Who joins us in January?

RayCTID said:
Salah and De Bruyne joined Chelsea mid season but both failed to make a mark at Chelsea. The situation we have is we expect players to hit the ground running which is near enough impossible at this stage of the season. Any player worth his salt would bide their time.
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And some players make a mark straight away (Van Dijk/Laporte/Fernandes/Dias). No hard and fast rule to it. Also different with players who are already in and know the league…

To do nothing would be suicidal…
 
RayCTID said:
A bit of an stretch to expect a League 1 DM to really improve us. Kalvin was meant to be the one who could help usbut he really struggled to make a mark at City.
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Compared to no one yes they would. We cannot go on any longer without one
 
Psychedelic Casual said:
We’ve known our problems and who we need since January 2023 in the FA Cup game against Arsenal when Lewis played right back and didn’t look great defensively either through lack of defensive quality as a player, being too young or a mixture of both. Then with Walker starting to be inconsistent as he’s aged and him being out of the team a fair bit in the treble run-in that season (I think he recognised this as well which is why he wanted to leave).

Then from September 2023 when Rodri got sent off and we lost every game without him when De Bruyne was also missing through injury. They’re our best two players and we need much better quality players to step in when they’re not there. Remember when we had these midfield options: Fernandinho Rodri Gündoğan DSilva BSilva DeBruyne Foden mostly all in their prime or, in the case with the over30s at that time, all playing as well with few injury worries as they were in their prime?! Thats the greatest collection of midfielders, probably of all-time in the sport.

And not only not learning from that but then putting the same pressure on another area of the pitch with Álvarez and Delap leaving and not signing a replacement, leaving us with one sole striker in the entire squad.

Plus when you look at the low quality - to what’s really required at the very top level - of some of the players we have signed over the last few years…

Thankfully, we’ve got more right than we’ve got wrong over the years since the takeover. But fuck me, this has been a poor last few years in strategy and quality.

Whether that’s due to lack of operating profit and worrying about FFP+PSR, whether that’s worrying about what might come in terms of a fine from the PL115/130 case, or whether the PL115/130 case is stopping players from wanting to sign for us while that’s hanging over our head (I wouldn’t go and change jobs to a company that had charges hanging over them)… whatever might be the cause, I do think the time is right for Begiristain to be leaving.
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Re that last para mate, surely we’ve become Exit Clause FC to allow for any player/agent concerns over the outcome of the case. I would have thought that would be a fairly easy workaround for that potential issue.
 
Psychedelic Casual said:
We’ve known our problems and who we need since January 2023 in the FA Cup game against Arsenal when Lewis played right back and didn’t look great defensively either through lack of defensive quality as a player, being too young or a mixture of both. Then with Walker starting to be inconsistent as he’s aged and him being out of the team a fair bit in the treble run-in that season (I think he recognised this as well which is why he wanted to leave).

Then from September 2023 when Rodri got sent off and we lost every game without him when De Bruyne was also missing through injury. They’re our best two players and we need much better quality players to step in when they’re not there. Remember when we had these midfield options: Fernandinho Rodri Gündoğan DSilva BSilva DeBruyne Foden mostly all in their prime or, in the case with the over30s at that time, all playing as well with few injury worries as they were in their prime?! Thats the greatest collection of midfielders, probably of all-time in the sport.

And not only not learning from that but then putting the same pressure on another area of the pitch with Álvarez and Delap leaving and not signing a replacement, leaving us with one sole striker in the entire squad.

Plus when you look at the low quality - to what’s really required at the very top level - of some of the players we have signed over the last few years…

Thankfully, we’ve got more right than we’ve got wrong over the years since the takeover. But fuck me, this has been a poor last few years in strategy and quality.

Whether that’s due to lack of operating profit and worrying about FFP+PSR, whether that’s worrying about what might come in terms of a fine from the PL115/130 case, or whether the PL115/130 case is stopping players from wanting to sign for us while that’s hanging over our head (I wouldn’t go and change jobs to a company that had charges hanging over them)… whatever might be the cause, I do think the time is right for Begiristain to be leaving.
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Great post. I don't know how anyone can disagree with your points. How we have gone from being so well run over years and years, to totally losing the plot over the last 2 years would be great to understand.

The spectre of the charges hanging over us may well have had an impact you would suspect.
 
