It's Quiet the £250m return

[chesterbells]

We doing the right thing holding out for €80m! If they don’t cough up the money am happy keeping Savino

Do you think he would have been a difference-maker if he was on the pitch yesterday mate? I’m genuinely not sure he would, and his finishing can be a bit iffy.

 

[Semper aggressus]

Do you think he would have been a difference-maker if he was on the pitch yesterday mate? I’m genuinely not sure he would, and his finishing can be a bit iffy.

A bit iffy? He couldn’t hit a cow’s arse with a fucking double bass never mind a banjo. Bite their hands off for £70m and get someone who immediately improves our starting XI.

We have far too many ineffective players. Doku, Savinho, Bernardo, Lewis, Gonzalez, Gundogan. None of those would get into Arsenal, Liverpool or Chelsea’s best XIs.

 

[Gumzy97]

A bit iffy? He couldn’t hit a cow’s arse with a fucking double bass never mind a banjo. Bite their hands off for £70m and get someone who immediately improves our starting XI.

We have far too many ineffective players. Doku, Savinho, Bernardo, Lewis, Gonzalez, Gundogan. None of those would get into Arsenal, Liverpool or Chelsea’s best XIs.

Too many project players. Not enough world class replacements, we've lost world class or teetering on World class players and replaced them with downgrades and squad players. Especially on the wings, our wingers used to be feared by other teams.

 

[Blue Since 76]

If your going to keep Savinho, play him on the left instead of that take on merchant, his goals and assists at Girona were from the left. His assists for Haaland have been from the left.

Play him on the left, instead of winger that's been here 3 seasons now and looks the exact same as when we first signed him in Doku.

Which is never going to happen under Pep as he wants inverted wingers (although seeing Haaland's headers this season,I can understand why). The decision has to therefore be is Savio (of Doku) any good as an inverted winger?

Happy to squeeze Levy until he cries providing we're not left with a bench warmer when the window shuts.

 

[Merlin's Magic]

We have far too many ineffective players. Doku, Savinho, Bernardo, Lewis, Gonzalez, Gundogan. None of those would get into Arsenal, Liverpool or Chelsea’s best XIs.

Well, none of the listed gets in our best XI too!

 

[Stoned Rose]

bang on. Gibbs white is the definition of average.
Spurs played a narrow 3 in the middle, who were physically strong.
Sarr was class and energetic.

We went with 2 in essence and a flicks and tricks player. We were outnumbered and outmuscled.
I actually thought Rodri and Nico would be decent with Reinders the attacking mid.
Bernardo (who I love) was awful and gave us nowt.

Sarr is a belting player he just didn’t fancy it when Ange was there.

 

[CTIDANDREW]

Going into another season without an established fullback (right back option now) is criminal.
The club have spent countless hundreds of million pounds on the squad of players and were still dealing with this lack of proper fullback issue almost ten years into Pep’s time here.

I think one would be hard pressed to find an example of a “big” club allowing this to happen for what seems like forever now. I understand the club go dealt a bad hand with the Mendy situation, but Walker has been on the decline for 18 months now, we shouldn’t have been caught with our pants down on this.

It makes you want to bang your head into a wall. The club does so much correct on the transfer market, and I don’t understand how this happens. Putting everything in the Livramento bucket looks like a disaster right now.

 

[WRicko]

Hes decent but with khushanov here and Gvardiol coming back seems a pointless waste of money as he is no better

Akanji probably off Ake might be depends on Ryan Ait Nouri injury but could be off to Everton Stones usually injured and out of contract end of season still need home grown especially if Stones or Ake left

 

[Alexia_Ko]

A bit iffy? He couldn’t hit a cow’s arse with a fucking double bass never mind a banjo. Bite their hands off for £70m and get someone who immediately improves our starting XI.

We have far too many ineffective players. Doku, Savinho, Bernardo, Lewis, Gonzalez, Gundogan. None of those would get into Arsenal, Liverpool or Chelsea’s best XIs.

I mean None of those players get into our best XI. We’ve just had injuries

 

[Stoned Rose]

Needs to be a fucking hectic week this.

Get the dead men walking out and get the new lads in.

 

[nmc]

We just don’t really have any itk do we anymore very little leaking out

Romano is now the ITK.

 

[urban genie]

Akanji probably off Ake might be depends on Ryan Ait Nouri injury but could be off to Everton Stones usually injured and out of contract end of season still need home grown especially if Stones or Ake left

Stones or Ake ain't leaving, if fit tstones is a starter and Ake being versital on the left keeps him here.

Right back is the priority not centre back.

 

[bugsyblue]

Going into another season without an established fullback (right back option now) is criminal.
The club have spent countless hundreds of million pounds on the squad of players and were still dealing with this lack of proper fullback issue almost ten years into Pep’s time here.

