It's Quiet the £250m return

Dribble said:
ManUre made the mistake of not evolving when they were kings. 12 years on...

The point many are making is our mistake was not starting our squad succession planning in earnest right after the treble. It was obvious then that the treble winning squad had peaked & a core of them were ageing & beginning to lose their physicality, pace & were succumbing to injuries.

We left it too late which can be summed up by our huge January & summer 2025 transfer activity. Our recent transfer activity looks uncharacteristically chaotic in comparison to our recent past.

We've bought well, but have a glaring hole at RB, where our main option seems to be failed midfielder Matheus Nunes. If anything were to happen to him, the "can do a job" merchants will inevitably appear suggesting in-squad replacements like Lewis, Stones, Akanji, Khusanov etc. None of them are specialist RB's, & 2 of them have age & questionable injury records against them.

Liverpool have evidently taken note of what happened to ManUre, Chelsea, Arsenal & City not massively strengthening when they were on top, as evidenced by their approach to this window.

As mentioned by others, if Yamal, Pedri & the like were signed for City, they too might be loaned to Girona with us looking to sell them on with buy back clauses. I'm still scratching my head as to why we're loaning out Reis, Echeverri & possibly others, whilst seemingly falling back on those who are ageing & can't stay fit for significant periods.

Barça had few options available other than to take a step back after being bled dry trying to keep Messi happy - a mistake which all but bankrupted them, hence the reliance on Pedri, Gavi & Yamal etc during their barren years.

Our problems didn't start last season. They started in the summer of 2023 when we didn't take action then. As things stand, we have 1 x No 9, 1 x LB, no RB & a squad full of CB's & midfielders.

Our inaction has handed Liverpool the advantage, but with Arsenal & Chelsea also massively strengthening, we've gone from City being the team to beat, to challenging to remain in this season's top 4, with a bloated squad filled with ageing, injury-prone players who are refusing to leave.

That's the cold, hard reality, & we only have ourselves to blame. If you don't evolve when you're on top, you die. It's that simple...
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And we move on.
The club have acknowledged that some mistakes were made.
We have a group of new players and a new coaching team.
Time for us to let it go and look forward to cheering a more youthful, dynamic team.
 
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Rodri’s ACL said:
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Good. A player who is so close to the first team should no be sold. But Pep needs to play our young players a lot more than he has done in the past. That in turn means moving on some senior players e.g., Grealish, Gundogan and even Mcatee although he's not senior in some senses.
 
Marvin. said:
Good. A player who is so close to the first team should no be sold. But Pep needs to play our young players a lot more than he has done in the past. That in turn means moving on some senior players e.g., Grealish, Gundogan and even Mcatee although he's not senior in some senses.
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I think the direction the club wants to take is pretty clear.
Whether we can achieve everything we would like to in this window is a moot point.
 
Why does he want to go Roma. If he wants to get into the Argentina world cup squad there's already a Argentine in his position at Roma who's been brilliant for them in Soule. So he wouldn't be guaranteed playing time there.
 
Centurions said:
Because the club don't respond to every single social media post?
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True but something smells here why all the media reporting it’s like the people making the decisions for echi are being promised something if they get him?! Also isn’t it funny we not rebuffed any of this as in them actually buying him after the loan deal? It’s like they getting encouragement..?
 
Gumzy97 said:
Why does he want to go Roma. If he wants to get into the Argentina world cup squad there's already an Argentine in his position at Roma who's been brilliant for them in Soule. So he wouldn't be guaranteed playing time there.
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Huge Argentine media attention on Roma already, so if his intention is to drum up interest in him ahead of the World Cup, then it makes sense. Roma would presumably not be interested if they had no intention of playing him.
 
The source actually has 'Personal tweets' in his bio.
We cannot possible respond to every tweet created by journalists, followers and fans, nor should/would we.
I enjoy social media but we have to accept that ANYONE can create ANY rumour and then it gets spread, and spread very quickly, hashtag by hashtag.
 
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