I’m genuinely curious, if any available (available meaning not someone like Messi or Ronaldo, or a indispensable player in a serious CL contender) could replace a member in our starting eleven. I don’t see how we could realistically transfer a player than could improve our starting 11 at this point
Ederson is essentially the perfect goalkeeper for a guardiola based team. Ridiculous distribution and fairly solid shot stopping ability.
Our midfield trio may be the best in the world.
Fernandinho, as a holding midfielder, is among the best in the world (I’d say top 3 personally, I have kante above him fyi)
De bruyne is a legitimate top 3-5 player in the world and I would say the best at his position. (I would put him at number 4 personally, still behind the “big three” but very close to breaking into that group. Less diva issues than 2/3 in that group as well)
Silva is underrated by non city fans, but may be as important to our side as de bruyne. I’d put him above all players who could play his role for us, including the likes of kroos and modric. In the last 34 matches when Silva has played, we have won 32, drawn 1, and lost 1. In the game we drew and the game we lost, we had a red card before halftime.
Sane and Sterling have a combined age of a young 45 year old. Both are world class already with so much to improve on.
Defensively, the situation changes somewhat, but we still have a strong back 4 of
Mendy (Kompany/Mendi) (Stones/Laporte) Walker
And you easily could argue walker is a top 5 RB in the world, while Mendy could potentially be the best left back in the world some day
Kompany seems to finally be healthy and a healthy Kompany is both the best defender in the squad and best defender in the PL imo. (He’s been pretty insane since he’s come back) while stones and Laporte ooze potential and could become the best cb pairing in the world one day (stones may have been the best in the league early on) and otamendi has been incredible as well (our best this year)
And at striker, we have aguero, who is aguero, and a young improving competitor in Gabriel jesus, who literally just turned 21
We are on pace to score 108 goals this year
For comparison, that is
12 more than Barcelona in laliga
10 more than Bayern in Bundesliga (if they had a hypothetical 38 game season)
19 more than juventus is Seria A
It’s only less than PSG who are at 116 goals in ligue 1. But then, it’s ligue 1.
We also have the most points at 31 games than all other teams (none of the other teams are close aside from psg, who have 83).
Our defense has been comparable to these teams as well. Juventus have conceded 16 (30 games) Barca 15 (30 games) psg 21 (31 games) and Bayern 20 (28 games)
Seria A is known for being a defensive league, while Bayern have played 3 less games than us and ligue 1 is more of a coronation that a league. Barca are the only team that seem decisively better than us in this regard (and even so, laliga typically is far less competitive than the premier league for obvious reasons, and real have been crap this year in the league as well) and they are the measuring stick. Points wise, while we are on pace for 103 points (I imagine we’ll finish at 99).
That number is greater than the maximum points possible for all teams in Europe’s top 5 leagues aside from PSG.
This is a young city side as well. Only Sterling, Sane, Gabriel, Ederson, Mendy, Stones, Laporte make up 7/11 of a nearly full strength starting eleven (if you replace aguero and Kompany/otamendi) of players 23 or under (aside from ederson, and he’s the goalkeeper) who all have barely even scratched the surface of their potential!
Walker and de bruyne are both on the early mid edge of 20, meaning bruyne should have at least 6 or so years of prime level play, walker with 4 ish.
Meanwhile Silva has shown that age doesent affect him while dinho has been having his best year in a city shirt at age 31
Heck, foden was ranked 5th best teenager in the world recently, brahim in the top 50 as well (and he’s only in the low end because of less exposure)
So I have 3 questions
1. Who would be a transfer target to replace someone in the starting 11, including conerns about minutes and growth
2. In 4 years, when all of our players are more or less at their peak, where do you see us compared to the “big 3” (Bayern and the laliga duo)
3. How dominant will we be in the PL for the next decade?
So far in the past 7 years we have won 3 times, and every loss had either been due to drama + a ridiculously good manager for the other team (2012-2013 man it’s squad today, imagine) or because the manager was either a bit supbar (last few years of pellegrinis reign) or adjusting + being unlucky (last year)
This year we have an expected goals of 76 and an expected goals conceded of 20 and expected points of 75. All of these numbers are still far higher than next best (8 points higher than tottenham and 7 higher than Liverpool who have plyed an extra game, and in expected iirc points are worth “more” if that makes sense. Utd are below arsenal in this regard but their expected goals conceded is 35, worse than Liverpool)
Last year, our expected points for was number 1 in the league and our expected goals was number 1 in the league as well the problem was we were expected to concede 29 goals (this measures shot quality iirc) and we conceded 39, meaning our goalkeeper lost us the league (for anyone saying that it was the back 4, no, it was bravo)
Quality of shots wise we were second in terms of defense, and we could have potentially won last year had we been more clinical.
Having an expected goals of 92, an expected goals conceded of 25, and an expected points of 91 is unprecedented. All 3 are better than any premier league side in the past 4 years, while goal scoring wise it’s in the realm of the last 3 Real Madrid teams (not including the crappy current one) despite us being in the premier league.
Points expected has predicted the correct winner of the title 2/4 times, both times it failed were due to special circumstances
(It doesent take into account GK quality which is the main flaw, but our goalkeeper being statistically solid instead of statistically worst in the league has helped tremendously) and Leicester. Both years it failed it predicted second or the team that would be second with a competent goalkeeper
Take out the premier league and it’s been right 12/16 times as far as winner goes. The gap seems down to the quality of the goalkeeper so that’s fairly innacurate. (Such as Valdez being a meme for awhile and bravo being trash)
Currently, out of he 20 teams, the only team that seems even somewhat capable of challenging us is Liverpool. If de gea moves man utd are utterly screwed (and that seems like a forgone conclusion)
TL:DR
Expected goals, goals against, and points have us as the best this and last year
Why we didn’t win last year? Chelsea outperformed, but the main reason was that this stat essentially tracks down how good the chance is, but doesent factor in goalkeepers. We underperformed last year because our goalkeeper managed to bring our shots expected to concede from 29 to 39
Now that we have a decent goalkeeper shot stopping wise, this itself no longer matters
Our expected dominance triumphs the top teams in the other 5 divisions aside from PSG, meaning it’s no fluke
Only team that can potentially catch us are Liverpool (technically Tottenham ham have a higher chance but LMAO NO)
Points predicted had an accuracy of predicting the winner roughly 70% of the time.many wrong predictions or the reasons the gaps weren’t so big are because of goalkeeper performance (the likes of Valdez and neuer really screwed it up)
Without de gea man utd r 6th in the league
