The squad isn't smaller: we replaced Laporte with Gvardiol, Gundo with Kova and Mahrez with Doku.
Palmer never played and his minutes have been replaced by Bobb.
Nunes is an extra player, which makes the squad bigger.
With such upbeat “fans” like you it’s amazing the atmosphere is sometimes flat at home gamesWe have one genuine full back, one genuine winger, and only 2 strikers in our squad! The rest are either goalkeepers, centre halves or, with the exception of Rodri, diminutive or untrusted midfielders!
It's no wonder we are in such a muddle, and without sounding too depressing, I don't see us winning today.
You must be delighted.And by the way: I rated Laporte as a class player, and a player who gave his all when he was injured, at the end of the 2021-22 season. But I firmly believe that Gvardiol is a serious upgrade on him, and his ceiling (which we haven't yet seen) is much higher.
Doku is also an upgrade on Riyad. And I rated Riyad too. We don't have bad players at City. They don't get through the door.
Cole Palmer? Cole was in a hurry — that is his right, you never know how long a career is going to last as a professional footballer — a big PL club came in for him, and they were offering serious money and regular starts. We were not going to promise him minutes or starts, so the honest thing was to do the deal. No regrets.
That won't be the last time it happens, by the way.
Yeah, it's going to be an extremely tough game today. Anyone thinking it will be a walkover is deluding themselves. Would happily take a scrappy 1-0 win right now.Don't buy this 'it's only Luton' crap. They'll scrap and fight and make it hard. 0-1 City, maybe 1-2, back in the points.
PalmerI know Pep likes working with a small squad but questions have to be asked as to why we have allowed our squad to become considerably smaller (and weaker) after winning a treble.
I was frustrated by our lack of crosses into Haaland against Villa. Surely after an hour of getting no joy playing the ball on the deck then a more direct appraoch should've been tried? Time and again our wide men refused to put it in, and his marker was a good foot shorter than him.Big blow if the reports on Haaland are true, as is looking likely. At least we can play Alvarez in his natural position now, but the squad is looking more depleted than ever. Need the players to dig deep today to get the win.
That’s gonna be a bit of a rush.Plane up and gone just now