mancity1 said:
Mister Appointment said:
I agree he'd have been a top signing, but not a player we were in desperate need of last summer. We had other pressing concerns.
But Pellegrini didn't so he was bombed out. That's life. I don't think Nastasic was as good as people made out and I certainly don't think he's a patch on Mangala.
Well this basically comes down to the manager deciding that Nastasic wasn't good enough as a long term replacement for MD. This is what we needed after Lescott left and it's why Mangala was bought and we let Nastasic go. I think we'd all accept that regardless of the promise he showed in his first year at the club, he was awful when he took the pitch last season under Pellegrini and it was clear that he struggled to play in the manner in which Pellegrini wanted us to play. No shame in that but equally no point in keeping him.
Yes but you can't make that judgment in January when we're still in the two big competitions. This is no different to last season when people were critical of MP's transfer business because they thought the league was running away and that we weren't good enough.
I agree and this isn't a new issue. It's been around since even before Mancini was manager and nobody so far has addressed it in any particularly impressive way.
I think it's the same for most players. The difference in defensive situations is that if you do make a mistake, much like a keeper, it's highlighted because you let a goal in. An attacker fluffing his lines isn't the same.
I'm not sure there's much point in singling him out at set pieces when we collectively look like we've just met each other on the playground whenever we've got a set piece.
All good discussion points you raise MA and as I said it opinions to some degree.
Like you I am not going to write off Mangala on the basis of what he has or hasn't done so far.
The same ones who saying he was a world class CB after our 1-1 draw at Chelsea are saying we should sell him and cut our losses now.
I don't want Fernando to put into a similar category either yet because of his stuttering start to his City career.
It could be that Nasty is a slightly younger version of Savic and that Mangala ends up delivering much more I certainly hope so as we have invested heavily in him.
I still think that with Nasty , VK , Sagna , MDM and Boyata notwthstanding and assuming nobody from the youth squads was not going to step up into these positions this year which you wouldn't know unless you tried them we had enough to cover the loss of Lescott who last year was played sparingly in the league anyway when we won the title.
Its only an opinion but I think we would be better placed in the table with a Sanchez playing alongside Silva and Nasri instead of Navas or Milner.
You could quite rightly disagree and it would be difficult for both us to justify our position without some movement from both of us.
What we both agree on is Mangala was bought for the medium to long term hopefully a 6 -8 year player for us along the lines of VK and if he does as well as a fit and clear headed Vinny has done for us in that time I won't complain.
Just to be clear, at no point did I write off Mangala. Contrary to most opinion, I think he is a pretty good defender and will be the best CB on our squad by next January. Of that I am extremely hopeful.
Like I have said multiple times, this dicussion for me is not about the players, but about 'choices made' in light of our 'circumstance in the summer.' To not know the limits of the discussion is to not understand it.
Furthermore, I pointed out earlier in this thread that the OPs position is a little hyperbolic. It is factually incorrect to claim we've had three bad years of transfers: we haven't. And my basis for coming to that conclusion is simple:
In seasons when we've purchased starters, we improved drastically. In seasons when we didn't, we stagnate or regress a tad. It was with that in mind that I concluded we did poorly last summer.
Even by the club's standard, I think they bought one starter and 4 backups. The Starter being Fernando to replace Dihno. I didnt think he was as good a fit for our team, as the guy he was brought in to replace, Fernandihno, was a better fit for a midfield 2. Thus, I concluded we did poorly in our dealings.
As far as dealings are concerned, we bought 1 starter for this season, 1 future starter, Mangala, and three short term backups. In addition to that, we spent 32 -42 million on a backup CB for THIS season. True, I rate the said CB quite highly. And as a talent I have no problem with him, but as a management decision on where to put the majority of your limited funds - it was a terrible decision.
Thus, 1. How I rate the player, should not be confused with 2. The decision to get him at the time we did.
Some argue if we didn't get him, someone else would have: I call that a narrow vision view of things. As there are other very good young CBs who are cheaper and would turn out about as good. Who we could have bought in the summer for way cheaper or simply waited till the coming summer to get. I gave a list of 4 or 5 of them in an earlier post. Therein lies my issue with our summer actions on incomings. Like I posted in the thread on the transfer forum Congratulating our management team I said, "I was impressed with what they did in regards to the outgoings, but as per the incomings I'd have gone a different route." Nothing that has happened since then have swayed my opinion otherwise. Frankly, it has made it stronger.
In conclusion, I find it a bit strange that MA now claims a speedy left winger has been a need since Mancini's time, but when I claim we should have gone for Sanchez, he thinks I'm ridiculous for wanting us to go for a position that wasn't needed. Which one is it? Do we have a need there or don't we?
