Paul Pogba

[itisrising]

Thank fuck this transfer is done, we would have been slaughtered for paying this amount, never wanted him at city each time I've seen him he's never convinced me. I believe pep didn't want him and that's good enough for me.

Is a midfield consisting of Gundogan, Dinho, Fernando, Delph and Yaya good enough for you? We have 2 top midfield options and that's really it.

 

[citytill1die84]

This is my assessment too.

The most frustrating thing about this whole sorry episode is that we could have had Pogba last summer for considerably less than £89m, but Txiki did what Txiki does and acted too late in the window for him to even consider moving to us.

He's the sort of midfield player we've lacked since Toure's world class 13/14 season. He's a player who can grab a game by the scruff of the neck and break it apart, either with a fantastic goal or a blinding moment of vision (think back to this goal). We have a good squad and arguably the best manager on the planet - if we can get Hart, Kompany, Gundogan, Fernandinho, Silva, De Bruyne and Aguero fit and firing then I can't imagine we'll look too regretfully over at Old Trafford while Pogba goes from strength to strength - but this is a serious missed opportunity that we should have taken.

United were never going to be gone for long - all this "tick tock", Save Our Dave stuff was premature - because they're a huge business and huge businesses stretch themselves constantly to remain on top, but they've come back earlier than expected and this signing is a huge statement of intent. If they use him properly, which I'm not entirely sure on, he will be the man who rebuilds their new era. When we announced Guardiola, United were hurting and they've responded by getting Mourinho, Pogba and Mkhitaryan before the start of the new season. It's the sort of ruthlessness I believe we lack in the market at the moment (we're haggling over a few bob for Stones, struggling to get rid of the deadwood) and it could cost us in the near future.

I suppose the wider issues are a discussion for another time, but the harsh truth is that Pogba could have and should have been a City player last season. He's not, and now he plays for our greatest rivals. The fault for this lies at the door of Txiki Begiristain, so he's going to have to work some serious magic to make sure the consequences aren't too damaging.

This Txiki stuff is getting boring. What if Pep didn't want him? He gave the go ahead for De Bruyne. What if the Sheikh decided he wasn't worth it? How u know Pogba would have come? Basically u know jack shit and take the easy option in blaming Txiki. If Txiki was really that bad at his job do u seriously think he'd still be in the role?

He's gone the rags because no other club Real, Barcelona, PSG us or maybe even Chelsea thought he was worth the reported 112m outlay.

The rags are desperate. Pogba is a mercenary and only got for the coin.

 

[citytill1die84]

We've fucked up so bad. With all this talk of prem clubs having insane amount of money why aren't we throwing around £100million bids? We could try throw that for griezman or Bale or even kroos. An attack of Ibra Pogba Mikhitaryan and Martial is frightening. We've got so many past it players it's a joke.

Past it players rags have more past it players than us.

Mikhitaryan Pogba Martial

Ibra

Silva De Bruyne Sane

Aguero

I know which lot I'd prefer and it's no contest.

 

[FanchesterCity]

Well, the agreed percentage as part of the contract negotiations.

So you believe United put in a 30% sell on clause? and they're waiving that as part of the deal?
I very much doubt Juventus would have agreed to that - after all, they already held all the aces, and Pogba was free to leave anyway, and the worst case scenario would be that Juventus went to arbitration to pay a compensation fee to United. That would have been more favourable than a 30% sell on clause! I believe they paid United about 800,000K compensation (United had only had him 3 years).

 

[Armaan]

Past it players rags have more past it players than us.

Mikhitaryan Pogba Martial

Ibra

Silva De Bruyne Sane

Aguero

I know which lot I'd prefer and it's no contest.

There's not a lot between them. Ibra is old but he's still gonna score bucket loads. Pogba Mikhitaryan and Martial is as good as Silva KDB and Nolito/Sane. Mikhitaryan alone is very very under rated. Fuck it I'm just probably too scared can't even sleep :(

 

[FanchesterCity]

This Txiki stuff is getting boring. What if Pep didn't want him? He gave the go ahead for De Bruyne. What if the Sheikh decided he wasn't worth it? How u know Pogba would have come? Basically u know jack shit and take the easy option in blaming Txiki. If Txiki was really that bad at his job do u seriously think he'd still be in the role?

