Transfer Strategy

[BlueBanger]

A World Class goalscorer would be an asset, but it's only in computer games that you can just spend money without consequences. I'm not talking about FFP or Budgets but the real impact on other players in the squad and existing contracts and team work.

In Football Manager or FIFA you simply spend whatever money you can to sign a Megastar (like Ronaldo or Haaland) and pay whatever they ask in wages. Their attributes then add to those you already have and Hey Presto, you win the League and Champions League just like that.

In the real World, egos, relationships and existing salary agreements complicate matters. Imagine KDB when Ronaldo turns up and is paid 2.5 times more than him - is his motivation going up or down?

Other members of the squad will want huge increases when the time comes to negotiate renewals, so it costs you a lot more than just the fees you lay out for the Megastar.

If the Megastar wants to take all the free kicks and expects everyone else to be subservient in his quest for personal glory, this will impact morale and other players efforts. We have spread the goals around the team, which is hard to defend against, but if everything goes through the Megastar forward then others take less responsibility for scoring.

Megastars usually have big egos and can make life difficult for the manager.

So it is not always an additive, there can be knock on effects in the real World that have to be taken into account.

When it comes to making a real World decision for the benefit of my Club then I am happy to put my trust in the owner, the board and manager who have brought us unprecedented success, and who have all the relevant information to make these calls on.

While i agree with a lot of what you write, the best teams to have ever operated have had such setups. Probably why we heard news(albeit rumours) of our own squad reacting positively to news ronaldo might come. He might be on mega money but they know mega talent makes their own lives easier.

Who can deny the likes of messi are well above the rest of football in terms of quality, the problem arises with the likes of ozil, sanchez, pogba, etc earning mega money for being merely good.

5 players are above this for me:

Messi, ronaldo, neymar, mbappe and haaland....any team they join would accept they have special talent and will earn more. As barca's squad did with messi, as real did with ronaldo, as paris do with mbappe and neymar.

 

[Blue back home]

One thing to consider is Pep won’t ba arsed what happens after he leaves. He can flog the squad into the ground then disappear. There’s a few older lads who’ll need replacing soon. If pep is thinking of leaving he CANNOT BE TRUSTED to leave a sustainable legacy.

 

[Eebo]

Classic response which perhaps, fails to acknowledge that had we had an absolutely world class striker playing for us last season, we might have gone that 1 step further and won the final...plus the FA Cup. No-one is disputing the fact that we have done great in the last few years, it has been wonderful fun, mind you the run in to the 18/19 season was a bit more tense than most of us would have liked.
The fact is, the manager and management team who have led us to this golden era wanted to bring in the likes of Kane because they see such a move as being a step towards lifting the CL and winning even more. Pep wants it, that is good enough for me.
It's easy to say that a section of the support is "entitled" without having any concrete evidence but that's the way of the modern world these days, chuck a few insults around and then casually walk away....

That is just classic conjecture and simplistic assumption.

There are not many World Class strikers available, there are even fewer who are prepared to run their balls off and work for the team as Pep requires, and who also have the football intelligence to work in Pep's system, and who will come for a salary won't upset the apple cart with the rest of the squad.

Most players seem to take a year or so to adapt to Pep's system, so even if you found your imaginary World Class forward last year and threw him into the team who is to say it would have worked as well as it did?

Can also argue that we achieved what we did by players throughout the team taking responsibility for scoring rather than leaving it to one player, and if you had your World Class forward in place then you lose some of those goals, and what happens when he is injured or loses form for a month or two?

 

[joe123]

One thing to consider is Pep won’t ba arsed what happens after he leaves. He can flog the squad into the ground then disappear. There’s a few older lads who’ll need replacing soon. If pep is thinking of leaving he CANNOT BE TRUSTED to leave a sustainable legacy.

Might be one of the reasons - Pep wanted Kane but we the board wouldn’t pay what Levy wanted as it was shit value longevity wise.

Unfortunately for the flappers, anyone that was available wouldn’t have improved us. There are a handful of players that would improve us, but were simply unattainable - it’s as simple as that.

And I don’t think for a second Pep will run us into the ground. He’s got far too much professional pride for that.

