We were bullied when playing a two man midfield that included Yaya.
That won't be happening again.
And we can't have four strikers for one position. That's a ludicrous idea.
I don't think we are but the poster I replied to suggested we could be hanging about in order to save some kind of loyalty bonus. That would be fucking him about considering the service he's given us.
Like I said in my post though, I don't believe that to be the case.
I'm so hungover. It might just be someone from the academy, she got ushered off by a driver, I was going home and she was stood in the foyer, I was hammered but she looked fit, not sure what I even said to her initially but I asked her if she was in Manchester for work and she said no, I'm here because my son is signing for city, I'd guess she was about 40, being harsh. Will probably be that kids mum from South America we've nearly signed.
Some much needed humor in this thread to balance out the panicked childrenSurely contender for best BM post ever
Ok if mine was a stupid post, yours was an arrogant one..
You totally bypassed the point I made regarding the drop in quality over the past 4 years in the striker department, but I suppose that actually making a knowledgable football point wouldnt allow you to make a sarcastic remark; and you would presumably need to actually think for a change
There are only around 5/6 world class strikers on the planet, so I am not expecting one of those, but someone who offers more of a threat than Wilfried would do,
Ok, so when in the past 10 years have Kevin De Bruyne and David Silva played in central midfield. I said central midfield. Centre mid mate, where they may generally have portions of the game where they sit behind the centre circle and need to use actual defensive positioning and experience to either win the ball back or rat around to force a mistake. You have yet again bypassed where I mentioned ignore the attacking midfielders. We would get absolutely KILLED with a midfield 2 of just F + IG, and probably too if we played with 3 of them including KDB or DS too...
So why would I need to bench someone? I would seek, or hope the club would anyway, a central player with energy like ferna, but a bit of bite and guile on the ball too.. Then we have a nice mix in the middle. Or, going by your reckoning, we could try Bony there?
Im of the opinion also that we need to bolster that central mid area
Fernando although he improved and yet may still isn't good enough
Ferna - absolute quality
Gudongan - absolute quality
Yaya - the real problem.....what do we do with Yaya?????????? On his day he still controls games and can dominate teams. However against fast paced passing teams and teams that press he can become a liability when in a two...but in a 3 what is his role with the others we have?????? Its a real dilemma for Pep to solve and the one that MP failed to do so.
the rest of the midfielders are attacking mids
nasri and silva really help retain possession and provide attacking assists and generally control the game
Kdb is just purely an attacking threat (an exceptional one) but he does flit in and out of games and isn't the type of player to grab the game by the scruff of the neck......
Pogba is gone but regardless of whether he goes to utd or not he is the one we should have got (I understand why we haven't)
Kroos would add that control in there as well (a very hard target to go for).
After that available quality does drop off......
To be honest, Yaya was getting bullied off the ball quite frequently. It would be nice for Pep to be in charge of the Yaya of a few years ago but I can't see how he could work wonders with him
And where do you play Nasri, Silva and de Bruyne?At this early (I repeat early) stage we look like starting the season with the same midfield four as last season - Yaya, the Ferns and Delph. Of course this will change when Gundogan eventually gets fit. However to me starting with the same midfield is a scary situation because we were overrun in midfield by all our major rivals last season. Sure people will say that it was because of the way Pellegrini set the team up, but I am still not convinced that starting the season with the same four is going to work, even with Pep's magic touch.
I thought Pep was mad about acquiring midfielders. After last season it wasn't hard to make a case that Yaya, Fernando and Delph were not good enough for a Pep midfield. So I personally am surprised that it looks like all three will be staying. I would have thought there would be young, hungry midfielders out there that our scouts would have identified. Of course it's hard to prise players like Kroos and Thiago away from their current situation, but what I was hoping was that we would freshen the team up with young legs.
Last season we had the oldest squad in the premiership. I have to say that it will be disappointing if we can't refresh the squad with players in that 21-25 age bracket who will bring a youthful hungry edge to the team.
At this stage it also seems possible that we will have the same 4 fullbacks as last season. This also has to be of concern.
We really need an injection of youth, so to my mind it's a big risk to start the season with the same midfield as last season, and potentially the same fullbacks.
Serious lack of sense of humour in the transfer thread this year,gone are the fun and gifs etc,what is up with everyone?