It's Quiet 18 - Wanna ring the bell?

ScottSinclair said:
He started the 23/24 season on our bench (scoring two goals as an impact sub)
He ended the 23/24 season as the Young Player of The Year with a 30 g+a tally for a team that has historically been our rival, and now 18 months later is miles ahead of us in the table large thanks to us selling them Cole Palmer. Mistake. Huge mistake. Sackable mistake

You can put your head in the sand as much as you want and cry about how he didnt set the league on fire in the extremely limited minutes he got under a strict manager. Loads on here, me included didn't think he would turn out this good. But that doesn't excuse those that saw him in training everyday, saw that he was good enough to be kept around (this is the important bit), couldn't accept that he wasn't happy with having minutes here and there and wanted to be loaned out and ended up selling him. And instantly we saw the result of starting him 3 matches in a row. Because he was ridiculously good. While we struggled already last season with injuries on De Bruyne and replacing Mahrez output, luckily Phil started playing his best football. And now a year or so after it became crystal clear that we shouldn't have sold Palmer, that we have issues in that position we still havent tried rectifying it. Shambolic.

Pep is obviously a genius and the best manager that we have ever had. And the club has obviously made a lot of good decisions over the last decade. But those facts are the only reason why some people can even start defending a shambolic mistake like giving away someone as instantly fantastic as Palmer. Maybe, just maybe we can start anknowledging that our youth policy outside of selling for a profit is absolutely terrible. And maybe, just maybe we can add up all the mistakes and categorise it as a weakness in the manager we love. Even on the pitch we have seen for almost 3 months now that he has a couple of weaknesses in his game, despite being as we know very, very good at what he does. But he isn't infallible enough to not question him. Om the contrary If we want to get out of this rut we need to start asking a boatload of fucking questions

We have seen him hold McAtee hostage on the bench this season giving him a couple of minutes here and there, we saw him start Bobb a couple of times last season while suddenly not touching him at all for large stretches of the season. People say "he knows what he is doing, he did it with Foden". We have seen players like Palmer, Lavia and even Sancho at Dortmund (which I absolutely accept might be a mental thing) almost immediately become very good Premier League players or stars abroad as soon as they leave after hardly getting a sniff of proper minutes here. People say "They couldn't become those players at City, young players need to be blood in like Foden".

Maybe we can start accepting that the proof is in the pudding, and that Foden was the exception to the fact that he isn't very good at implementing youth players into his squad. If you see the handling of youth players and how many of them were basically ready as soon as they left our bench, maybe we can finally ask ourselves if Foden maybe could have ended up just as good if not better if he got more matching earlier when it was obvious for all that watched him that he was ready. Because I think hindsight now shows that the soft introduction he got to senior football wasn't down to some genius plan, but rather an early example of neglecting someone that easily could have been a more crucial part of the squad earlier. Thankfully, Foden stuck it out and were immensely talented. Sadly, we managed to sell Palmer before he got a proper run in the team which he never had where he probably would have looked very good on the account of him being a very good player. And people no doubt would have said "Pep has managed his minutes brilliantly". But he didn't. Instead we sold Chelsea their best player
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This was off the back of us winning the treble where he had some impact but I wouldn't call it groundbreaking either. This is more of equvialent of both Salah's and KDB's impact at Chelsea and their rise away from Stamford Bridge. Little sign of their form that got them to strasospheric status either.
 
Tugay One Cup said:
Can we get someone nasty in?

Right now we're playing a fucking pianist and a calculator at centre back.

I love those guys but it would be nice to have a bit of variety. Or at least someone who doesn't look like they're going to compose a fucking haiku whenever we concede.
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Imagine a prime Fernandinho, what a player he was.
 
RayCTID said:
This was off the back of us winning the treble where he had some impact but I wouldn't call it groundbreaking either. This is more of equvialent of both Salah's and KDB impact at Chelsea and their rise away from Stamford Bridge. Little sign of their form that got them to strasospheric status.
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Which were huge mistakes by Chelsea. Because both went on to be the best players for the two best teams in the league while they themselves struggled. And they could have had both

As I already said, what he did on the pitch for us is irrelevant when he never got a run in the team. It is well documented that those who saw him everyday thought he was good enough for the squad. When he himself wanted to be loaned out, they took the 50 million. That was a huge mistake. Knowing what we know now, no one would take the 50 million we just ended up banking. Knowing what we know now we throw him in as soon as De Bruyne got injured
 
ScottSinclair said:
Which were huge mistakes by Chelsea. Because both went on to be the best players for the two best teams in the league while they themselves struggled. And they could have had both
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They weren't mistakes at the time either. Pointless keeping them if they weren't showing real signs of impact or wanting to continue developing away from the Premier League in both their cases.
 
RayCTID said:
They weren't mistakes at the time either. Pointless keeping them if they weren't showing real signs of impact or wanting to continue developing away from the Premier League in both their cases.
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And why wouldn't a club develop them when they are already there? De Bruyne had a man of the match performance for them and then got dropped. Similiarily to Palmer he was instantly fantastic as soon as he went to another team. There is no argument for why it wasn't a mistake. As big of a mistake you can make in the transfer market

I have no idea why you keep peddling the "at the time" thing either. It was absolutely mistakes at the time
 
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