Full Backs?

Very true. Which is why we should stop buying the most expensive tickets. The amount of money we've thrown away on centre backs over the last few years is insane.

Stones one hopes, is going to get better. But Mangala and Otty? We might as well have spend fifteen mill on a pair of Championship or lower Prem stalwarts.

Defenders are being signed for their 'footballing skills'.

Imo, if that's the criteria, teams would be better off spending a few years behind the scenes converting tall midfielders into defenders as, in reality, 'footballing defenders' aren't particularly good footballers.

Edit: fair play to Otamendi for stepping up & doing Stones' job for him, better.
 
Defenders are being signed for their 'footballing skills'.

Imo, if that's the criteria, teams would be better off spending a few years behind the scenes converting tall midfielders into defenders as, in reality, 'footballing defenders' aren't particularly good footballers.

Edit: fair play to Otamendi for stepping up & doing Stones' job for him, better.

Agreed again.

At least we should sign defenders from leagues where they face similar challenges. We go to Spain and Portugal and then are surprised when they cannot adapt to the speed, physicality and tactical variety of the Premiership.

Tactically, we are always going to be faced with long balls over the top of the high line. It's no use coaches moaning about it. It's their job to adapt and the club to sign them the right players.

Otty can at least put it about but he's still reckless.

If we had paid 10 or 15 mill for him and Mangala and they were on wages that didn't make them unsellable then fine, we should punt away. But not at 30-40 mill a pop.

I would have gone for the Southampton guy while he was at Celtic and relatively cheap. Or Stones when he was at Barnsley and being hailed as The Next Big Thing.

There's something deeply wrong with our scouting and signing set up. We make so many expensive bad buys while ignoring glaring weaknesses like the full back positions have been for at least two seasons.
 
Agreed again.

At least we should sign defenders from leagues where they face similar challenges. We go to Spain and Portugal and then are surprised when they cannot adapt to the speed, physicality and tactical variety of the Premiership.

Tactically, we are always going to be faced with long balls over the top of the high line. It's no use coaches moaning about it. It's their job to adapt and the club to sign them the right players.

Otty can at least put it about but he's still reckless.

If we had paid 10 or 15 mill for him and Mangala and they were on wages that didn't make them unsellable then fine, we should punt away. But not at 30-40 mill a pop.

I would have gone for the Southampton guy while he was at Celtic and relatively cheap. Or Stones when he was at Barnsley and being hailed as The Next Big Thing.

There's something deeply wrong with our scouting and signing set up. We make so many expensive bad buys while ignoring glaring weaknesses like the full back positions have been for at least two seasons.


I think the 'ignoring' of the fullback positions is down to the fact that Pellegrini didn't care & Pep has opted to get a bunch of attacking talent into the club as priority.

But it still goes back to the point, that even if we have the best scouts, the players are available to sign, & the money is there, we still have a reasonable chance to end up with shit as does everyone else.

The ideal imo, is for Guardiola to spell out to the academy, exactly what is required in order to play his kind of football in the Prem, & for us to try & create players who fit that model. The plan surely is, that City post Pep, are a club which plays in that manner, so plan for it.
 
Cancelo from Valencia and Danilo from Real Madrid are two great attacking right backs, I'd love to sign one here.

Kurzawa from PSG (how good are their two full backs by the way?!) would be great at left back, as would Grimaldo from Benfica.
 
Defenders are being signed for their 'footballing skills'.

Imo, if that's the criteria, teams would be better off spending a few years behind the scenes converting tall midfielders into defenders as, in reality, 'footballing defenders' aren't particularly good footballers.

Edit: fair play to Otamendi for stepping up & doing Stones' job for him, better.

Bang on.

You do get top footballers as centre halves but none knocking about who are buyable.
 
Cancelo from Valencia and Danilo from Real Madrid are two great attacking right backs, I'd love to sign one here.

Kurzawa from PSG (how good are their two full backs by the way?!) would be great at left back, as would Grimaldo from Benfica.
Joined Barca. Would be good to have a pop at Sergi Roberto IMO.
 
Cancelo from Valencia and Danilo from Real Madrid are two great attacking right backs, I'd love to sign one here.

Kurzawa from PSG (how good are their two full backs by the way?!) would be great at left back, as would Grimaldo from Benfica.

Danilo hasn't been very good for Madrid since he signed..
 
Ricardo Pereira on Nice whose on loan from Porto has looked really good for them in Ligue 1. Still holding out hope we sign Fabinho or Sidibe from Monaco, Fabinho being able to play RB and midfield is big for what Pep would want and he's a physical player from the games I've watched.

LB seems like everything is up in the air from Grimaldo to Kolašinac to Sandro. Really hope we manage to bring in a LB in the Winter Window since it can really use an upgrade.
 
We won't be able to get Alaba but his understudy Bernat is comfortably better than every LB in the league. Young too and wouldn't cost much.
 

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