Balotelli.

[Jimma]

Even so. Bellamy was always going to be a stop gap for a couple of seasons. He's well into his thirties. and Zabaleta is by no means consistently good and Given has issues distributing the ball (though he's a superb shot stopper) and Kompany has costly concentration lapses that are preventing him becoming a really good player. de Jong is very good but limited and Tevez was a no-brainer. All in all, not a list that compares well to this year's signings.... oh yeah, and do not get me started on RSC, Wayne Bridge and Gareth Barry (who it turns out, is every bit as overrated by Villa fans after all).

Adebayor will come good, though.

I imagine Hughes would have been able to sign some better players this summer, assuming he would've been battling Tottenham 'til the very end as well (think of our prestige growing every day = better signings becoming more possible). I merely wanted to point out that he did make some solid signings. Also don't think any of this summer's signings have played a match for us yet, so let's not get too far ahead of ourselves. :)

Yaya has played 2 :D

 

[p.taker]

PRESEASON DOESN'T COUNT!!1!

 

[Jimma]

PRESEASON DOESN'T COUNT!!1!

hehehe

chill princess

 

[SalfordCityBlue]

This is a bit off topic. (Hijack alert)

RM mentioned he need to talk to Robbie before anything was agreed, that will be next friday since he is off on International duty. He also mentioned he needed to talk to RSC. So I would seem those are the two plus Ireland that wont be here in Sept.

I took that to mean he was going to talk to Robinho about stopping all the bullshit, getting his head down and playing for us to be honest... Or at least to assess the possibility?

That's what I'm hoping anyway. We need another creative player in the squad IMO.

 

[stumpy_mcfc]

This is a bit off topic. (Hijack alert)

RM mentioned he need to talk to Robbie before anything was agreed, that will be next friday since he is off on International duty. He also mentioned he needed to talk to RSC. So I would seem those are the two plus Ireland that wont be here in Sept.

I took that to mean he was going to talk to Robinho about stopping all the bullshit, getting his head down and playing for us to be honest... Or at least to assess the possibility?

That's what I'm hoping anyway. We need another creative player in the squad IMO.

That is how I viewed it - Only RSC seemed to me from his comments to be leaving for sure just does not want to do his business at a press conference. He keeps being quoted as saying he does not know if Bellamy is going to be part of his 25 - I believe he does not know and if he did the right thing would be to tell Bellamy first.

 

[Neville Kneville]

Dosn't really matter which comes first aslong as they both end up city players :)

I have to say though, this has to be the best transfer window in Man city history.
Yaya, Silva, Kolarov, Boateng, Balotelli and Milner... Its wankable.

Looking at this signings, you begin to understand the total shit Hughes invested the money in.

Adebayor was a leftover wantaway player, Kolo Toure was and is past his best, Crocky Cruz was a ridiculous signing when we got him and so it proved and the Lescott saga was an embarassing joke. Only Tevez was a good buy and the others signings showed how much Hughes was out of his depth.

Whereas Mancini - David Silva, Yaya Toure, Jerome Boateng, Aleksandar Kolarov, Mario Balotelli, James Milner* - genuine class talent, all in the prime of their career or at least coming up to it.

We have the players, now the real work starts as they've got to gel...hopefully fairly quickly

At the start of last season we were a club who'd just scraped top 10, this season we're a side who's narrowly missed the Champions league & finished above Liverpool. Different level. We had no chance of getting the likes of Silva or Toure then. We did very well to attract Tevez & Adebayor, nobody outside City would have expected them to come.

If we progress further, we'll be challenging for signing players on the level of the Messis etc next season. That's how it works.

 

[Jimma]

so is the feel at the moment:

this will happen. just need to play the waiting game?

 

[Chippy_boy]

so is the feel at the moment:

this will happen. just need to play the waiting game?

I'm not so sure about this.

People seem to assume that we can keep buying better and better players and with a decent manager, and as the team gels, we will win things, then start to dominate and win everything.

