Transfer Strategy

[Gabriel]

You have a point, but who would you have gone for? Good strikers don’t grow on trees and the good strikers (Mbappe and Haaland) are far to expensive for City to go near them. Kane was the probably the best, most attainable striker we could have got this summer, but we still couldn’t pull it off.

We could have gone shopping at the under the radar market, but would they have been any better than Jesus/Torres/Sterling/Delap?

I think we have to be careful about falling into the trap that we need to have the very best for every position. Dias was by no means the very best, yet within a year he has become our defensive mainstay.

Delap has 90 mins of a League Cup tie, 15 minutes of an FA Cup tie, and 39 minutes of a League game under his belt. Sterling struggles to retain possession on the wing against one man, so his touch in the centre would soon be found out; he’s also not under a long contract. Torres has instinct in front of goal but is still slight and physically growing, and he tends to disappear when up front. That leaves us with Jesus. An injury to him and we’re relying on others or a system that might have been of its time.

I’m pretty sure we can still find someone cheap enough and good enough to fulfill our needs.

 

[bluealf]

This is our transfer strategy.

It is so bad I don't know how we keep winning things, they really are lucky fuckers.

 

[brummie blue]

We must have known the Kane deal was going to be a hard one to get done, Levy is a pain in the arse, Kane hasn't exactly gone out of his way to get out, and if the media are to be believed our offer was refused ages ago or Levy just ignored us. If we wanted Kane, we should set a fee we were happy to pay, offer it, if refused move on.

Doesn't sound like there is a plan B.

If we end this transfer window without a striker I'll consider it a poor window, you win the league you strengthen, something we've been guilty of not doing previously and it's cost us. Grealish is nice to have, but was he really needed.

Teams are wiser to our false 9 now, Chelsea proved it and had the beating of us more than once, and they are a better side this season, as well as others.

Spending 100 mil on Grealish and banking on spending 100 mil (if we were lucky) on Kane, shows we have the funds. Haaland is a much better proposition, if you have 200 mil available, go and get him, he'll be around 6-8 years, more than Kane would have been. I think our planning/priorities have been wrong.

Even Messi on a free would have been a sensible consideration, you'd pay his wages in shirt sales and commercial input.

 

[Manchester_lalala]

I think we have to be careful about falling into the trap that we need to have the very best for every position. Dias was by no means the very best, yet within a year he has become our defensive mainstay.

Delap has 90 mins of a League Cup tie, 15 minutes of an FA Cup tie, and 39 minutes of a League game under his belt. Sterling struggles to retain possession on the wing against one man, so his touch in the centre would soon be found out; he’s also not under a long contract. Torres has instinct in front of goal but is still slight and physically growing, and he tends to disappear when up front. That leaves us with Jesus. An injury to him and we’re relying on others or a system that might have been of it’s time.

I’m pretty sure we can still find someone cheap enough and good enough to fulfill our needs.

Don’t get me wrong, there’s probably a cheaper alternative that would do the job for us. But it’s taking that risk and questioning if that risk is better than what we already have. We should have probably gone for Ings as he would have scored goals for us in the league. But we were still balls deep in for Kane at that point.

 

[nellyonthewing]

Danny Ings would probably have served the purpose if we needed a plan B against massed defences or a target man to draw away central defenders and allow our diminutive midfielders to exploit space. Probably would have notched 20 goals for us.

 

[Gabriel]

Don’t get me wrong, there’s probably a cheaper alternative that would do the job for us. But it’s taking that risk and questioning if that risk is better than what we already have. We should have probably gone for Ings as he would have scored goals for us in the league. But we were still balls deep in for Kane at that point.

We should never be so far into anything that we’re blind to what else is available, and I don’t think it’s a great risk to sign a recognized striker. The deficiencies in all our other players were known last season, and they haven’t changed, so it was up to the transfer team to identify possible replacements. We should now move for the next player identified.

 

[MadchesterCity]

This window has been hugely disappointing and was clear to see what was coming, been saying it all window about Kane and dealing with Levy.

