likely to have at least eleven players (De Gea, Jones, Mata, Martial, Smalling, Young, Romero, Shaw, Lingard, Rashford, Pereira) from their 15-16 squad in contention to face Chelsea on the opening day, and you can see why the chasm between us has opened so significantly since we both finished on 66 points and were forced to get rid of Van Gaal and Pellegrini respectively.

EDIT: I see Tuanzebe has signed a new deal! Make that 12.
 
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Scaring Europe to Death

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I never mentioned any comparisons between SAF & Pep in my OP. You brought up the comparisons. I cannot let what you said go unchallenged though.

SAF broke up the Old Firm domination of the Scottish League (one of the few managers in history to do so) He then joined Utd & had the thankless task of waking a sleeping giant & putting an end to Liverpool's domination. To say that he didn't face pressure & scrutiny is absolute rubbish. You then say you don't want to be disingenuous but there are asterisk's against his achievements. This is the definition of being disingenuous. Would appreciate if you could tell me about some of these asterisk's.

I will admit i don't have much love for Pep. I'm not sure what i'm supposed to find so awe inspiring about his story so far though. He took over a Barca side with some of the worlds greatest players coming into their peak. He then went to the biggest club in Germany. He's then gone to City who have financial dominance over a weakening league. I will give Pep credit as in he knows how to pick his jobs. I don't see anything in his record that put's him anywhere close to SAF though.

Not disputing SAF's achievements, but some of your criticisms of Guardiola, are equally applicable.

Bayern Munich might be the biggest club in Germany, but surely United, especially since the inception of the Premier League, and the revamp of the Champions League, are the biggest club in England, (and for years, enjoyed similar advantages)?
I never mentioned any comparisons between SAF & Pep in my OP. You brought up the comparisons. I cannot let what you said go unchallenged though.

SAF broke up the Old Firm domination of the Scottish League (one of the few managers in history to do so) He then joined Utd & had the thankless task of waking a sleeping giant & putting an end to Liverpool's domination. To say that he didn't face pressure & scrutiny is absolute rubbish. You then say you don't want to be disingenuous but there are asterisk's against his achievements. This is the definition of being disingenuous. Would appreciate if you could tell me about some of these asterisk's.

I will admit i don't have much love for Pep. I'm not sure what i'm supposed to find so awe inspiring about his story so far though. He took over a Barca side with some of the worlds greatest players coming into their peak. He then went to the biggest club in Germany. He's then gone to City who have financial dominance over a weakening league. I will give Pep credit as in he knows how to pick his jobs. I don't see anything in his record that put's him anywhere close to SAF though.

I normally find these type of arguments too subjective, especially since the football landscape has changed so much since Ferguson’s arrival in 86.

However, if City have enjoyed so much financial dominance since Guardiola’s arrival, then why were they outbid for Fred (United, and Jorginho (Chelsea)?

I’m not knocking SAF’s achievements, or even suggesting that Guardiola is better, but If you want a better example of financial dominance, then look no further than United’s spending in the summer of 1989, (when attendances were low, and English clubs were banned from Europe), and compare it with the spending of their rivals during the same period.