I think one would be hard pressed to find an example of a “big” club allowing this to happen for what seems like forever now. I understand the club go dealt a bad hand with the Mendy situation, but Walker has been on the decline for 18 months now, we shouldn’t have been caught with our pants down on this.

It makes you want to bang your head into a wall. The club does so much correct on the transfer market, and I don’t understand how this happens. Putting everything in the Livramento bucket looks like a disaster right now.

Personally, once Gvariol is back, I'd put Stones at right back and use him as as an inverted right back. Play Doku right wing to give us width on that side.

 

[WRicko]

Stones or Ake ain't leaving, if fit tstones is a starter and Ake being versital on the left keeps him here.

Right back is the priority not centre back.

I didn’t say he was leaving now but he is out of contract next summer and usually always injured. I didn’t say CB was a priority but I think we can work on more than one thing and if for example we cannot get a RB or even if we can we can still get a CB we have the cash.

I also said there is a chance Ake goes but maybe he doesn’t

 

[nmc]

In and amongst all the negativity yesterday - and it was a horror show - we are at least assured that Pep is committed to the new players and the old guard are being forced out and or marginalised. I’d sooner have a season of bedding in the new players than what we saw last year. We know the rebuild should have started after the treble and been a smooth and managed transition; for whatever reason that didn’t happen and we are now faced with wholesale change -all at once which is naturally going to make us disjointed. Throw in a chaotic pre season and we are going to have days like yesterday’s it’s inevitable - equally we will have days like Wolves. I genuinely think we can forget thoughts about the title this year - it’s a year of major transition but hopefully we will see genuine green shoots of improvement in the second half of the season. We should never be in the position we were in last January where we had a squad well past its sell by date and in need of major immediate surgery -but nothing will be gained debating that we just have to get on with the job of refreshing and rebuilding and that unfortunately isn’t just about buying players - Pep has to build a new winning machine from a squad that simply don’t know each other too well and one that presently lacks stand out performers who can assert themselves consistently. Keep the faith, we will get there but patience will be required.

 

[balotelli's back pocket]

Everyone played shit yesterday. Not a system issue IMO - they created fuck all apart from the two goals, which were gifts. We should have had 2 or 3 in spite of how toothless we looked.

Not personally willing to write off the new signings after one bad game, we've seen what they're capable of already at the CWC and last weekend.

Everyone knows we need a new right back. Everyone knows Lewis isn't the solution there long-term - including Pep and Rico himself. But he's doing a job for the team. No point going on about how much you don't rate him.

Just as it was premature to claim we were going to win it all last weekend, it's premature to say we're not going to be anywhere near this weekend.

We'll see what happens this week. I expect Ederson to leave and Donnarumma to come in. I expect Savinho to leave, but it might come at the death and we may not sign a replacement. I wouldn't rule out a right back either, especially if Akanji goes.

 

[spacecadet]

In and amongst all the negativity yesterday - and it was a horror show - we are at least assured that Pep is committed to the new players and the old guard are being forced out and or marginalised. I’d sooner have a season of bedding in the new players than what we saw last year. We know the rebuild should have started after the treble and been a smooth and managed transition; for whatever reason that didn’t happen and we are now faced with wholesale change -all at once which is naturally going to make us disjointed. Throw in a chaotic pre season and we are going to have days like yesterday’s it’s inevitable - equally we will have days like Wolves. I genuinely think we can forget thoughts about the title this year - it’s a year of major transition but hopefully we will see genuine green shoots of improvement in the second half of the season. We should never be in the position we were in last January where we had a squad well past its sell by date and in need of major immediate surgery -but nothing will be gained debating that we just have to get on with the job of refreshing and rebuilding and that unfortunately isn’t just about buying players - Pep has to build a new winning machine from a squad that simply don’t know each other too well and one that presently lacks stand out performers who can assert themselves consistently. Keep the faith, we will get there but patience will be required.

Good post Blue, but if we are being honest City fans aren't renowned for patience.

 

[Gumzy97]

Major problem, defence was horrible last season. We haven't done anything to change that. Same defence as last season your going to get the same results.

 

[Delphinho]

The goals that everyone is overreacting to came from an error at LB. And a keeper brainfart.

Rico had a 15 yard head start on Johnson for their first goal and still lost over 40 yards. He’s slower than a corpse and gets caught ball watching at the far post way too often

 

[urban genie]

Rico had a 15 yard head start on Johnson for their first goal and still lost over 40 yards. He’s slower than a corpse and gets caught ball watching at the far post way too often

Lewis was 15 yards apart from him as well covering 2 missisng centre backs.

If Stones was in positon and Dias not missing Lewis would have been further on the right and the space for johnson not there.
The whole defence was at fault positonally, even before you add dthe slip.

There is nobody to scapegoat from that performance all 11 were shoddy and Spurs were just better on the day