Lancet Fluke said:
Mister Appointment said:
Lancet Fluke said:
Has there been anything happening on the pitch that has led you to believe that he is seeking a change from two up front? I'm not really interested in whether you would play one up front because Yaya leaves us a bit exposed (FWIW I agree with you) because that is just your opinion and we are discussing whether Pellegrini is looking to change the system which is what you suggested. I'd be amazed if Pellegrini is happy for Txiki to have let Negredo go and not replaced him. Something else that concerns me about yesterday that seems to have gone under the radar is that it looked to me like we were actively trying to get rid of Nastasic. Now Kompany doesn't have the greatest unjury record and it would have left us with just 3 senior centre backs if he'd gone. That for me would have been even worse than what happened with the strikers. Thank goodness Nastasic didn't want to go. But why were we trying to leave ourselves with 3 centre backs and 3 strikers when we play 2 of each in more or less every game?
As it stands the three forwards we have are fit. Even if we lose one, we can still play two up top. We have also had Silva and Yaya play as a forward or just off the forward when other forwards have been fit so it's clearly an option which on occasion Pellegrini has chosen to use. On top of that many of us really genuinely rate Kelechi very highly and if the plan is to have him replace Negredo then some of us think that is an even better situation than having Negredo.
With regards Nastasic. Forget him. His City career is over and the manager doesn't want him. Again your flapping is predicated on injuries. Well Kompany spent plenty of time sidelined last season and we won the title. This season we have added Mangala who is presumably somewhat of an upgrade on Lescott. We also have Fernando who can play at centre half if needs be. We also have Boyata, who despite being a figure of fun on Bluemoon has been given a new contract and kept in the first team squad whilst Denayer has been sent to Celtic. These calls have all been made by Pellegrini and Txiki, so they deserve to have their judgment trusted when last summer's dealings were such a huge success.
Overall it is a shame that we are basically back to where we were 12 months ago with the same people moaning like fuck about how Txiki, Ferran, etc don't know what they're doing. Constructive criticism I can deal with. But just blindly saying we're fucked and the club are stupid when you have zero clue what Pellegrini's wishes were, what Txiki's wishes were, and what Negredo's wishes were, is ignorant childish nonsense. No offence btw, I'm not levelling that specifically at you but more at the general tone of a lot of the posts i've read since last night. The forum's really been true to it's unofficial moniker of Bluemoan.
That's fine, if Nastasic's City career is over then we should have got him out earlier in the summer and got in a replacement imo. If we couldn't do that then we hang on to him and at least we have back up with some Prem experience. What we shouldn't have been doing is trying to get rid at the last minute with no chance to get in a replacement (recurring theme). Yes we won the league last year even though Kompany had injuries but my point is that we had 4 senior centre backs last season, that's how we coped with the injuries at the back. Yet last night we were close to being left with 3. Yes my "flapping" is predicated on us getting injuries because injuries are a reality that happen to all clubs. I'm not interested in Boyata, if we end up using him as centre back in the Prem much this season then we won't win it, simple as that. If you think I'm just moaning and flapping then that's fine, personally I think it is constructive criticism to question being left with 3 strikers when we play 2 up front and attempts to leave us with 3 senior centre halves when we always play 2 in a match. As for Negredo's wishes, well I was quite happy for us to let him go, but we should have made it clear that to some extent it had to be on our terms ie done early enough to get in a replacement or tough shit.
we couldn't replace Nastasic unless we brought in a mercenary happy to sit out CL or an English player.
we couldn't replace Negredo unless we brought in a mercenary happy to sit out CL or an English player.
Neither of which are suitable options this summer.
All we have to do this season is make Top 3. Make Top 3 and we get the BT CL money, and deprive one of the old guard from having it, they know this and are desperate to climb in the trap door at anyone's expense. I reckon we will have comfortably at least £100m to spend next summer, if not more, and will 2 or 3 marquee players.
We will also have room, when our restrictions are lifted, to buy 1 foreign player without needing to replace, meaning that we can go all out for a star with no concerns. I reckon we will buy a HG star like Barkley, and then we can sit back and watch who's suffering. Whoever missed out on 4th will have a hard time keeping stars, as Real and Barca will swoop for a Ramsey, Sterling etc. and the likes of Sanchez wouldn't want to hang around, thus opening the market for us, either to then buy them up or pick off the players Real and Barca want to offload, which they would have to do.
Perform on the pitch this season and we set ourselves up and firmly shut the trapdoor on the old guard trying to throw us out, because we will then have too much money, and no restrictions, to hinder us, and we will become part of the elite and start being able to sign marquee players as and when we want, and the squad has already been set up to allow this. We are also going to get to the stage where we've got through the academy age groups who have suffered because of the pace of change, and we can already see that even a few of those are being sold on or loaned out to good clubs for a nice fee, but in the next couple of years we'll start to see a few genuine talents emerging and within 5 imo genuinely 2 or 3 make a very game attempt at breaking in as a first team regular.
I think we're setting up very sensibly, we just have to get the players we have to avoid another Stoke at home, the only way we can fuck this up is on the pitch, top 3 and we're sorted.
