Didsbury Dave said:
Amidst the discussion about which players are up to it and which players are not, I think there's something which is getting a little overlooked.
All season, as a club, we have had too many good players not playing well. I think we have a more talented squad than many City fans think. A good player does not become a bad player overnight unless they recieve a serious injury which affects their performance.
I think all of these players would feel that they have performed below what they would have hoped, taking the season so far into account:
SWP - been below par all season for us, much better for England
Barry - more bad games than good, not for England though
Adebayor - let's be honest, when he's been here, he's been patchy
Ireland - has grossly underperformed
Richards - has been better than last season but surely can do better
Toure - he can't be as bad as he's looked with the Arsenal experience he's had
Lots of the others have had a good number of bad games too . Last night Kompany was below par, De Jong was, Toure was, Bellamy struggled, Barry's delivery was poor, RSC did nothing, Richards made errors.
There can be lots of factors for this but I do feel it has been a consistent problem all year. Why do we think it is? Uncertainty? New players? Changes behind the scenes? Lack of motivation? All of these? None of these?
If we can get this right quick we've cracked it, I think.
you're problem lies with false belief that some of your players are better than they are
or that they care more than they really do
All these mercenary players are at City for one reason.. $$$$$$$$$
they care nothing for your club
if similar offers were on the table elsewhere at the likes of the Sky top 4 or elsewhere in Europe, it would be bye bye.
that's where they want to be. They sign initially for the money. They are happy for a while, but then after 3 - 6 months later when they realise they are not going to win shit, they lose interest and dream of being somewhere else. This shows on the field.
you can say what you want, but the proof is on the football field
Other than Tevez and Given, I couldn't say City have made one other really worthwhile signing with all their cash. The rest are their for the easy money. Just because you spunk away 30m on players doesn't make them world class, it just means that you were seen coming.
If Adebayor was worth keeping, then Wenger would have kept him. And he certainly wouldn't have sold him to another premier league club.
It's not about going out and spunking money about the place. The more you keep doing that, the more you'll keep attracting every mercenary pay day seeking couldn't care less footballers that are out there.
It's a learning curve, the same that Chelsea had to go through when they made some costly mistakes. It'll be interesting to see what Mancini does come this summer and what his focus will be, the type of players he wants.
If Moyes had 10-20% of City's transfer budget, he'd do a infinitely better job than City have done so far. (But Moyes had to make his own mistakes as well when he was given large sums by Everton standards, Beattie, AJ etc, so it is a learning curve)
City will need to settle down and keep Mancini for at least three years. Let him put his stamp on things. Otherwise it will be successive managers spending big cash, each attempting to build the squad they want but not getting enough time to do so, and ultimately the owners will get bored of managers spunking their cash all over the place and piss off.
