Dani Alves

[Neville Kneville]

I doubt you made them up, you're just jumping to conclusions based on 5 minutes of highlights.

Watch the game back. We were playing well, comfortable, then Zabaleta came, we dropped about 15 yards, Ronaldo tore him to shreds and we conceded 3 goals in 15 minutes.

Look, again it's the wrong thread & I was just making the point re Alves, Real Madrid is no barometer of a player's worthiness.

I have a recording of the game somewhere & was making the point, at the time, I thought we were fucking shite defensively. We were much worse than the highlights..

Real, imo should have been 4, 5, 6 up by half time but finished like wankers. Some of those instances, are there, for you to see, on the video. Top players, missing from a few yards. Others are not on it.

When that happens, imo, it's not 'comfortable' it's dead lucky.

Real had about 20 odd 30 shots & about half on target, as well as the situations they fucked up. eventually, some went in. It should have happened earlier.

imo, Alves, as he is today, would not weaken that defence on that day, which was my point, in replying to someone who was using his difficulties v Real Madrid, last season, as an indication he might struggle now.

It's not a fair situation to judge him imo, you have to look at a bunch of games.

 

[Divino da Guia]

So, i went crazy or some here apparently believe that WALKER can bench Dani Alves????????????
Really? We're gonna pretend that starting the season with Walker instead of Dani Alves in the XI is a safer option?
This is perpostous!

Stop lying to yourself with this "pace of the league" thing.
Don want to hurt the feelings of people here but Walker is an option only if you're desperate, like Barcelona, but not if you can sign a actual top full back.
Walker would not be considered a top full back by the French or the Brazilians, for example, if he were from some of those countries with a history of top RBs/LBs.

Oh, bu bu but Pep maybe will sign him.
I would not be surpised. I'm pretty sure Pep is smart enough to know he needs to sign some "local" players; but City is a GLOBAL club now, and people should realize this fact.

"Oh, Lord, my team will play a huge game tomorrow and i dont know if i'll pick Dani Alves or Walker for the starting XI"...

 

[Marvin]

So, i went crazy or some here apparently believe that WALKER can bench Dani Alves????????????
Really? We're gonna pretend that starting the season with Walker instead of Dani Alves in the XI is a safer option?
This is perpostous!

Stop lying to yourself with this "pace of the league" thing.
Don want to hurt the feelings of people here but Walker is an option only if you're desperate, like Barcelona, but not if you can sign a actual top full back.
Walker would not be considered a top full back by the French or the Brazilians, for example, if he were from some of those countries with a history of top RBs/LBs.

Oh, bu bu but Pep maybe will sign him.
I would not be surpised. I'm pretty sure Pep is smart enough to know he needs to sign some "local" players; but City is a GLOBAL club now, and people should realize this fact.

"Oh, Lord, my team will play a huge game tomorrow and i dont know if i'll pick Dani Alves or Walker for the starting XI"...

Yes I would go for Alves tomorrow, but we have to take it season by season with him. Could be his last. Walker is better than you think.

The pace of the Premier league is real. Juve, Real Madrid, Barcelona, Bayern have easy fixtures most weeks. In the Premier league they are all Cup Finals. The quality of the top clubs is way below Real madrid, bayern etc, but the clubs who are mid-table all have top players. Stoke who are one of the smallest clubs in the Premier League have some really top players. They are nearly all like that.

teams like WBA, Everton, Leicester etc fight like mad to stay in the Premier league and those games are tougher than Champions League games when top seed plays bottom seed.

 

[Jalfraag]

So, i went crazy or some here apparently believe that WALKER can bench Dani Alves????????????
Really? We're gonna pretend that starting the season with Walker instead of Dani Alves in the XI is a safer option?
This is perpostous!

Stop lying to yourself with this "pace of the league" thing.
Don want to hurt the feelings of people here but Walker is an option only if you're desperate, like Barcelona, but not if you can sign a actual top full back.
Walker would not be considered a top full back by the French or the Brazilians, for example, if he were from some of those countries with a history of top RBs/LBs.

Oh, bu bu but Pep maybe will sign him.
I would not be surpised. I'm pretty sure Pep is smart enough to know he needs to sign some "local" players; but City is a GLOBAL club now, and people should realize this fact.

"Oh, Lord, my team will play a huge game tomorrow and i dont know if i'll pick Dani Alves or Walker for the starting XI"...

The only reason Walker is a target is because we're losing Clichy who is accociation trained.
Unless Alves' form falls off a cliff, no one thinks Walker is better.

 

[pbueno16]

Walker is the best option. What other choice do we have?
Carvajal? Good luck even with a 100m bid.
Azpilicueta? Why would he leave at the beginning of his prime to a rival when he's just won the league for the second time in 3 years?
Bellerin? Not totally convinced he's going to be the top RB, and we'd have to compete with Barca for him.
Clyne? Probably has bought into what Klopp is doing at Liverpool.

