Savinho | City reject Spurs approach

No idea what we bid Officially for Kane?! It was all speculation that we bid the amount Kane brother shook on!
I vaguely remember we bid low at 70m or something then it was all media speculation that spurs kept say even if we bid x amount he’s not for sale
 
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Hopefully this saga is now settled. Our whole squad suffered last season for various reasons & it baffles me why people have singled out Savinho, Doku, Lewis & Akanji. None of them were significantly worse than anyone else's.

Savinho's a talent, & at 21 he's got his whole career ahead of him to find his feet & scoring boots. If I were an opposition fan, the thought of Bobb & Savinho would have me shitting my y-fronts.

If our right & left wingers receive attacking support from over/underlapping FB's, I think we'll see very different output levels from all of them. To play to our wingers strengths, this is the critical change we need to make. Enough of the inverted FB's already!

Just think how devastating Doku & Ait Nouri were on RAN's debut. They tore the arse out of the opposition who didn't know whether to track them inside or out.

By contrast, look how anonymous RAN's become in an attacking sense since Pep inexplicably switched back to his inverted FB's.

Since Al Hilal, our left wingers have returned to being isolated, as we congest the middle areas trying to support Haaland who himself is surrounded by 3 CB's & a couple of defensive midfielders. It's no coincidence that neither Moose or Doku have shone playing there.

The issue here is Erling is a pure No 9 target man, who prefers balls in behind against teams playing a high line, so he can use his speed & strength. He's not a tricky Aguero type who can play in tight spaces or drift wide & interchange with wingers, so it baffles me why we congest those spaces even further.

It's not the quality of the players in question, it's the system they're being asked to play in. With the way teams have adapted to negate us, it's up to us to now adapt to carve them open in different ways.

We need to get back to Pep's 4-3-3 basics & support our wingers.
 
Savinho - 19 G/A (23/24)
Cherki - 19 G/A (24/25)
Foden - 27 G/A (23/24)
Doku - 13 G/A (23/24)
Marmoush - 34 G/A (24/25)

That's just league stats. They're fully capable. It depends how slow we are in transition and how reliant we are on Haaland being the focal point of every move.
I love your optimism, but 3 of those 5 players were playing in a much lesser league for all/majority of their contributions.

We've seen 2 years of Doku, who won't improve his numbers any further

Savinho doesn't want to be here, albeit i do think he's the more likely of the wingers to contribute

Bobb looks a good prospect, but not someone who would have been a regular during the treble campaign

Marmoush, let's wait and see, but he certainly won't get anywhere near 34 G/A playing out on the left

None of these players (Foden aside) get in the treble winning squad, and yet we are now relying on them to carry a lot of the weight in terms of G/A; id also argue that none of them (Foden aside) get into Liverpools, and potentially Arsenals team
 
I love your optimism, but 3 of those 5 players were playing in a much lesser league for all/majority of their contributions.

We've seen 2 years of Doku, who won't improve his numbers any further

Savinho doesn't want to be here, albeit i do think he's the more likely of the wingers to contribute

Bobb looks a good prospect, but not someone who would have been a regular during the treble campaign

Marmoush, let's wait and see, but he certainly won't get anywhere near 34 G/A playing out on the left

None of these players (Foden aside) get in the treble winning squad, and yet we are now relying on them to carry a lot of the weight in terms of G/A; id also argue that none of them (Foden aside) get into Liverpools, and potentially Arsenals team

Much lesser league is a bit harsh on La Liga and Bundesliga, Ligue 1 maybe so.

Doku is my biggest doubt of the 5 established ones for sure. Bobb is a complete unknown really. Always looked good at youth level but not sure if it was miles ahead of McAtee.

Savinho I think people are conflating "wouldn't mind being paid 4 times as much and being star of the team" for "doesn't want to be here".

Cherki has amazingly high potential, not impossible he is the next kev, silva character. Probably more attitude than anything else that could hamper him.

Foden I think is a top 3 player in the league on his day.

I could see marmoush getting in ahead of Martinelli and Gakpo. Cherki would get in ahead of eze and possibly wirtz. I mean I'd rather have Savio or Doku than Trossard, Madueke or Chiesa.

Harsh to write Doku off as being unable to improve when guys like Salah and Mahrez were just finding their feet at 23.

As for Sav, I've justified all along why I'm big on him, he's for me our Barcola / Guler / Doue / Saka / Olise candidate.

28 G/A in 2 seasons before 21 across the PL and La liga would be insane stat line for someone we were looking to buy so can't see why we can't extend that excitement to our own players.
 
None of these players (Foden aside) get in the treble winning squad, and yet we are now relying on them to carry a lot of the weight in terms of G/A; id also argue that none of them (Foden aside) get into Liverpools, and potentially Arsenals team

That sums it up, and it's not even an argument.....and unless Foden remembers how to play football, he wouldn't be in either side currently, either, certainly not on last seasons performances.
 
Much lesser league is a bit harsh on La Liga and Bundesliga, Ligue 1 maybe so.

