Are Gundogan, Laporte, Mahrez and Palmer missed at all?

[Blue_Lightsaber]

The simple fact is that we are weaker right now than at the end of last season, but we went off the boil before Christmas then, so is the end of last season a fair comparison. Its fair to say though we don't really look like treble winners and signing wise thus far we have had more misses than hits with the players we have brought in.

Winning a treble requires being good enough and a lot of luck.. luck that we haven't had even though honestly we thought we had better teams in the Centurion and domestic treble season or even the 93 point season which required the 5:36 miracle at the etihad! We got shit referees vs Liverpool, shit var calls for llorente hand ball and Walker injured against Real or we could have won the CL those years too.

I do agree that we are weaker but it's mostly because Phil isn't a midfielder that Pep needs just like Kalvin isn't the midfielder that Pep needs. He needs a control midfielder who'll do 20,000 million passes in midfield and control the ball and work it to the front line.. not force the issue like Foden does playing pedal to the metal full speed ahead which creates turnovers and counter attacks.

And judging by our last 5 games which have been end to end.. 1 win, 3 draws, 1 loss I'd say Pep is right!

 

[bigA]

Only Gundogan is really missed in my opinion. The others did their jobs but not consistently enough to warrant their places week in, week out.

 

[PolarBearCub]

What you think? I think they had to leave really to give minutes to Alvarez, Foden and Doku anyway.

Probably worked out for the best, to refresh the team.

Gundo. Yes. Mahrez. Yes. Palmer. Based on City performances and game time no. Based on Chelsea likesake. Yes he’s better option than Nunes and Kovavcic.

 

[richards30]

Gundo without question and i now finally understand how much Mahrez brought as a starter and bench option?

 

[Victorinodennistua]

I think we would be looking at Gvardiol in a completely different light had he come in at CB alongside Dias and not left back. I don't understand why Pep has been so persistent on partnering Dias with Akanji whilst Stones has been out.

Akanji is a good defender, but going forward and considering what we spent, we should have been playing Gvardiol there.

At least then it would be only 1 change from last seasons primary back 4 and not 2. Walker, Dias, Gvardiol, Ake and not Walker, Akanji, Dias, Gvardiol

Ake should have kept his place .sadly at left back, was immense last season playing that role.

In the last couple of seasons Gundo played his part in the big games for sure. But like mahrez , I was never too sure about either of them. Rm always seemed too lazy and one dimensional, gundo at times looked too slow. Laporte sadly lost his place after injury and probably fell out with pep due to his lack of playing time. Apart from a few brain farts against spurs he wasn’t bad before that big lay off. It’s like a rock in a hard place situation, we could do with gundo now but it was the right time for Rm and Laporte to go. With palmer I guess we will never know.50/50

 

[applejuice]

I think that we miss Mahrez a lot. And the biggest mistake is to sell Palmer to Chelsea. I thought that Palmer refused loan. But in a recent interview Palmer said that he preferred to loan at first during the summer window. I really cannot understand our board decision. He is homegrown. Surely it is better to loan him out than cutting him outside completely...

Besides I really cannot understand why we sold two right wingers in the same window and bought a left winger. It is bad squad planning and does not look good on Tikki. We should buy one left winger + one right winger. If we don't have enough budget to buy both then surely prioritize a right winger or buy someone who is able to play both sides. Now we have Bernado and Foden who both prefer midfield to fill in. And even Walker! It hurts Foden's growth and burns Walker out.

Of course I miss Gundo but I somehow agree with the decision to move on to next generation. The mistake is not replacing him with quality.

 

[leighton]

For me the 3 midfielders are missed badly. Mahrez always chipped in with goals and assists when he got game time. But when players are not performing it's harder. The new signings apart from Doku are taking time to settle into the team.

 

[ctwrd]

Mahrez no
Palmer no
Laporte no
Gundogan yes but he would have needed replacing anyway due to age and clearly we were willing to offer another year or two but not more so it’s not exactly a failure to allow him to leave.

 

[MadchesterCity]

I think we would be looking at Gvardiol in a completely different light had he come in at CB alongside Dias and not left back. I don't understand why Pep has been so persistent on partnering Dias with Akanji whilst Stones has been out.

Akanji is a good defender, but going forward and considering what we spent, we should have been playing Gvardiol there.

At least then it would be only 1 change from last seasons primary back 4 and not 2. Walker, Dias, Gvardiol, Ake and not Walker, Akanji, Dias, Gvardiol

Ake should have kept his place at left back, was immense last season playing that role.

Agreed, I can’t understand why aren’t making the most of Gvardiol skillset, one of his key strengths was bringing the ball out of defence and we seem to have limited him by playing him at left back. Ake was brilliant at left back last season and we seem to have pushed him to the bench.

 

[Theengelbert]

Probably gundo is the only one for me. But I think the main issue is we haven’t bought well. I don’t think Nunes looks good enough and kovacic looks a downgrade too. I’m really interested to see what happens when KDB is back because it may be that everything just works together again when kevs dictating the attacking play in midfield