De Bruyne?

I think we have to be realistic and accept we don't have the pull of the 3 or 4 clubs, but there's no shame in that. After that, we're as appealing as anybody.

Speaking honestly, I think it's a bit of a stretch to say 'we win things'. We have been recently, but it's only domestic stuff so far. What we do have is a far more credible proposition than before. I don't think anybody doubts us now, whereas before, they probably did.

As things stand now, it's much harder for a player to be 'sure' United will win more than us, and Liverpool really don't look very credible trophy candidates any more. It's a much more open race now, between City, Chelsea, Arsenal and United, with City and Chelsea arguably the 'best bets'.

There will always be some players who would choose us over Bayern / Real / Barca, but I think on the whole, we're kidding ourselves if we think they don't have the greater pull. We're on the up, but we're not that high up the pecking order yet and a few domestic titles and cups isn't going to surpass recent CL winners.
 
domalino said:
That's simple! We are trying to sign world class players, but we don't have the pull of Real, Barca, Bayern yet. When those clubs come calling, the player doesn't say "I wouldn't mind going, but I'd be ok staying" like we are getting from KDB & Pogba. When they go for one of your players, the player says "It's my childhood dream to go there, I'm leaving", "I want to play with Messi/Xavi/Ronaldo". The players are desperate and the clubs are resigned to being a step below those elite tier clubs, so they know they can't really keep the player anyway.

We don't have that pull yet. So we will need to scrap and fight for these big transfers, and they'll be drawn out and miserable and we'll be bored of how slow they move.

But when they come off, they will raise the profile of the team and the pull of the club. Then we will win things, and the pull gets stronger again. And in 10,15,20 years of winning things and being a major team in Europe we will start to rival the draw that the other elite European clubs have, and then when we want a player like KDB they will bend over backwards to join us, and it will happen in a week, not 2 months.
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Great post. No shame in not quite being at the level of the European Giants yet. We will get there but it could be 10-15 years down the line. I do think that some of the bigger European clubs lack a bit of class when conducting business though, and as such they might be more vocal about signing a player in order to spur said player on into being more pro active about getting the move. With the amount of negative press we get, I sometimes think we might as well go down that road anyway.
 
Didsbury Dave said:
There's a lot more to it than that, partly because your post has a whiff of the Likkle City about it.

We are a big draw now to players. We win things, have glamour, pay well, look after players and have an enormous future. The fact that we have agreed packages with these top drawer players shows that is the case.

The delay with De Bruyne and Pogba is clearly in negotiations with the selling clubs, clubs who are more or less having their arms forced by players who we have tapped up. City's recent history is of regularly overpaying, and Soriano's brief is of course to stop that, and to ensure that City don't get held over a barrel and forced to pay a City "premium". They've been very clever by ensuring that we have no rival bidders driving up the price, and now we are at the purchase point. Time arguably is on our side here, when the player(s) have mentally made the switch, and the best tactic we have is to walk away/play it cool.

I'd imagine if we had thrown £100m each on the table for De Bruyne and Pogba we would have had these players sewn up weeks ago. But the club is now integrating itself into the European giants and part of that is not been taken for mugs. These players aren't in the bag but it's obvious to me that we are playing things cleverly. We have signed two, and are close to two big name players, and there hasn't been a rival bidder for any of them. That's class in action, and the current delays are an extension to that.
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The corollary to that is if we don't get the two players, assuming we are in for them, then you'll find fault in our approach. You should given what you've said
 
FanchesterCity said:
I think we have to be realistic and accept we don't have the pull of the 3 or 4 clubs, but there's no shame in that. After that, we're as appealing as anybody.

Speaking honestly, I think it's a bit of a stretch to say 'we win things'. We have been recently, but it's only domestic stuff so far. What we do have is a far more credible proposition than before. I don't think anybody doubts us now, whereas before, they probably did.

As things stand now, it's much harder for a player to be 'sure' United will win more than us, and Liverpool really don't look very credible trophy candidates any more. It's a much more open race now, between City, Chelsea, Arsenal and United, with City and Chelsea arguably the 'best bets'.

There will always be some players who would choose us over Bayern / Real / Barca, but I think on the whole, we're kidding ourselves if we think they don't have the greater pull. We're on the up, but we're not that high up the pecking order yet and a few domestic titles and cups isn't going to surpass recent CL winners.
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"Only" winning the premier league, fucking twice in the last four years, that is a scandalous misuse of the word "only"
 
BringBackSwales said:
"Only" winning the premier league, fucking twice in the last four years, that is a scandalous misuse of the word "only"
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Not really. It's a big deal to us, but it's still two domestic league titles - and United have won two in the last 5 years, Chelsea two in the last 6, plus a CL.
It puts us in the same ball park, but it hardly sets us above and beyond. It's made us credible, but hardly dominant. We've got a long way to go before the rest of Europe's top teams are fearing us.
 
Personally I think the biggest pull to Real and Barca is because of Messi and Lady Boy (other factors come in for each player) IMO I think this is the driving force behind a lot of peoples decision to join said clubs.
 
FanchesterCity said:
Not really. It's a big deal to us, but it's still two domestic league titles - and United have won two in the last 5 years, Chelsea two in the last 6, plus a CL.
It puts us in the same ball park, but it hardly sets us above and beyond. It's made us credible, but hardly dominant. We've got a long way to go before the rest of Europe's top teams are fearing us.
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Of course they fear us pal. They'd rather play Hajduk Split FFS...we are in the bracket of top 8-16 in Europe (only due to us playing them Barca wankers the last 2 years)
 
There's nothing 'lickle city' about saying we're not on the same level as Barca, Real or Bayern yet. Not at all. Just realism. We've got a fuck load more to do before we can say that. I love where we are as a club, but i guarantee you the Sheikh wants to be much, much bigger too.
 
What I find frustrating in our pursuit of KDB is that it is now being said he needs to make a transfer request if he wants to join us. Surely he and we knew this ages ago, so why wait till now. Either he wants to come here or not and he and his agent would have taken that into account much earlier. I think they and the club are just pissing us about. Give them a deadline of say the weekend and move on if no deal
 
higgi1p said:
What I find frustrating in our pursuit of KDB is that it is now being said he needs to make a transfer request if he wants to join us. Surely he and we knew this ages ago, so why wait till now. Either he wants to come here or not and he and his agent would have taken that into account much earlier. I think they and the club are just pissing us about. Give them a deadline of say the weekend and move on if no deal
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why would he have to put in a transfer request we bid they except they sell
 
higgi1p said:
What I find frustrating in our pursuit of KDB is that it is now being said he needs to make a transfer request if he wants to join us. Surely he and we knew this ages ago, so why wait till now. Either he wants to come here or not and he and his agent would have taken that into account much earlier. I think they and the club are just pissing us about. Give them a deadline of say the weekend and move on if no deal
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Time for KDB to call in sick with a case of the squits me thinks.
 
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