Recent content by cibaman

Will the tournament have that big an impact physically on next season? If we reach the final there’s then a 5 week gap before our first PL match. No doubt the players will have a 2-3 week break as they would if they’d played in an international competition. Then a couple of weeks before the...

I think they’ll try to persuade Stones and Ake to leave simply because Pep doesn’t trust them to stay fit. Perhaps one of Khusanov or Reis will be loaned out.

Listening to a bloke from NY at the match yesterday, there’s very little interest in PL teams in NY. Some Liverpool supporters, not many for other clubs. Apparently it’s all Real Madrid or Barca

Yes although I think they were mainly happy about the performance. The feeling of “we’re back”, that we could put last season behind us. I’m sure that the longer we progress in the tournament the more important it will feel. The first two games definitely had a pre season vibe about them. Now...

I’d be surprised if Lewis and Bobb leave. I also think Pep would be happy for Gundogan to stay. I think Ilkay would be happy to make do with reduced game time would be good off of the pitch.

It seemed weird watching a City match when the predominant accent was American. Funnily it seemed even stranger coming from the Juve fans who were mainly Italian Americans. Some good banter between the fans. Strangest of all was probably the sight of a couple of fans wearing United shirts in...

He was overplayed last season because of the injuries. Hopefully, despite being made skipper, his workload will be lighter this season. I think Fernandinho only started about 50% of matches when he was captain. That seems likely a reasonable target for Bernardo

Nunes has all the skills and physical attributes to be a top class RB. He just needed to eliminate the howlers from his game.

An interesting article in The Times about City’s training routines. The players are getting the afternoons off and can spend time with their families. But they’ve only had one full day off and the 90 minute morning sessions are described as intense with coaches getting in the faces of players...

The Camping World Stadium’s policy states that only empty clear water bottles are allowed in the stadium. Does that mean you can fill them inside the stadium? Or is it completely pointless taking them with you as you’ll have to buy theirs when inside?

They probably will when it gets to the later stages. Not sure about just yet. The European players will know that they aren’t in the best physical condition and that will diminish the tournament in their eyes. In City’s case it seem that Pep isn’t solely focused on winning it. He’s experimenting...

The attendances haven’t been bad given that many of the matches have been played during the working day in hot conditions featuring clubs that are not that well known. Part of the problem is that the stadia have been too big. And the reporting has focused on the empty seats. So for one of...

Would that really be bad thing? If we aren’t going to win the competition, wouldn’t it be better to go out sooner rather than later? The players could have a decent rest and then we could regroup and prepare for the PL season. Obviously we’d lose out financially and miss the kudos of winning...

Most our players take part in World Cups, Euros, Copa America etc. which, apart from the Qatar WC, usually take place at this time of year. How much more onerous will the CWC be? It must help that the club are in charge of the players for this tournament rather than their national managers...

When we were deep in the centre back injury crisis a few months back, Pep’s priority seem to be to replace injury prone players. It would seem perverse if we loaned out mostly young players but retained the older ones with poor fitness records. We could find ourselves in exactly the same...