The Squad planning thread

Blue_Lightsaber said:
Football doesn't stay put in the past.. you have to improve or you get left behind.

The rags are living in the 1999 treble.
We're living in the 2023 treble..
but it's 2025 and we can't even beat Southampton.
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49 attempts on goal against Soton and Palace and not a single goal to show for it.
 
The title of this thread ' The Squad Planning' s a total misnomer as it is abundantly evident there has been no squad planning for the last 2 seasons. We appear at best to have a scatter gun approach whereby we sign young players who we hope will come good and so far it has not really worked. The obvious weaknesses in the squad have not been rectified.
 
I wonder if the return of Rodri next season will improve our creativity and add goals.

I’ve been thinking about the loss of KDB and how often he’s been our creative spark. With Wirtz off the table and we haven’t been linked to any other 10s, will we keep our powder dry and wait a season to replace him?

If that’s the case will Reijnders, MGW and some full backs make a difference?

I’m wondering if having Rodri back will fix more issues than we think. Rodri is fairly creative for a 6 and obviously gets us goals, last season he scored 8 goals and had 10 assists in the league. The other issue that has me thinking is the fact we seem to play a lot with the handbrake on recently. In order to fix our vulnerability to transitions we’re more conservative than usual. Perhaps having Rodri, plus better athleticism in midfield and actual full backs will allow us play with more freedom. Just a thought.
 
mancboy said:
I think the players that we sign are going to make people gnash their teeth and say we arent serious or dont know what we are doing etc etc but viana has a reputation for signing unknown players and making them into absolute worldies, look at the players he has signed for sporting and where they are (god knows we could do with some of them), hopefully city are just cutting out the middle man and not having to sign these players for 80-100 million after theyve been somewhere else.
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Sporting play in an easier league though, with less pressure to win trophies. Their youngsters have time to bed in and improve or make mistakes. Do that here and it usually leads to an opposition goal, compounded by the fact no-one in our squad, apart from Haaland and possibly Marmoush can score.
 
Gibbs white - Rodri - Reijnders is a solid midfield will give us stability. What we need is goals out wide and from the full backs. So spend that Wirtz money on a goal scoring winger last time a winger scored for us was January, and two attacking full backs that can provide numbers. All the midfield has to be then is stable just like PSG and Inter
 
Gumzy97 said:
Gibbs white - Rodri - Reijnders is a solid midfield will give us stability. What we need is goals out wide and from the full backs. So spend that Wirtz money on a goal scoring winger last time a winger scored for us was January, and two attacking full backs that can provide numbers. All the midfield has to be then is stable just like PSG and Inter
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Rodrygo? Nico Williams? I wonder if Theo Hernandez would be a better signing for LB as well?
 
I don’t get why it always seems to be us that worries about costs.

We should be able to outspend anyone but Real Madrid.

Why doesn’t the ambition with transfers not match the financial clout?

IMG_0668.webp
 
If I were to try and predict Pep with the rumoured targets of 2 8's, and two fullbacks. I would guess we'll start something like this. Not gonna worry about GK's right now, itll either be ederson or a new signing.

DEFENCE:

i think there are strong vibes John stones is leaving, plus bah will be loaned out. So expect CB options to be:

Dias, Akanji, Ake, Khusanov, Gvardiol, Reis.

Would expect Ake, Gvardiol and akanji to get some filler minutes at fullback too. From that, would expect Dias and Gvardiol to be our starting pair in an average game, with akanji and ake being phased out, and khusanov and reis being phased in. That feels like enough to go with, maybe one too many if anything. Of course there's also a chance that Pep completely ices out Khusanov and reis, I hope he doesn't do that.

FULLBACKS:

I'll believe the more recent news and say we're signing two fullbacks, one on either side. Will also assume walker goes permanently. In which case our FB options will be:

NEW RB, NEW LB, Nunes, Lewis, Gvardiol, O'Reilly, Ake, Akanji.

If you discount the CB's, who will get most of their minutes there. that's 5 players for 2 spots, with the main cover options: Lewis, Nunes and O reilly, also able to play in midfield or wide. So that is probably fine, Though again could see an argument that it is one too many and maybe Nunes gets moved on. I think signing 2 starting FB's is pretty essential, as there's a lack of quality/expertise here and if we just get one we'll suffer for it.

MIDFIELD:

The real hellscape.

Will assume the 2 signings will be Reijnders and MGW, and Grealish will be moved on as rumoured, and Mcatee will be sold as rumoured.

Rodri, Nico G, MGW, Reijnders, Kovacic, Gundogan, Bernardo Silva, O'Reilly, Lewis, Nunes, Foden. Also potentially Marmoush and Bobb could get minutes here as well.

That is too many players lol, even with Mcatee and grealish going. I think if we're being honest, pep will probably start Bernardo over one of the new signings, at least to start with. So average 11 will feature Rodri, New CM and Bernardo. Which means you'll have 4 specialty cms on the bench (Kova,Gundo,Nico G and New CM), not to mention the flexi options like Lewis, Foden or O'Reilly. I think 2 more need to be sold.

WINGS:

if you try and make all those players fit, one option is Bernardo is booted out of the centre and becomes a RW option, Foden becomes a full time wing option and Lewis, nunes and O Reilly become cup players/auxillary full backs.

