And so it begins...

[EalingBlue2]

Pogba is linked very heavily with Chelsea right now and Juve owe Chelsea from that Mutu thing. Fabregas + Matic + Pogba = say it ain't so.

He might just be on holiday...

Still not as good as what we have in the middle so nowt to worry about at all

 

[Marvin]

If.....Aguero,Silva and Komps stay fit and we sign one of our defensive targets.......i don't care who anyone else signs.

Add Sagna,Fernando and Caballero to the mix and its our title again imo.

I think we already have enough If Aguero can recapture his form. No reason why not. It's just a little unsettling seeing him play and not at 100%

 

[pudge]

If.....Aguero,Silva and Komps stay fit and we sign one of our defensive targets.......i don't care who anyone else signs.

Add Sagna,Fernando and Caballero to the mix and its our title again imo.

How likely is it that those 3 will stay fit based on the last 24 months. They are not getting any younger either.

As opposed to all those backward ageing players everyone else are signing

 

[EalingBlue2]

shiny toy syndrome, every summer. though our rivals are signing some top quality players. if chelsea had a better manager they'd have a real good shot of winning the league

Stability and building a team wins leagues - exactly what we are doing and our rivals are not!

 

[gordondaviesmoustache]

If.....Aguero,Silva and Komps stay fit and we sign one of our defensive targets.......i don't care who anyone else signs.

Add Sagna,Fernando and Caballero to the mix and its our title again imo.

How likely is it that those 3 will stay fit based on the last 24 months. They are not getting any younger either.

Do I smell ragginess in the air ??

Average age of 27 ffs. Your spider senses are holding up well, oakie.

 

[SebastianBlue]

Hart
Zab
Vinny
Mangala or benatia
kolarov
Fernando
Fernandihno
Yaya
Silva
Nasri or jovetic
Sergio

That team alone is at least on a par with anything in the premiership and most of europe! Then players of the calibre of: dzeko, navas, negredo, Nastasic, clichy, milner, MDM, sagna, caballero? ??
Our 2nd team would finish at least top 8 of the league!

Willy
Sagna
MDM
Nastasic
Clichy
Garcia
Milner
Navas
Jovetic or nasri
Edin
Beast.

Depending on formation obviously! ;-)

Unfortunately, this assumes Yaya has a similar season to last year and that Jovetic, Nastasic, Kompany, Agüero, and Silva all stay fit.

Lose two or three of that group and Yaya leaves of stays and upsets the dressing room and we finish second or third given the business our rivals have already undertaken (much less what is still to come).

No doom mongering, just common sense and lessons learned from the transfer window immediately following our first title win.

 

[oakiecokie]

How likely is it that those 3 will stay fit based on the last 24 months. They are not getting any younger either.

Do I smell ragginess in the air ??

Average age of 27 ffs. Your spider senses are holding up well, oakie.

Some people never learn mate.Spot `em a mile off.

 

[adrianr]

If.....Aguero,Silva and Komps stay fit and we sign one of our defensive targets.......i don't care who anyone else signs.

Add Sagna,Fernando and Caballero to the mix and its our title again imo.

Quite. It's easy to be excited by the attacking signings, Silva, Yaya, Aguero.. But those players need a base to play from, and our base is the best in the league. Last summer our attacking purchases were Negredo, Navas and Jovetic. Negredo was hardly an Aguero signing, Navas not as flashy as Di Maria or Sanchez, and Jovetic has barely played 90 minutes for us - What happened? We set a new season goal scoring record and were two goals away from setting a new Premier league record to boot.

What did we recognise as weaknesses in that side? Over reliance on Zab, inadequate back up to Kompany, and inadequate quality in depth at central midfield.

Right back, check. Centre mid, check. Centre back incoming? If you're not a Daily Star reader almost certainly check.

Fit Kompany? Best in the league. Fit Aguero? Best in the league. Fit Silva? .. See a pattern?

The only thing that will stop us is putting too many eggs in the CL basket. We have easily enough to set records in this league and be lifting the trophy again in May. Chelsea, Arsenal, Liverpool or the rags won't sign anyone to change that.

 

[mscenterh750]

If my memory serves me right, we did pretty well last season with no marquee signings. If you want marquee have a party, getting wankered and wake up in August FFS. We've not signed Sanchez, we've not signed Fabregas, we've not signed Costa, oh fuck we're going get relegated, just fuck off you plastic fucking Fifa playing flapping cunts!.

 

[Tron Coltrane]

I will always hate the summer of 2012 -- not for preceding a failed title defense, or for incurring a lot of deadwood -- but because it will forever be used as an example by the shiny-toy brigade as a reason why we need to run out and buy an expensive world-class player every year or everything will fall apart.

Just because we have a carefully laid-out plan this summer of filling four specific positions -- CB, RB, GK, and DM -- doesn't mean we're resting on our laurels by not signings an exciting right winger. In fact it's quite the opposite, it means we're not impulse shopping (which was the true problem in the dreaded Summer of '12) but rather focusing on ourselves, and not on what the rest of the world is doing. Out of those four targeted slots to fill, we've made improvements to our team in three of the stated positions. We now have the bulk of our transfer kitty left to devote to the biggest priority of the bunch at CB, and we're putting extreme care into the signing by cultivating options and treading carefully.

Not sure how anyone expected the summer transfer business to go any better than it has already. First week in July and we've done 75% of our targeted business at extremely competitive prices, to allow for all focus and an incredible ratio of our funds to be aimed at the last 25% of our dealings. Sincerely thankful that the club is run by cool and experienced heads at the top, rather than the alternative.