I disagree. Laporte is a magic bullet. Get him back to his best we are as good as anyone.
It would not surprise me if we won the Champions League, FA Cup and League Cup. Liverpool have been outstanding but I only see one weakness in our side, and that was once again apparent tonight. People are making the problems to be widespread but they simply are not. The intensity has gone from our game because the league has gone but the Cups have not. They are very much in play when we have our central defenders back.
Absolutely agree. We have a couple of major fault lines which have impacted the way we always want to play.
Laporte opens up the opposite side of the pitch and Sane stretches teams in the final ten yards of the pitch.
Zinchenko has also been a massive miss.
We have tried to get away with it, perhaps out of an understandable loyalty towards some club legends, certainly when you factor in the achievements of the last two seasons.
That is compounded by some bad buys that all teams make.
It was not a lack of effort last night, it was that which ultimately left some out on their feet, especially as we aren't asked to defend for our lives too often.
The drop off in quality is apparent when players of a certain standard are asked to come in and do job.
Pep just needs to ask himself if he is up to the challenge of rebuilding, as he will be selling both him and City short if there is the slightest mental fatigue at the prospect.
There is a real chance we can get the better of United over two legs, most probably setting up a final at Wembley against Leicester.
Winning that game would mean we have already won the first two domestic trophies of this season (again)
Madrid can expose all our deficiencies, but squeezing past them would surely give us a major crack at the Champions League, with perhaps only a bad draw against Liverpool or PSG tripping us up.