We massively overpaid for Grealish in a position we were already stacked, we've been led up the garden path for Kane and missed out on Messi on a free. If we are to believe the ITK on here we had no interest in pursuing other striker targets which seemed utterly bizarre. Two of the fan favourites in Bernardo and Laporte are looking to leave which will be hugely disappointing.

We are too nice when it comes to being seen to do the right thing and struggle to close out unless there is a release clause as we don't want to pay over market price. It would appear we aren't able to bring in the real superstars like Messi, Haaland or Mbappe as we aren't willing to break our wage structure, there are positives to this but the downside is we don't sign the worlds best.

We've been blessed with the best manager in the world but have failed to sign a left back and a top quality defensive midfielder aswell as a Kun replacement.

The window ain't closed yet and the upper management who perhaps shouldn't have promised a Sergio replacement have a chance to deliver, be that Ronaldo or a monster package for Haaland. Chelsea, Liverpool and our neighbours outside the City have improved significantly which magnifies our failures. Can already hear the narrative around City letting Pep down with striker signing and the hope that Pep leaves the league ASAP. I actually wouldn't be surprised if those red cunts try and gazump us if we do try and sign Ronaldo!

I really rate Torres and hope we get to see Delap play centrally but for me neither Mahrez or Sterling should even be considered for the 9 position.

 

[Del_Bosque]

You have a point, but who would you have gone for? Good strikers don’t grow on trees and the good strikers (Mbappe and Haaland) are far to expensive for City to go near them. Kane was the probably the best, most attainable striker we could have got this summer, but we still couldn’t pull it off.

We could have gone shopping at the under the radar market, but would they have been any better than Jesus/Torres/Sterling/Delap?

The below have all moved in the last 12 months and we haven't gone for any and they are all better than what we have currently (basically nobody)

Luis Suarez 2020
Cavani 2020
Messi 2021
Lukaku 2021
Ings 2021
Daka 2021
Andre Silva 2021
Havertz 2020
Icardi 2020
Depay 2021
Dembele (the Lyonone) Jan 2021

Plus you've got Ronaldo wanting out.

Spanish & French clubs absolutely skint desperate to get rid of players.

That's without having a network of god knows how many clubs and not having brought in any promising players there who could step in.

We put all our eggs in Kanes basket when Levy point blank refused to sell and now we're seemingly sulking out the rest of the transfer window.

We'd be absolutely pissing ourselves if United had done this.

We won the league with a false 9 but it required probably the best defensive performance Dec to March of any City side I've seen, be amazed if we manage it again.

If we go behind and need a goal who do we bring on if there's no striker on the books.

 

[Manchester_lalala]

The below have all moved in the last 12 months and we haven't gone for any and they are all better than what we have currently (basically nobody)

Luis Suarez 2020
Cavani 2020
Messi 2021
Lukaku 2021
Ings 2021
Daka 2021
Andre Silva 2021
Havertz 2020
Icardi 2020
Depay 2021
Dembele (the Lyonone) Jan 2021

Plus you've got Ronaldo wanting out.

Spanish & French clubs absolutely skint desperate to get rid of players.

That's without having a network of god knows how many clubs and not having brought in any promising players there who could step in.

We put all our eggs in Kanes basket when Levy point blank refused to sell and now we're seemingly sulking out the rest of the transfer window.

We'd be absolutely pissing ourselves if United had done this.

We won the league with a false 9 but it required probably the best defensive performance Dec to March of any City side I've seen, be amazed if we manage it again.

If we go behind and need a goal who do we bring on if there's no striker on the books.

From that list the only one I’d fancy is Lukaku and Ings due to his price. Suarez may have been a good shout, but we still had Sergio at the start of last season and we didn’t know how bad his injury was going to be.

 

[Alan Harper's Tash]

This thread is too reactionary. We need some water to flow under the bridge before claiming we’re doomed because we’re run by clowns.

We aren’t doomed and we aren’t run by clowns.

We've missed out on Kane. It happens.