But this view completely ignores what will happen to our competitors, and when.

The fact is there are currently a number of teams in the premiership that are ahead of us. Not only in footballing terms, but also as worldwide presence with significantly more appeal to the top players. Clearly Chelsea, the rags and arsenal fall into this category, but Liverpool do too, and even spuds might debate it.

Currently, of them only chelsea can even try to match our spending power. But what wbout the others? The replacement of the blazers with massively more wealthy owners is in my view inevitable. Likewise at Liverpool. And maybe even arsenal.

If this happens before we have "arrived" we could be looking at being only one of several clubs with enormously deep pockets, but without the appeal that some of the others have. Even if we are on parity with them, who's to say we will win everything. With an equally good manager and equally good players, we might expect to be in there competing, but not winning everything.

The way I see it panning out over the next 5 years is that there will be a top 5 consisting us, Chelsea, the rags, Liverpool and arsenal, all scrapping it out each year. Clealry a huge and refreshing change from the past 34 years, but not the world domination some people are expecting.

 

[Tricky_Trev]

so is the feel at the moment:

this will happen. just need to play the waiting game?

I'm not so sure about this.

People seem to assume that we can keep buying better and better players and with a decent manager, and as the team gels, we will win things, then start to dominate and win everything.

But this view completely ignores what will happen to our competitors, and when.

The fact is there are currently a number of teams in the premiership that are ahead of us. Not only in footballing terms, but also as worldwide presence with significantly more appeal to the top players. Clearly Chelsea, the rags and arsenal fall into this category, but Liverpool do too, and even spuds might debate it.

Currently, of them only chelsea can even try to match our spending power. But what wbout the others? The replacement of the blazers with massively more wealthy owners is in my view inevitable. Likewise at Liverpool. And maybe even arsenal.

If this happens before we have "arrived" we could be looking at being only one of several clubs with enormously deep pockets, but without the appeal that some of the others have. Even if we are on parity with them, who's to say we will win everything. With an equally good manager and equally good players, we might expect to be in there competing, but not winning everything.

The way I see it panning out over the next 5 years is that there will be a top 5 consisting us, Chelsea, the rags, Liverpool and arsenal, all scrapping it out each year. Clealry a huge and refreshing change from the past 34 years, but not the world domination some people are expecting.

You're right to be fair. And just the other day, Hodgson hinted that a Chelsea/City situation could be on the cards for Liverpool. Add shit loads of money to their prestige and global standing, and you have one hell of a force. Rags and Arsenal will eventually be taken over too. Big season for us this...

 

[Jimma]

so is the feel at the moment:

this will happen. just need to play the waiting game?

I'm not so sure about this.

People seem to assume that we can keep buying better and better players and with a decent manager, and as the team gels, we will win things, then start to dominate and win everything.

But this view completely ignores what will happen to our competitors, and when.

The fact is there are currently a number of teams in the premiership that are ahead of us. Not only in footballing terms, but also as worldwide presence with significantly more appeal to the top players. Clearly Chelsea, the rags and arsenal fall into this category, but Liverpool do too, and even spuds might debate it.

Currently, of them only chelsea can even try to match our spending power. But what wbout the others? The replacement of the blazers with massively more wealthy owners is in my view inevitable. Likewise at Liverpool. And maybe even arsenal.

If this happens before we have "arrived" we could be looking at being only one of several clubs with enormously deep pockets, but without the appeal that some of the others have. Even if we are on parity with them, who's to say we will win everything. With an equally good manager and equally good players, we might expect to be in there competing, but not winning everything.

The way I see it panning out over the next 5 years is that there will be a top 5 consisting us, Chelsea, the rags, Liverpool and arsenal, all scrapping it out each year. Clealry a huge and refreshing change from the past 34 years, but not the world domination some people are expecting.

fair.

i was more talking about balotelli signing the dotted line XD