He was great and in my mind the greatest City player of the post takeover/pre-Pep generation.
Bit like I argued severally. He should not have been re-signed..
Sometimes, you have to thank your aging stats and wish them well. He should have been playing at West Ham like Zab and Joe...
I so saw this coming... :(
Dax,
agreed we should have replaced him sooner but imo keeping him was more of the result of poor decisions than a preferred option.
The reason why we still have him in our ranks is because we had players signed but didn't fulfill their early promise. We had J. Garcia, Rodwell, Nando signed in CM positions and if anyone of them happened to be a hybrid of prime Makalele and prime Barry, we would have no need to now convert Yaya to playing a holding role.
Add the fact that we do not have a limitless budget as some opposition fans would have you believe. The effect of failed big money signings is far reaching in that it affects our ability to plan well for other positions that are going to be due for refilling tomorrow but can be managed today. This has been our situation, so if for example Mangala worked out maybe we would have prioritised signing a world class CM instead, the summer we signed Stones (Glad we signed him, by the way).
So the real question should be: would we have been stronger or weaker if he wasn't with us, given our current crop of players?Your guess, I say, is as good as mine.
Not knocking Pellers but i trust Guardiola's activity in the market more and so I'm positive that we will soon see the back of him not for the sake of it but for he actual good of the team.