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Bluearmy said:
And some players make a mark straight away (Van Dijk/Laporte/Fernandes/Dias). No hard and fast rule to it. Also different with players who are already in and know the league…

To do nothing would be suicidal…
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Plenty of cover to make the tranisition into the Premier League a lot smoother and with van Dijk it didn't make much difference to their league standing or winning anything that season and similar to Laporte he was meant to be signed in the previous summer.
 
I keep reading posts about no value in the January window, but our worst deals were conducted during previous Summer windows when we had plenty of time to scout and negotiate.

We're currently drifting with ageing legends and recurring injuries so unless the club are comfortable with biding their time and safe in the knowledge that a season without European football wouldn't be too much of a problem (quite possible) then we need a huge injection of pace and energy.

Even a couple of pacy full/wing backs from the Championship would improve us.
 
When Pep said in his last interview it's going to be hard to sign players in the winter window i feared he was saying that we don't have many options and don't really want to sign panic signings, Options could be loans to patch up the holes for now, We Need goals in the team and holding midfield players.

I was saying Rodri should not be the reason why we have dipped, But when you think about that role it opens up Foden and Silva and KDB to push forward and become a goal-threat, Also the defence needs Rodri to give them room to spread

One man doesn't make a team, Well in City's case it's bloody does because of the reasons why others are struggling and not scoring
 
The issues in midseason is targetting the right quality to make an instantious impact. Thin on the ground unless you are willing to actually pay over the odds in securing them.
 
The club have known for 3 months that we've got a huge problem in hold and central midfield. If you've got to overpay - do it - both in wages and transfer fee. If 2 new players aren't in by the time the Brentford game rolls around I'm not sure wtf those in recruitment at City are playing at.

Deals can be done - Guimaraes for example was added by Newcastle in the Jan window, as was Trippier as was Van Dijk.

This needs sorting and asap and it's been known for a long time.
 
chesterbells said:
Re that last para mate, surely we’ve become Exit Clause FC to allow for any player/agent concerns over the outcome of the case. I would have thought that would be a fairly easy workaround for that potential issue.
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Even with those clauses. I can see why many wouldn’t want to uproot themselves and, if they have one, their family, with the danger they might have to move elsewhere again soon anyway. I can see why they’d not bother and either stay-put or sign elsewhere.

I think this has really fucked us, and if we are found innocent of the charges, I’d be all over compensation for reputational damage and doubt hangning over the club creating situational aversion to signing for us.
 
Psychedelic Casual said:
Even with those clauses. I can see why many wouldn’t want to uproot themselves and, if they have one, their family, with the danger they might have to move elsewhere again soon anyway. I can see why they’d not bother and either stay-put or sign elsewhere.

I think this has really fucked us, and if we are found innocent of the charges, I’d be all over compensation for reputational damage and doubt hangning over the club creating situational aversion to signing for us.
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Maybe, maybe. But then the life of a footballer is pretty itinerant anyway; most of them follow the money wherever it takes them, often staying for short spells, and as we and our manager (until perhaps our recent form blip) are a pretty attractive prospect otherwise, I’m not sure it will always be a deal-breaker as much as it might have been.

This next month could tell us a lot either way.
 
Lee the Blue said:
The club have known for 3 months that we've got a huge problem in hold and central midfield. If you've got to overpay - do it - both in wages and transfer fee. If 2 new players aren't in by the time the Brentford game rolls around I'm not sure wtf those in recruitment at City are playing at.

Deals can be done - Guimaraes for example was added by Newcastle in the Jan window, as was Trippier as was Van Dijk.

This needs sorting and asap and it's been known for a long time.
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This summer euro's Rodri got injured and City still didn't sign somebody else to play in his role.
City has gambled for 3 seasons with Rodri and waved the warning signs away, Maybe City and Pep should have signed a hold midfielder or at least work with somebody from the youth into that role, But to play Gundogan and Kovacic knowing both are not holding midfield players is daft.

This season can not end quick enough for me and lets rebuild and get our title back
 
I think Pep has made it perfectly clear to those who need to listen with his public comments, that players need to be bought.
Not only is our squad under strength, but players just aren’t fit enough to play our usual game.
Walker has dropped off a cliff, Stones, Ake, Akanji, Dias, KDB, Foden, are either struggling for fitness or coming back from injury, that’s even before we talk about the Rodri sized hole in the team, he was the keystone holding everything together.
We need replacements for Walker & Stones, & cover for Rodri.
We’ve got the £ we need CL football next season, so whatever it takes, because whoever is in charge of player recruitment has fucked up.
 
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