It's Quiet 17 - Glory Thread

[St.Pauli support]

Cucu would be a great oprion to rotate Cancelo and Walker next season. Given his and Walker's age, Cucu might become our main LB. But not straightaway.

As I see it, might be wrong of course, Cancelo and Walker will be first choice in the big games next season. Against weaker teams, Cancelo on the right and Cucu on the left might be the better choice, for we wouldn't need Walker's defensive qualities to the same extent.

Think Cancelo is our most valuable defensive player FOR Pep, because he is great in different positions and utterly fit. If Pep had to choose one defensive player to stay fit next season, it would be Cancelo, imo. A bad injury to him and we are fucked, given that his injury record is far superior to Walker's or Stones'.

Spot on.

 

[alexmcity]

Good player but needs to work on his stamina for a full season.

LOL

Cancelo's fitter than 90% of our players.

He played too many minutes last season, more than any City player, and much more than any City defender not named Laporte.

If you play so many games, you get tired, more mentally than physically in his case.

 

[St.Pauli support]

LOL

Cancelo's fitter than 90% of our players.

He played too many minutes last season, more than any City player, and much more than any City defender not named Laporte.

If you play so many games, you get tired, more mentally than physically in his case.

Surely somebody has the proper table,
but I'm sure Cancelo had top10 PL minutes last season, and most others being keepers and CBs.

Cancelo's workrate was near brutal and surely not sustainable. If want to avoid injuries we have to find a better minutes balance. The club will be fully aware.

 

[LongsightM13]

LOL

Cancelo's fitter than 90% of our players.

He played too many minutes last season, more than any City player, and much more than any City defender not named Laporte.

If you play so many games, you get tired, more mentally than physically in his case.

Plus the trauma of being attacked and robbed in his own home mid season. A few days later he was helping us grind out a vital injury time win at arsenal, and being hit with missiles from the crowd.

 

[applejuice]

If Luke Thomas is offered to west Ham, the price won't be high and why don't we sign him as a back up plan while chasing Cucurella?

 

[bluenova]

Surely somebody has the proper table,
but I'm sure Cancelo had top10 PL minutes last season, and most others being keepers and CBs.

Cancelo's workrate was near brutal and surely not sustainable. If want to avoid injuries we have to find a better minutes balance. The club will be fully aware.

He played something like 4600 minutes across all competitions for City.

That's nearly 7 1/2 full games more than the next most used outfield player (Bernardo), and most players were another 7-10 games behind.

 

[St.Pauli support]

He played something like 4600 minutes across all competitions for City.

That's nearly 7 1/2 full games more than the next most used outfield player (Bernardo), and most players were another 7-10 games behind.

Weird isn't it?

Playing time is widely underrated and not being discussed at all but I think it's key to our squad philosophy:

since years we only sign top quality, because we want to be top above all others.
As a consequence top players only sign if they can play enough minutes to avoid the bench. Too much competition on 1 position and top players won't sign.
That way we have happy players and are using the economic value of the squad to a high degree.

As another consequence top players who sign have to be committed to play on different positions in case of injuries or suspensions. Only committed players with the right attitude would be ready for that, and that's what Pep means when he wants "nice players". We don't want 'nice' players - but committed, confident, eager team players who want to win it all.

On the other hand the squad must not be too thin for obvious reason as we go for all competitions.

That's the complexity involved finding the right balance between 'enough minutes for top players' and 'not too much minutes and risk injuries'.

I think I'll open an extra thread about minutes played and expected for next season to get a more detailed feeling about squad development.

 

[glyntowen]

cancelo fell off the pace really badly in the last 3 months of the season and it was highly likely that is was down to fatigue

I'd like us to sign a true LB as i don't feel that is where he should be playing anyway, seems more of a mid to me as can look lost facing his own goal

I'm not too worried about up front, think with Haaland and Alvarez with Palmer and McAtee along with Foden, Mahrez and Grealish we can cover it. Also think we will see more of Phillips that some expect which might see Kev higher up in some games

I would like to see some true pace in the side, ideally someone that doesn't suffer from brain freeze like Raz used to do when he was countering quickly, sometimes he just couldn't make his mind up which way to pass and the counter was stopped

it's alright saying we are short but as we are finding out with Cucurella, we aren't in the position where we can just go out and get people, we are still working to a budget and our valuations might not tally with the selling clubs. I'm fairly confident in the people we have at the club and I'd say they are working on 1, 3 and 5 year plans with a budget framework for those 5 years, any funds that are saved this year will be used when they can going forward but we know we have players to replace next season

 

[Pollocksheader]

LOL

Cancelo's fitter than 90% of our players.

He played too many minutes last season, more than any City player, and much more than any City defender not named Laporte.

If you play so many games, you get tired, more mentally than physically in his case.

Don’t see it as fitness, his form tends to dip that last third of the season or certainly has last two years

 

[bluenova]

Weird isn't it?

Playing time is widely underrated and not being discussed at all but I think it's key to our squad philosophy:

since years we only sign top quality, because we want to be top above all others.
As a consequence top players only sign if they can play enough minutes to avoid the bench. Too much competition on 1 position and top players won't sign.
That way we have happy players and are using the economic value of the squad to a high degree.

As another consequence top players who sign have to be committed to play on different positions in case of injuries or suspensions. Only committed players with the right attitude would be ready for that, and that's what Pep means when he wants "nice players". We don't want 'nice' players - but committed, confident, eager team players who want to win it all.