Doku is my biggest doubt of the 5 established ones for sure. Bobb is a complete unknown really. Always looked good at youth level but not sure if it was miles ahead of McAtee.

Savinho I think people are conflating "wouldn't mind being paid 4 times as much and being star of the team" for "doesn't want to be here".

Cherki has amazingly high potential, not impossible he is the next kev, silva character. Probably more attitude than anything else that could hamper him.

Foden I think is a top 3 player in the league on his day.

I could see marmoush getting in ahead of Martinelli and Gakpo. Cherki would get in ahead of eze and possibly wirtz. I mean I'd rather have Savio or Doku than Trossard, Madueke or Chiesa.

Harsh to write Doku off as being unable to improve when guys like Salah and Mahrez were just finding their feet at 23.

As for Sav, I've justified all along why I'm big on him, he's for me our Barcola / Guler / Doue / Saka / Olise candidate.

28 G/A in 2 seasons before 21 across the PL and La liga would be insane stat line for someone we were looking to buy so can't see why we can't extend that excitement to our own players.
My take on Sav is I'm not keen on the attitude of someone who would jump ship for more money, when he should in theory want to prove himself at City, and if he does, would result in earning double what Spurs are willing to pay him?

He's got the ability to get to the level of those you mentioned, but does he fancy it? He certainly won't get there by going to Spurs, will he?

So he either doesn't believe he's good enough, or he doesn't have the will to get there; maybe harsh, but I've no idea why else he'd want to move.

Doku is awful and will not get any better.

Marmoush is in par with Gakpo, but he wasn't first choice at Liverpool last season, and will likely be the fall guy if they get Isak.

I love the look of Cherki, and agree he's got a very high ceiling, but think he'll need this season to get used to the league.

Cherki and Foden ill agree on, but not sure on the rest for different reasons.

Let's hope Bobb continues to improve, but ultimately they'll all need to if we are to be anywhere near competing for a major trophy.
 
If we are retaining him, then use him on the left, he’s better on that side, equally use Doku on the right.
A more direct attacking approach with players on their natural side.
Haaland never knows when to make a run or not.
 
If we are retaining him, then use him on the left, he’s better on that side, equally use Doku on the right.
A more direct attacking approach with players on their natural side.
Haaland never knows when to make a run or not.
We tried that in a game early last season, sure someone will remember which game it was? It was at home, and Doku was horrendous on the right, he was that bad that Pep had them switch sides after about 20 minutes, Doku genuinely looked lost.
 
We tried that in a game early last season, sure someone will remember which game it was? It was at home, and Doku was horrendous on the right, he was that bad that Pep had them switch sides after about 20 minutes, Doku genuinely looked lost.
He looked lost against Spurs on Saturday.
 
We tried that in a game early last season, sure someone will remember which game it was? It was at home, and Doku was horrendous on the right, he was that bad that Pep had them switch sides after about 20 minutes, Doku genuinely looked lost.
West Ham, with Grealish on the left?

We certainly played that way in the 4-0 win against Slovan Bratislava, with Savinho left and Doku right. The players themselves changed sides for spells during the Chelsea game away and another home game, but I got the impression that was their decision and not Guardiola’s.
 
I love your optimism, but 3 of those 5 players were playing in a much lesser league for all/majority of their contributions.

We've seen 2 years of Doku, who won't improve his numbers any further

Savinho doesn't want to be here, albeit i do think he's the more likely of the wingers to contribute

Bobb looks a good prospect, but not someone who would have been a regular during the treble campaign

Marmoush, let's wait and see, but he certainly won't get anywhere near 34 G/A playing out on the left

None of these players (Foden aside) get in the treble winning squad, and yet we are now relying on them to carry a lot of the weight in terms of G/A; id also argue that none of them (Foden aside) get into Liverpools, and potentially Arsenals team
Our recruitment since the treble has been horrendous we had the best team in the world. And we let brilliant players go not the clubs fault but they wanted to go we let world class players get old and slow together. Instead of freshening up the squad with one or two world class players each season we have went for quantity not quality. Buying 40/50m players instead of buying maybe 1 80/90m player. Some of the signings we make hardly get anywhere near the bench let alone the starting 11
 
This guy could have sat down in every league game he played and he would have only scored 1 less goal.

Yes he’s young and needs time but so do all our wingers, a constant revolving door of wingers needing to perform and then not being capable.
 
We don’t need to spend the money required to get him. If he’s not good enough for RM (who have taken TAA & Bel neither of which we’d want) - he’s not good enough for us

We can mold Savio to be a great player IMHO of course
I understand the sentiment, I felt when we signed haaland that was another massive milestone for us and the Prem, a “best in class” signing.
I thought wed adapt that model moving fwd, instead we have for some reason pursued our 2010-2016 model of looking to uncover hidden gems.

What we have ended up with is a lot of 2nd and 3rd tier players.

One counter point though, Robben and Schneider are obvious examples of players who had a hard time at Madrid and went on to do special things.

Not sure if Rodrygo is that guy though.
 
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