He's gone the rags because no other club Real, Barcelona, PSG us or maybe even Chelsea thought he was worth the reported 112m outlay.

The rags are desperate. Pogba is a mercenary and only got for the coin.

We win some, we lose some. We got De Bruyne and it's worked out for us. We got Sterling and so far it's not worked out for us.
The same will happen to United, some will work out, some won't.

We can't get every player - and some just don't want to come to us. That's life. This time round, United have the marquee signing with Pogba, next time around we might have Bale (just an example!).
We're doing just fine - a few hits, a few misses, but overall, we're doing fine. It's crazy to believe we've fucked up big time!

 

[FanchesterCity]

There's not a lot between them. Ibra is old but he's still gonna score bucket loads. Pogba Mikhitaryan and Martial is as good as Silva KDB and Nolito/Sane. Mikhitaryan alone is very very under rated. Fuck it I'm just probably too scared can't even sleep :(

We've not seen their team in genuine action yet, nor have we seen ours. There's no telling how things will go for either club - and there's more than United to consider. Chelsea and Arsenal are very good sides, and you can't rule out Spurs and Liverpool giving us problems either.

I think it's natural to feel a little jealous and nervous when a rival signs a big name player, but it didn't work out for Veron, or Di Maria - so there's every chance some of their signings will fail (just like some of ours have).

 

[The_Maverick]

So you believe United put in a 30% sell on clause? and they're waiving that as part of the deal?
I very much doubt Juventus would have agreed to that - after all, they already held all the aces, and Pogba was free to leave anyway, and the worst case scenario would be that Juventus went to arbitration to pay a compensation fee to United. That would have been more favourable than a 30% sell on clause! I believe they paid United about 800,000K compensation (United had only had him 3 years).

No. What I am saying is that the £89m fee is offset by the 30% sell-on clause. i.e. they are paying 70% of the total fee as the balance is payable to themselves. 70% of £127m is, guess what, £89m.

The £800,000 was compensation at the time and not related to future transfers


Really don't understand what's so hard to comprehend about that?

 

[Viridian]

This Txiki stuff is getting boring. What if Pep didn't want him? He gave the go ahead for De Bruyne. What if the Sheikh decided he wasn't worth it? How u know Pogba would have come? Basically u know jack shit and take the easy option in blaming Txiki. If Txiki was really that bad at his job do u seriously think he'd still be in the role?

He's gone the rags because no other club Real, Barcelona, PSG us or maybe even Chelsea thought he was worth the reported 112m outlay.

The rags are desperate. Pogba is a mercenary and only got for the coin.

Except it's not the easy option to blame Txiki. Criticising anybody who works for the club I care about more than any other is never the easy option, and criticising the man whose presence at the club was chiefly responsible for bringing us Pep Guardiola is also not the easy option. But that doesn't mean I can't look at Txiki's overall performance in the transfer market, and the performances of the first team under his leadership, and not feel a little disappointed in him.

When Mancini and Garry Cook were understandably replaced during the 12/13 season, we were sold a vision of holism that would apparently benefit many things, including our efficiency in the transfer market, but looking at the evidence that hasn't turned out to be the case. After the clusterfuck of the 2012 summer window anything would look like an improvement, but the reality is that we have under-performed in terms of player recruitment and squad management since Begiristain arrived at the club.

We have spent upwards of £300m since the summer of 2013 (excluding this summer) and yet we've taken steps backwards. Of the 14 first team signings we've made since then (excluding this summer), only three have improved the first team long term: De Bruyne, Fernandinho, Sagna. The rest either were not good enough (Jovetic, Caballero, Bony, Fernando, Mangala), haven't shown their full potential yet (Sterling, Delph), failed to sustain the form they showed early on in their City careers (Navas, Demichelis), or left under mysterious circumstances (Negredo).

