Centre back options

[Lancet Fluke]

I see your point. But it's also important for a player that the boss trusts him by giving him more responsibility at some point.
By doing so the message is "show me you're a man, not a kid anymore". Grow with the task.
There is a risk, and the boss needs some courage but normally the pay-off is huge.
A good manager has a feeling for those moments. Low e.g. has it, and Pep certainly too.
"Help through the games" would Ota make furious if you told him so. Rightly so.

He can be as furious as he likes, the fact is that he's twice the player with Kompany alongside him and the way he plays alongside Kompany is the Otamendi we need not the inconsistent player he was alongside Stones. Whichever way you look at it, centre back is all about partnerships, Otamendi and Stones had plenty of time together last season and it was often horrible. I don't see why we would risk having them together a lot next season and just hope that it suddenly works.

 

[Neville Kneville]

It's going to be Boateng for certain.

3-2-1....

 

[cibaman]

If you include kids who have no league match experience and players who have been shipped out on loan because the manager doesn't rate them, possibly. At this stage we have 3 CBs who thus far Pep has considered worthy of consideration for first team duties. And two of them only tend to play well if they have the third one baby sitting them.

And none of them are particularly comfortable playing on the left side of defence.

 

[St.Pauli support]

He can be as furious as he likes, the fact is that he's twice the player with Kompany alongside him and the way he plays alongside Kompany is the Otamendi we need not the inconsistent player he was alongside Stones. Whichever way you look at it, centre back is all about partnerships, Otamendi and Stones had plenty of time together last season and it was often horrible. I don't see why we would risk having them together a lot next season and just hope that it suddenly works.

I think we agree that we need to improve on left CB.

 

[Gorton_Tubster]

And what makes you think he's not doing that?

Because not heard anything yet, but I do hope he is because I see all the money we spent could be going down the drain if Kompany gets injured and we have to rely on OtaStones and we're leaking in goals before we can even get started.

Maybe his thinking is that we buy attacking players who can do what we couldnt last year and score more than the opposition despite issues at the back. I dont know but he is the manager and this needs addressing.

 

[domalino]

Because not heard anything yet, but I do hope he is because I see all the money we spent could be going down the drain if Kompany gets injured and we have to rely on OtaStones and we're leaking in goals before we can even get started.

Maybe his thinking is that we buy attacking players who can do what we couldnt last year and score more than the opposition despite issues at the back. I dont know but he is the manager and this needs addressing.

I think you'll see a massive change in Stones' and Otamendi's defending with a pair of fullbacks either side. You've got to remember how many times they were faced with basically 1v1's in wide areas defending our half of the pitch between them.

With Walker and Mendy, they won't be put in those positions, and when they do, they'll be back in support within seconds.

 

[cibaman]

I think you'll see a massive change in Stones' and Otamendi's defending with a pair of fullbacks either side. You've got to remember how many times they were faced with basically 1v1's in wide areas defending our half of the pitch between them.

With Walker and Mendy, they won't be put in those positions, and when they do, they'll be back in support within seconds.

Agreed. I thought that the biggest problem for Stones last season wasn't that he was taking chances with the ball at his feet, it was that he continually finding himself in no man's land after trying to bail out a full back. If he can stay in the middle of the pitch and rely on his full backs to do their job he will be a much improved player

 

[Cityfan]

Agreed. I thought that the biggest problem for Stones last season wasn't that he was taking chances with the ball at his feet, it was that he continually finding himself in no man's land after trying to bail out a full back. If he can stay in the middle of the pitch and rely on his full backs to do their job he will be a much improved player

Thought he was a bit weak one on one defensively to be honest not a positioning thing but maybe full backs will let that situation arise less frequently, but basically I hope he improves, he's still pretty young.

 

[Blue1880]

Not really. We can only have 4 HG so if we have a 5th HG player they will have to be classed as foreign.

I am not sure what you mean by this comment. May you elaborate it for me please?

The question is what becomes of Delph if we don't sign Bertrand.

I suggest that City signing Dele Alli* to compensate from the sale/loan of Delph, who quite frankly is not good enough to play for our team and one we cannot afford to take up a valuable squad place within City, especially due to the restrictions that are in place.

*If Pep is going to stick with having 2 Attacking Midfielders in a starting XI, he is going to need to have 4 Attacking Midfielders within his squad (to provide enough cover and depth) when he currently has 3 (KDB, D.Silva and B.Silva)

If we sell him then we do need another HG to maximize our squad size which I am not sure is a priority for Pep.

If Pep wants to win a Treble/Quadruple, he is going to have to expand the squad within the regulations in question, likewise despite the state of the England team at the moment there are enough number of HG players who can be considered to be WC (such as Kane and Alli) who enable us to expand the squad and still allow it to be full of WC players. The only problem is the price the club would have to play to get such players (especially from Spurs)

 

[Blue1880]

I got that. Was just saying compared to the need for a LB or RB. Of which we had none it wasn't as important of a need.

There are some positions in our squad who are in greater need of improvement than others, but when you look at it (with an exception to the striker positions) pretty much every area of our squad (GK, Full Backs, Centre Backs, Central Midfielders, Attacking Midfielders and Wingers) is in need of major improvements* of some kind or another.

*Even if we have the right players in those starting positions, we still need additional strength in depth on the positions in question.

In 2012/13 We scored 120 goals and conceded 37. We won the league.

We won the league (again) in 2013/2014 with 102 goals scored and 37 conceded, so I think it was those figures you where referring to rather than the previous seasons ones.

In 2016/17 we soref 80 and conceded 39 and came 3rd.

True, the lack of goals (compared to Chelsea and Spurs) alongside our poor defensive record cost us the title in 2016/2017 season. However in the 2015/2016 seasons and the 2014/2015 seasons we ended up losing the title not because we did not score enough goals (we led the goal tallys in both seasons) but rather because our defensive record was worse than either the title winners (2014/2015) or the 3 teams which finished above us (2015/2016). In other words had we had the same defensive records as the title winners in both those seasons, we would have won both those titles.

Likewise had had a better defensive during the 2013/2014, 2014/2015 FA Cup and 2015/2016 campaigns we could have ended up winning at least the first 2 and maybe even the latter as well. Which would have meant that over the previous 4 seasons before the 2016/2017 season we would have won 3 Premier League Titles (in a row) and 2-3 FA Cups during that time period* rather than the One Premier League Title and 2 League Cups during that time period.

Long story short yes it does matter that City has a good goalscoring record (which was our issue last season alongside our defense), but it also matters that we have a good defense as well when it comes to winning titles/trophies.

*Which would have also meant that Arsenal would have ended up winning nothing between the end of the 2005/2006 season and the start of the 2016/2017 season.

If we had scored 80 goals in 2013, we would not have won the league... Similarly ift we had conceded 37 goals at best we'd have finished exactly where we did.

Only because (in the case of 2013/2014) Liverpool where scoring a huge number of goals during this time period (almost as many as us during that season), likewise one should also point out it was Liverpool's terrible defensive record more than anything else which cost them the title. Which further proves my point.

It is so blatantly obvious that our regression was more offensive related than it was defensive in nature.

I would rather suggest that last season it was our attack and defensive which failed us last season while it was our defensive that failed us in the 2 previous seasons before then. So overall I am in agreement with you about our attack last season I do feel (unless I am mistaken) that you underestimate the importance of defensive during our title and trophy campaigns.