Man City "lacking ideas" translates to "Pellegrini lacking ideas".
For me we've suffered because of our rapid growth, meaning we don't have the back-up in home grown talent we need. Thus we have too many squad foreign players, whereas we need to now transition into a top level squad, with stars fighting for position, and perhaps like Madrid, selling the weakest one each season to keep it fresh/dynamic. Silva needs competition, Nasri needs competition, Yaya needs competition, Aguero needs competition, and we also need other options to give us a plan B. We lack pace, intensity, our central midfield is weak without Yaya's presence, and we lack left sided width and creativity and dynamism. There's also a worrying lack of defensive shape, responsibility, communication and organisation.
Perhaps it wouldn't be a bad thing selling 2 or 3 known stars in our squad and re-investing the money. I think we genuinely need a £150m spree in the summer, and we need to keep within FFP limits, thus we have to make some sacrifices. We need to buy world class foreign players, not squad players, and we need to promote our best EDS HG players and be willing to chance them, and create that culture in the club, because let's face it, for a club of our standing and resources we won't do any worse than this season, which is saying something.
I look at Pelle, I look at his age, contract length, I look at the weaknesses, our lack of defensive capability (a continual problem under him), our tendency to drop the ball to weaker teams (last season it manifested itself in cup performances, this season throughout the competitions, even if we look at our performances v CSKA compared to the 2 big Bayern/Roma games at the end of the group) and our attacking flair and dynamism has dissipated. Like I said earlier, I wonder how much of last season's resurgence was down to "arm around the shoulder" and ego-massaging/confidence building, and that now a firmer stance is needed, the egos have, maybe got too big for him, but at least now aren't responding to him like they didn't under Mancini. Or is it case that his attitude, and perhaps continual underestimation of weaker teams/expectation in our players, manifests itself in our squad. We rarely see the hunger/desire from our players to kill/humiliate a weaker side and show them no mercy. Our players are repeating the "we're champions, now we'll fail" farce of 2012/13, they don't seem to have learnt from it and I'm really trying to figure which manager could deal with this 2nd season syndrome we've got, and whether it really is a case of cashing in on 2/3 players and bringing a fresh view into the side, or at least bringing in players above the stature of our current squad and creating a new dressing room dynamic. Let's be honest, this isn't a side that's commanded a title they've won, this isn't a dominant side and we have to make that next growing step. Is Pelle that man? I don't think so, I think we've been through the consolidating phase, and now we need to step up.