In this time we also dismantled the core of a title-winning squad and fell from 1st to 4th (joint 5th if we're being harsh), failing to replace the likes of Lescott, Milner and Dzeko - players whose time at the club had definitely come to an end but were too important to lose without adequate replacements. Considering he's in charge of transfers, squad management and player recruitment, Txiki has to take the blame for this.

This summer got off to a good start, with the early arrivals of Gundogan and Nolito, but a disastrous commercial venture in China (admittedly a Soriano idea) has left our squad unprepared for the first few games of the season and we're facing the prospect of starting the season with Fernando and Kolarov (two players who should be nowhere near a Pep Guardiola team) as our CBs. We didn't go out and buy a defender early on in the window when it was clearly an area of serious concern. Instead we're haggling over £4-5m for Stones when just two years ago we were throwing upwards of £40m at Porto for Mangala.

And now the most sought after player in world football has gone to our greatest rivals when we could have signed him last summer for considerably less than the world record fee. Yes, big deals are complicated, but players like Pogba are worth the hassle to acquire. Instead, we moved too late in that particular and now face losing out on the Premier League title because we didn't act first. That is down to Txiki Begiristain.

So no, it's not the easy option, but it's where I place the blame.

 

[citytill1die84]

Except it's not the easy option to blame Txiki. Criticising anybody who works for the club I care about more than any other is never the easy option, and criticising the man whose presence at the club was chiefly responsible for bringing us Pep Guardiola is also not the easy option. But that doesn't mean I can't look at Txiki's overall performance in the transfer market, and the performances of the first team under his leadership, and not feel a little disappointed in him.

When Mancini and Garry Cook were understandably replaced during the 12/13 season, we were sold a vision of holism that would apparently benefit many things, including our efficiency in the transfer market, but looking at the evidence that hasn't turned out to be the case. After the clusterfuck of the 2012 summer window anything would look like an improvement, but the reality is that we have under-performed in terms of player recruitment and squad management since Begiristain arrived at the club.

We have spent upwards of £300m since the summer of 2013 (excluding this summer) and yet we've taken steps backwards. Of the 14 first team signings we've made since then (excluding this summer), only three have improved the first team long term: De Bruyne, Fernandinho, Sagna. The rest either were not good enough (Jovetic, Caballero, Bony, Fernando, Mangala), haven't shown their full potential yet (Sterling, Delph), failed to sustain the form they showed early on in their City careers (Navas, Demichelis), or left under mysterious circumstances (Negredo).

In this time we also dismantled the core of a title-winning squad and fell from 1st to 4th (joint 5th if we're being harsh), failing to replace the likes of Lescott, Milner and Dzeko - players whose time at the club had definitely come to an end but were too important to lose without adequate replacements. Considering he's in charge of transfers, squad management and player recruitment, Txiki has to take the blame for this.

This summer got off to a good start, with the early arrivals of Gundogan and Nolito, but a disastrous commercial venture in China (admittedly a Soriano idea) has left our squad unprepared for the first few games of the season and we're facing the prospect of starting the season with Fernando and Kolarov (two players who should be nowhere near a Pep Guardiola team) as our CBs. We didn't go out and buy a defender early on in the window when it was clearly an area of serious concern. Instead we're haggling over £4-5m for Stones when just two years ago we were throwing upwards of £40m at Porto for Mangala.

And now the most sought after player in world football has gone to our greatest rivals when we could have signed him last summer for considerably less than the world record fee. Yes, big deals are complicated, but players like Pogba are worth the hassle to acquire. Instead, we moved too late in that particular and now face losing out on the Premier League title because we didn't act first. That is down to Txiki Begiristain.

So no, it's not the easy option, but it's where I place the blame.

Like I said pal it's boring listening to people like u slag him off. You know fuck all about what's going on behind the scenes at City and if we truly wanted Pogba or not.