If you do that, you could start both new signings with Rodri and only have Gundo, kova and Nico G on the bench. Feels more reasonable , but then I think you'd definitely have to sell one of lewis, O Reilly and Nunes in that instance or risk a 0 minutes player with 2 FB signings, and you'd have..

Foden, Doku, Bobb, savinho, Marmoush and bernardo competing for 2 spots on wings.

Feels too many again, but you could say loan Bobb out for a year for minutes after injury, then bring him back to replace bernardo when his contract expires in 2026.

Selling 2 of Bernardo, kovacic and Gundogan removes all of these issues in both positions, and is absolutely what we should do. But Pep will probably fight for his boys to stay lol. He'd sell oreilly and Bobb first.

FORWARD:

Haaland, Marmoush.

Easy. no stress lol.

So would guess an average 11 to be:

Ederson/New GK.

NEW RB, Dias, Gvardiol, NEW LB

NEW CM, Rodri, Bernardo

Marmoush, Haaland, Foden, (with wingers rotating in.)
 
Gumzy97 said:
Gibbs white - Rodri - Reijnders is a solid midfield will give us stability. What we need is goals out wide and from the full backs. So spend that Wirtz money on a goal scoring winger last time a winger scored for us was January, and two attacking full backs that can provide numbers. All the midfield has to be then is stable just like PSG and Inter
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The winger situation at City is tragic. Needs addressing quickly or we’ll have the same issues next season!!
 
Mbeumo plays on a counterattacking side so I don’t know if he’s cope with regularly facing back 10s. On the other side he missed his first penalty at the weekend so he might yet fit in.
 
K-Bo said:
If I were to try and predict Pep with the rumoured targets of 2 8's, and two fullbacks. I would guess we'll start something like this. Not gonna worry about GK's right now, itll either be ederson or a new signing.

DEFENCE:

i think there are strong vibes John stones is leaving, plus bah will be loaned out. So expect CB options to be:

Dias, Akanji, Ake, Khusanov, Gvardiol, Reis.

Would expect Ake, Gvardiol and akanji to get some filler minutes at fullback too. From that, would expect Dias and Gvardiol to be our starting pair in an average game, with akanji and ake being phased out, and khusanov and reis being phased in. That feels like enough to go with, maybe one too many if anything. Of course there's also a chance that Pep completely ices out Khusanov and reis, I hope he doesn't do that.

FULLBACKS:

I'll believe the more recent news and say we're signing two fullbacks, one on either side. Will also assume walker goes permanently. In which case our FB options will be:

NEW RB, NEW LB, Nunes, Lewis, Gvardiol, O'Reilly, Ake, Akanji.

If you discount the CB's, who will get most of their minutes there. that's 5 players for 2 spots, with the main cover options: Lewis, Nunes and O reilly, also able to play in midfield or wide. So that is probably fine, Though again could see an argument that it is one too many and maybe Nunes gets moved on. I think signing 2 starting FB's is pretty essential, as there's a lack of quality/expertise here and if we just get one we'll suffer for it.

MIDFIELD:

The real hellscape.

Will assume the 2 signings will be Reijnders and MGW, and Grealish will be moved on as rumoured, and Mcatee will be sold as rumoured.

Rodri, Nico G, MGW, Reijnders, Kovacic, Gundogan, Bernardo Silva, O'Reilly, Lewis, Nunes, Foden. Also potentially Marmoush and Bobb could get minutes here as well.

That is too many players lol, even with Mcatee and grealish going. I think if we're being honest, pep will probably start Bernardo over one of the new signings, at least to start with. So average 11 will feature Rodri, New CM and Bernardo. Which means you'll have 4 specialty cms on the bench (Kova,Gundo,Nico G and New CM), not to mention the flexi options like Lewis, Foden or O'Reilly. I think 2 more need to be sold.

WINGS:

if you try and make all those players fit, one option is Bernardo is booted out of the centre and becomes a RW option, Foden becomes a full time wing option and Lewis, nunes and O Reilly become cup players/auxillary full backs.

If you do that, you could start both new signings with Rodri and only have Gundo, kova and Nico G on the bench. Feels more reasonable , but then I think you'd definitely have to sell one of lewis, O Reilly and Nunes in that instance or risk a 0 minutes player with 2 FB signings, and you'd have..

Foden, Doku, Bobb, savinho, Marmoush and bernardo competing for 2 spots on wings.

Feels too many again, but you could say loan Bobb out for a year for minutes after injury, then bring him back to replace bernardo when his contract expires in 2026.

Selling 2 of Bernardo, kovacic and Gundogan removes all of these issues in both positions, and is absolutely what we should do. But Pep will probably fight for his boys to stay lol. He'd sell oreilly and Bobb first.

FORWARD:

Haaland, Marmoush.

Easy. no stress lol.

So would guess an average 11 to be:

Ederson/New GK.

NEW RB, Dias, Gvardiol, NEW LB

NEW CM, Rodri, Bernardo

Marmoush, Haaland, Foden, (with wingers rotating in.)
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So loosing KDB Grealish and Macatee and replacing them with 2 players is too many midfielders ? When we haven’t had enough players anyway and it’s 3 out and 2 in

And you might also expect others to leave
 
WRicko said:
So loosing KDB Grealish and Macatee and replacing them with 2 players is too many midfielders ? When we haven’t had enough players anyway and it’s 3 out and 2 in

And you might also expect others to leave
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We currently have too many players. More will leave than come in.
 
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