 

[Eebo]

While i agree with a lot of what you write, the best teams to have ever operated have had such setups. Probably why we heard news(albeit rumours) of our own squad reacting positively to news ronaldo might come. He might be on mega money but they know mega talent makes their own lives easier.

Who can deny the likes of messi are well above the rest of football in terms of quality, the problem arises with the likes of ozil, sanchez, pogba, etc earning mega money for being merely good.

5 players are above this for me:

Messi, ronaldo, neymar, mbappe and haaland....any team they join would accept they have special talent and will earn more. As barca's squad did with messi, as real did with ronaldo, as paris do with mbappe and neymar.

I was excited about seeing what Ronaldo could do when it was said he was coming to us for £375K/week, and was disappointed to find he was going to the Rags, but then when I heard it was for £872K per week I could see why we didn't go with that. We were told he wanted to come to us for the trophies, and was prepared to tak a pay cut to get them, but turns out he wanted the most money or was still a Rag at heart, so I can see why we were wary.

At the time I seem to remember we all thought Alexis Sanchez was going to be the final piece in our jigsaw. As it turned out our recruitment team made the right call on that one, so all I''m saying is I am prepared to see what happens before criticising them.

We also still have £100M- £150M in the transfer kitty for when we do find a forward that the we think fits the bill, and there will always be a new up and coming star just around the corner.

 

[BlueBanger]

I was excited about seeing what Ronaldo could do when it was said he was coming to us for £375K/week, and was disappointed to find he was going to the Rags, but then when I heard it was for £872K per week I could see why we didn't go with that. We were told he wanted to come to us for the trophies, and was prepared to tak a pay cut to get them, but turns out he wanted the most money or was still a Rag at heart, so I can see why we were wary.

At the time I seem to remember we all thought Alexis Sanchez was going to be the final piece in our jigsaw. As it turned out our recruitment team made the right call on that one, so all I''m saying is I am prepared to see what happens before criticising them.

We also still have £100M- £150M in the transfer kitty for when we do find a forward that the we think fits the bill, and there will always be a new up and coming star just around the corner.

Yeah i mean ronaldo also might end up struggling in the prem now. I doubt it he's class still...but one can hope.

 

[macsbac]

I was on the fence about signing Ronaldo or Messi. Though they could have boosted City's profile globally, being a big advantage.

Also releasing Sergio was the right time, an unbelievable player and he should have had a statue also. Though the injuries were catching up to him.

Though we only have one forward whos now playing on the right-wing ( really well ) and a left-back in prison could be gone for good. These are arguably our weakest positions for cover. Surely we needed to strengthen in these two positions. If we were to bring Delap in then surely we should give him some mins that second half against the gunners would have been a great time.

If you had told me at the start of the summer we wouldn't sign a forward and no left back I would have said your mad.

 

[Trevor Morley's Tache]

We have NOT had a bad transfer window.

Grealish plus a raft of new contracts, and Bernie hasn't been sold. Kane and Ronaldo would have screwed up our wage structure and upset the harmony in the dressing room.

I am genuinely happy with our squad, and pissing myself at the prospect of the Trafford SCUM trying to shoehorn a pair of vastly overpaid 36 year old forwards into their starting line-up every week.

 

[Silva2021]

There are reasons it has gone wrong anc we don’t panic buy, a wrong buy is always harder to rectify then no buy.

But we went into the season needing a LB and a Striker and got neither, so it is a bad window.

More so for a club that likes to long term plan, we would have thought about replacing Aguero for the last 2 years.

Even today you would think Greizman would be of been of interest.

 

[Silva2021]

Seems as good a time as any to revive the City transfer strategy.

We have a medium-long term strategy with our squad that is rarely broken.

Small squad (despite what is claimed) and high quality with flexible players playing across positions.

The transfers regardless of success seem thought out both in terms of squad happiness as well as on field success.

We do not want the wrong player stuck in the squad and only sanction a deal once we know everything meets our requirements.

We are far happier to walk away from a deal then do a deal we do not like.

This is my view and I can imagine this strategy being decided in a boardroom, receiving approval has been carried out and achieved success.

So why, start a thread discussing if it is right??

Well, is it fully working for us.

Do we get the players we want and do we get value?

A lot of our deals have been release clauses and do we see a City will walk away price on others or players being priced for the market and ending up elsewhere.