Beginning The 2025 Rebuild of City

RAG rating them (no pun intended):

Red - Right back, centre forward and defensive midfielder - in January.
Amber - Winger, creative midfielder, left back and hybrid midfielder - in the summer.
Green - centre half (if LB signed to free up Ake and JG), midfield core looks better with Rodri back and Kova and Bernie rotation options plus Foden and signings. EBH nailed down.
Keeper situation - fluid - think we should look at it but not a priority relative to other positions.

Lots to do.
 
Not sure if I've imagined this, but I'm pretty sure that there's talk about Stones being offered a new deal.
 
Energy. Energy. Energy. It’s needed.

So are are youngsters who can come in and make an immediate impact. Not ‘projects’, not ‘potentials’ - but actual fucking world class players.

Pay the premium. Stop skating about the rink of potential ability and dine at the table of talent supremacy again.

David Silva
Yaya Toure
Aguero
Kev
Tevez
Nasri

Players who were absolutely world class and brought in to elevate the side. Not players who were brought in to compliment others.
 
Prestwich_Blue said:
We do.The only area where we have decent options currently is at centre back, where we have Dias, Akanji, Gvardiol, Stones & Ake (although we can't seem to get more than 20 games a season from those latter two). We have one specialist full back who is reaching the end of his career at this level.

Defensive midfield is Rodri, with Kovacic as a backup. Bernardo could potentially also slot in there and maybe that's the best option for him if he stays as he's not producing further up the pitch. But we've been saying for at least a couple of seasons that we need a long-term backup for Rodri.

Further up the field the only longer-term option is Foden, as KDB and Gundo are sadly finished. Doku & Savinho are still young so there's hope if we can get them doing the right things but they're 50/50 at the moment. Grealish will turn 30 early next season but he's hardly seen as a first choice on the team sheet. Nunes is another who doesn't seem to be a core player (even less so after his horror show yesterday).

Up front there's just Haaland and despite his goalscoring feats of the two previous seasons he really doesn't suit our style, so there's no certainty there and as a minimum we need a backup striker.

That looks like a full rebuild to me.
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We’re well stocked at CB - agreed

We have one specialist fullback - agreed, and sadly I think he’s finished too, whether we go out and sign a RB, or another CB who can also play on the right (similar to Ake/Gvardiol on the left) remains to be seen. ….Dias, Stones, Ake, Akanji, Gvardiol, Lewis plus another RB/CB option is plenty of options.

We don’t need ‘cover for Rodri’ because that simply doesn’t exist. What we need are more options with legs in midfield who can give the attacking players the same platform and provide the defence with sufficient cover. Sadly, Gundo, KdB and Bernardo have gone and I’d say we need replacements for those 3 across the next two transfer windows.

In the front three this is probably where we disagree the most, Savio and Doku are young and will improve as will Oscar Bobb. The output from those players will improve significantly when we have a midfield capable of manipulating space for them and providing an attacking threat, rather than giving them the ball out wide and expecting them to somehow beat a minimum of 2 men and either find the corner, or put it on a plate for Haaland.
 
PabZabb said:
Genuinely don’t think we need the a full rebuild, this squad won the league last season. What we need is surgery in midfield (and a new RB)
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It matters fuck all what we did last season year as it relates to our quality moving forward. The glory run we had was never going to last but if we just freshen up a few spots vs. a multi window overhaul that is focused on the future- it'd be like putting a load of those spot band aids on a severed leg. It might seem like it helps but eventually we're going to bleed out.
 
Prestwich_Blue said:
We do.The only area where we have decent options currently is at centre back, where we have Dias, Akanji, Gvardiol, Stones & Ake (although we can't seem to get more than 20 games a season from those latter two). We have one specialist full back who is reaching the end of his career at this level.

Defensive midfield is Rodri, with Kovacic as a backup. Bernardo could potentially also slot in there and maybe that's the best option for him if he stays as he's not producing further up the pitch. But we've been saying for at least a couple of seasons that we need a long-term backup for Rodri.

Further up the field the only longer-term option is Foden, as KDB and Gundo are sadly finished. Doku & Savinho are still young so there's hope if we can get them doing the right things but they're 50/50 at the moment. Grealish will turn 30 early next season but he's hardly seen as a first choice on the team sheet. Nunes is another who doesn't seem to be a core player (even less so after his horror show yesterday).

Up front there's just Haaland and despite his goalscoring feats of the two previous seasons he really doesn't suit our style, so there's no certainty there and as a minimum we need a backup striker.

That looks like a full rebuild to me.
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If you asked me at the start of the season I would have agreed on defence but at this stage the unreliability of Stones and Ake, the complete falloff from Walker and Lewis being very raw means Dias, Gvardiol and Akanji (who has had his own injury issues) are our realistic defensive options. So we need reinforcements asap.

The obvious failure to bring a more effective 6/8 option meant we brought in a sadly past it Gundogan and rely on Kovacic who has injury issues.

We have failed to add enough creativity so that KDB’s absences and loss of form have been keenly felt. The biggest issue for me though as a result is a lack of goals throughout the team. We have Haaland then a huge gap to Gvardiol then Doku and Kovacic. Stones and KDB have 2 each and Silva against Forest and Lewis scored against Palace but no one has scored a league goal. So nothing from Grealish, Foden, Gundogan, Savinho, Nunes which is a huge issue. We’ve sold Mahrez and Alvarez and hoped someone would step up with goals but no one has.
 
Delphinho said:
Plenty of good players in the market, just hope we stay well clear of the likes of Eze and Wharton. You’d never see Real Madrid make those kind of signings. Very expensive sideways steps that doesn’t improve the squad
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Raphina and Olise to Barca and Bayern from Leeds and Palace are quite similar to what you're describing. Real Madrid, and every club make these types of signings and sometimes they work out better than others.

I recall Madrid paying around 60m for that Serbian striker a few years back. Jovic. He scored something like 3 goals for them over 3 seasons and got sold for 500k to Milan recently. Every club makes errors. Eze and Wharton could do bits for us. If Musiala and Bruno G aren't available, these lads are in the next tier of qaulity.

We can't just summon generational players when they don't exist. We can try to be ruthless with crazy offers to players like Saka, Leao, Palmer, Vini, Mbappe, Rice, Jude, Yamal, Wirtz, Musiala, Valverde, Pedri etc. but only so many of these S/A+ tier footballers exist, and most are untouchable.

We've got our work cut out for us if we want to reach the standards we have set, but I strongly believe we are only one or two large windows away from being back as the pick of the litter.

We have Haaland, Gvardiol, Rodri, Foden, and Dias locked down as a core. 5 world beaters that on there day all have Balon D'or / Prem POTS capabilities. We have young rotational options such as Doku, Savio, Bobb, Rico, Nunes, McAtee, and a couple other lads in the academy to fight for minutes and push each other. Would not shock me if two or three of these lads take the step up to being integral.

Then we inject four or five 100m players into this squad over the next couple windows and we will be the top dogs again. We got too complacent, it isn't the end of the world. We've won 5 titles in 6 years, this was inevitable without massive squad overhauls. Liverpool were shite that season after winning the Covid Cup. They had a 30 point drop off. Its amazing the mindset Pep has been able to drive into our players to perform how they have year over year after consistently winning.
 
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