Aurier, Sidibe, Semedo and Danilo would be good targets, but we have to keep the English player count with Clichy gone like @Jalfraag mentioned

and yes, the PL is different. What other league plays 3/4 league matches in the span of 2 weeks? Their cup competitions are played more sparingly vs the English cups. AND their FAs don't screw them with match scheduling around CL matches.

 

[LittleEgg]

Walker is the best option. What other choice do we have?
Carvajal? Good luck even with a 100m bid.
Azpilicueta? Why would he leave at the beginning of his prime to a rival when he's just won the league for the second time in 3 years?
Bellerin? Not totally convinced he's going to be the top RB, and we'd have to compete with Barca for him.
Clyne? Probably has bought into what Klopp is doing at Liverpool.

Aurier, Sidibe, Semedo and Danilo would be good targets, but we have to keep the English player count with Clichy gone like @Jalfraag mentioned

and yes, the PL is different. What other league plays 3/4 league matches in the span of 2 weeks? Their cup competitions are played more sparingly vs the English cups. AND their FAs don't screw them with match scheduling around CL matches.

How many homegrown outgoings are there?

I count hart, clichy, kelechi but keep thinking i'm missing someone...

Surely roberts has the potential to take one of the spots in the main squad. How many players are actually classed as homegrown that are likely to be in the city squad next year?

Sterling, Roberts(if he stays), Tosin, Garcia, and...who else am i missing?

 

[pbueno16]

How many homegrown outgoings are there?

I count hart and clichy but keep thinking i'm missing someone...

Surely roberts has the potential to take one of the spots in the main squad, leaving the possibility of moving for semedo or someone slightly better(even if primarily just down to age) than walker.

Keeping Roberts is one reason why I don't want Mbappe because I really want to see if he can earn a spot with us to become an academy success and homegrown talent. My only worry is that signing Sanchez/Mbappe will create a logjam of the front 3 and Roberts may be cut loose because I don't really think he stacks up against Sane and Sterling yet.

You may very well be right that it's only Hart and Clichy, but I'm starting to assume Delph may be sold for some reason (that's just me being paranoid). If that happens, we'd need to sign another CM/DM to backup Fernandinho/Yaya/Fernando and depending on where the replacement's from may need to be english, or we may very well need Walker/Bertrand.

 

[bluesteel]

Walker is the best option. What other choice do we have?
Carvajal? Good luck even with a 100m bid.
Azpilicueta? Why would he leave at the beginning of his prime to a rival when he's just won the league for the second time in 3 years?
Bellerin? Not totally convinced he's going to be the top RB, and we'd have to compete with Barca for him.
Clyne? Probably has bought into what Klopp is doing at Liverpool.

Aurier, Sidibe, Semedo and Danilo would be good targets, but we have to keep the English player count with Clichy gone like @Jalfraag mentioned

and yes, the PL is different. What other league plays 3/4 league matches in the span of 2 weeks? Their cup competitions are played more sparingly vs the English cups. AND their FAs don't screw them with match scheduling around CL matches.

Walker is not the best option, this is the way I see it...

5 have left from last years squad.

Willy = Ederson
Sagna = Alaves (potentially)
Navas = B.Silva
Zaba = ???
Clichy = ???

So far they all look like improvements to me.

In regards to each of the full back positions we are likely to replace, it appears we are going to need to buy home grown to fill the quota? Unless, we ship Bravo out and either keep Hart as no.2 (unlikely) or bring in another homegrown keeper. Then we're free to not get ripped off by Spurs for a slightly better than average full back (as far as top 8 teams in CL are concerned). There are no good enough home grown full backs available, if we keep Bravo as no.2 we will have to buy Walker/Bertrand, I'd prefer Bertrand but it really doesn't make sense to go down that route, I would try persuading Hart to stay for FA Cup, League Cup games and home league games against the bottom 8 teams... If that fails a home grown no.2 would be preferable to Walker/Bertrand as first choice.

 

[bluesteel]

Keeping Roberts is one reason why I don't want Mbappe because I really want to see if he can earn a spot with us to become an academy success and homegrown talent. My only worry is that signing Sanchez/Mbappe will create a logjam of the front 3 and Roberts may be cut loose because I don't really think he stacks up against Sane and Sterling yet.

You may very well be right that it's only Hart and Clichy, but I'm starting to assume Delph may be sold for some reason (that's just me being paranoid). If that happens, we'd need to sign another CM/DM to backup Fernandinho/Yaya/Fernando and depending on where the replacement's from may need to be english, or we may very well need Walker/Bertrand.

Shancez in and Nolito out would be nice. Roberts is just a player we can register for free, I'd like to see Pep take a closer look and decide on August 31st.

 

[Cityfan]

You may very well be right that it's only Hart and Clichy, but I'm starting to assume Delph may be sold for some reason (that's just me being paranoid). If that happens, we'd need to sign another CM/DM to backup Fernandinho/Yaya/Fernando and depending on where the replacement's from may need to be english, or we may very well need Walker/Bertrand.

Personally I'm assuming Delph and Fernanado are being sold , there have been rumours of both going, neither played much and we need space in the squad.
There don't seem to be too many rumours of replacements I think Pep may be happy with Yaya Fern and Gundogan.