On the other hand the squad must not be too thin for obvious reason as we go for all competitions.

That's the complexity involved finding the right balance between 'enough minutes for top players' and 'not too much minutes and risk injuries'.

I think I'll open an extra thread about minutes played and expected for next season to get a more detailed feeling about squad development.

I've mentioned it quite a lot and it does make a difference when you're comparing squads.

Liverpool strangely have a bigger squad, but still have been absolutely battering their first eleven while underusing bench players.

Pep uses a smaller squad, but the quality is fairly flat throughout - Most of our players have been first choice at some point in the last few years, and the minutes are really spread around. It's a real outlier for Pep to have a player hitting the minutes Cancelo did last season.

It also feeds into some of the arguments about whether we're short of players, as pretty much everyone expects to play a substantial part of the season.

 

[alexmcity]

Don’t see it as fitness, his form tends to dip that last third of the season or certainly has last two years

Probably because he wasn't properly rotated and rested.

Rodri lost form in the final weeks of the 20/21 season and didn't play in the CL final too. Some were arguing last summer that Rodri wasn't good enough to start for us. (Imagine that.) But Pep rotated him more often in 21/22 and Rodri finished the season as one of our best players.

Pep couldn't rotate Cancelo as much as Rodri, for Walker and Stones had injuries, and Walker missed 3 CL knock-out games for a stupid foul. Is it Cancelo's fault that his form dipped, given that he played much more minutes than Walker, Stones and Dias? Most probably not.

 

[CityBluez]

Probably because he wasn't properly rotated and rested.

Rodri lost form in the final weeks of the 20/21 season and didn't play in the CL final too. Some were arguing last summer that Rodri wasn't good enough to start for us. (Imagine that.) But Pep rotated him more often in 21/22 and Rodri finished the season as one of our best players.

Pep couldn't rotate Cancelo as much as Rodri, for Walker and Stones had injuries, and Walker missed 3 CL knock-out games for a stupid foul. Is it Cancelo's fault that his form dipped, given that he played much more minutes than Walker, Stones and Dias? Most probably not.

Agree except the rodri part. I think rodri played a lot in 21/22 as well but he understood better what was expected of him and massive improvement from 20/21. He was in/out of form in 20/21 .

 

[alexmcity]

Agree except the rodri part. I think rodri played a lot in 21/22 as well but he understood better what was expected of him and massive improvement from 20/21. He was in/out of form in 20/21 .

Rodri was great during the run of 21 consecutive wins in 20/21. But got tired, made mistakes in late April and May, and lost his place in the CL final. As a result, some argued in the counterpart of this thread from last summer that Rodri should be upgraded.

 

[Pollocksheader]

Probably because he wasn't properly rotated and rested.

Rodri lost form in the final weeks of the 20/21 season and didn't play in the CL final too. Some were arguing last summer that Rodri wasn't good enough to start for us. (Imagine that.) But Pep rotated him more often in 21/22 and Rodri finished the season as one of our best players.

Pep couldn't rotate Cancelo as much as Rodri, for Walker and Stones had injuries, and Walker missed 3 CL knock-out games for a stupid foul. Is it Cancelo's fault that his form dipped, given that he played much more minutes than Walker, Stones and Dias? Most probably not.

There isn’t a cut off in minutes where your firm then dips is there. Time will tell on it really, just his last third of the last two seasons he’s been nowhere near as good, that’s even before the minutes pile up it takes a dip.

 

[Calv_from_the_frog]

Perhaps it's the way I'm reading that but do you mean "all but Liverpool"?

I'm saying that no team apart from, perhaps, Liverpool could even begin to claim that their LB is better (and ecen that is extremely debatable).

 

[Calv_from_the_frog]

I am not sure I follow what you are saying here? It reads that liverpool would prefer Cancelo as their left back but the other 18 teams wouldn’t?

It should be wouldn't not would.

 

[alexmcity]

There isn’t a cut off in minutes where your firm then dips is there. Time will tell on it really, just his last third of the last two seasons he’s been nowhere near as good, that’s even before the minutes pile up it takes a dip.

Walker had injuries in 20/21 as well and Cancelo was being permanently played (remember the games in January and February 2021 including Liverpool away which Walker missed through injury?). If Cancelo was properly rotated and rested, your point might have been more convincing. He was overplayed, especially last season. Fortunately, he was permanently available, including the most crucial part of the season when half of the defenders were injured in spite of having played a lot fewer minutes.

 

[Maldeika]

Sosa is a hidden gem seriously, I’ve never seen a left back make Bayern tremble as much as he did at their ground. incredible good creative player with a homing missile for a cross. He’s an exceptional talent. If we get him instead of Cucurella we won’t be disappointed. has had brilliant displays against other top German teams to.

Problem is that you need a striker that matches to him with the abilities. Haaland is not that good in the air until now even if he improved that in the last season.

 

[vicblueman]

LOL

Cancelo's fitter than 90% of our players.

He played too many minutes last season, more than any City player, and much more than any City defender not named Laporte.

If you play so many games, you get tired, more mentally than physically in his case.

If you think he was over played how will he get on this season with a stupid world cup fitted into the season .
i reckon with 6-8 games to go his performances will drop off again.

 

[alexmcity]

If you think he was over played how will he get on this season with a stupid world cup fitted into the season .
i reckon with 6-8 games to go his performances will drop off again.

Cucu or another new LB/Ake.