Worst season since the takeover?

I can take a drop off in form or season/seasons without trophies, everything is cyclical.

Absolute worst, unforgivable part of this season has been seeing players who are legends visibly break down physically in-front of our eyes and leave on a real sour note or have their reps tarnished

Walker
Stones
Gundo
KDB
Bernardo

All PL and City legends and been massively let down with recruitment so been overplayed and their bodies have packed in and are going out on a low note.
 
Only has 2 years left on his existing contract so likely leave on a free IF has a similar season

If he has a similar season to this next season nobody will pay a fee for him anyway. Aside from Brentford away I can't actually remember him impacting any game since.
 
When Hughes was in charge FFP wasn’t implemented and we could aggressively go after players such as Tevez, Adabayour, Robinho, Barry etc. We don’t take established Premier League players or players in Europe away from teams anymore, when Pep came in he got the likes of Stones, Walker, Bernardo Silva, Sane, Mahrez all coming with stats to back it up.

The transfer policy now is all about potential, it’s hard for that to flourish when the rest of the team around them are potentials or players that have gone past their shelf life. It would have been easier to integrate the likes of Doku, Savinho etc maybe four years ago when we had players at the peak of their powers. Kyle Walker outlined a point that David Silva was the best player he’d ever seen as he would know other players game’s inside and out. He knew where Leroy Sane was going to run before Sane himself knew it. If Doku or Savinho had someone like that finding them they’d have a lot bigger returns on goals and assists this season.

I find it bizarre Pep gets backed in the market in January and only one of them in Marmoush is regularly starting. What was the plan for these players and why is he persisting with players we know are done.

The club World Cup is going to be a huge problem in preparing for the new season and could have us on the back foot going into August. There can’t be anymore of this zero fight and meagre performances next year as what we might think is a blip could turn into an irreversible slump. Teams like Chelsea and the rags are testament to that who are spending lots of money and being unsuccessful trying to find that magic fairy dust of what made them good once upon a time.

Khusanov only played 4 fewer than Marmoush tbf
 
It's been the least competitive side i've seen since the takeover for sure. Season has just been a write off. Somehow we're still in with the chance of salvaging something from this sorry season, but if sunday is anything to go by the players don't look arsed about that.
 
I can take a drop off in form or season/seasons without trophies, everything is cyclical.

Absolute worst, unforgivable part of this season has been seeing players who are legends visibly break down physically in-front of our eyes and leave on a real sour note or have their reps tarnished

Walker
Stones
Gundo
KDB
Bernardo

All PL and City legends and been massively let down with recruitment so been overplayed and their bodies have packed in and are going out on a low note.
Don't think any of those players are leaving on a sour note or with a tarnished reputation. Don't know anybody that will think negatively of any of them. Everyone accepts they've been great players and time to move on to new things.
 
He has but his ended up on the bench, Nunes played alright on Sunday but much prefer to khusanov in a three with Dias and Gvardiol with O’Reilly pushing on. He puts out a lot of fires with how quickly he gets about.

Oh I agree, I would of liked to have seen him start but we dont get paid the money to make them decisions.

I just want to see Nunes play where he's best suited.
 
What if got an offer of £70m or above?

I'd take their arm off...

As I see things, despite his being 'the jewel in the Academy crown' we've never actually looked like building our midfield around Phil. It's exactly the same when he pulls on an England shirt.

He's had great seasons for a lad of his age, but I don't feel that he's ever really made that midfield place his own... even last season as POTS.

I honestly don't see Phil being near the same 'quality' as the likes of Colin Bell, David Silva, Yaya Toure, De Bruyne etc for City, or as Gerrard, Lampard, etc for England. Indeed, I worry that there's a possibility that he may have 'peaked' last season, as he looks like a passenger this year... he could be Phil's less talented twin.

He's a 'system player' in a system that's not currently working. Whether he would/could successfully adapt to a different system is questionable - he certainly hasn't looked comfortable playing for the England senior team.

£70m+, along with the corresponding saving on wages, would be a very good return for any player with a couple of years left on their contract. It would also give Phil a chance to rebuild and really kick on in his career.

I'd love to see him become the truly great, world class, player that everyone hopes he will be. I think that's more likely if he spreads his wings outside of the 'City bubble' he's been living in for the last 20 years.
 
The suits have fucking destroyed the football calendar.

4 or 5 International breaks with no Club footy for 2 whole weeks.

Domestic games crammed in and second fiddle to European football which is well behind International shite in the pecking order that a fraction of people watch in person or on TV company to Club football.

Cup Final on a Domestic weekend so 4 teams will be losing that weekends game too.

And they wonder why S/T holders can't make every game or casual fans wont pay £50+ for a low level midweek match.

Fucking barmy.

Why does no one question prices for games at stupid, awkward times?

Any other activity is charged accordingly for less popular times.

Matinee, Early Bird, Midweek etc etc, cheaper prices for less popular times.

Football, charges full whack whether a game is 3pm Saturday or 1900 Sunday or 2000 Monday night!

Live televised games should be cheaper too because a match going fan is paying for the exclusivity of seeing the match, in theory.
Players and fans don’t matter to the suits, all they care about is money.

Players are just treated like court jesters. They don’t care about how too much football is decreasing the quality of the product because players are knackered and games aren’t as good, and they don’t care about how too much football creates an increase in injuries which again decreases the quality of the product because teams are depleted and not at their best.

Not one player has ever been consulted about kick off times, an expanded World Cup, an expanded Euros, the introduction of the Nations League, an expanded Champions League, pre-season world tours where players spend more time on planes than they do training and couldn’t possibly be prepared for a season of elite sport any worse if they tried, post-season world tours, an expanded Club World Cup… and not one fan has ever been considered with regards to any of this. It’s either ‘pay up or fuck off’ as far as the suits care.

Fans are just treated like unimportant customers like those of McDonald’s or Netflix. They don’t care whether fans can afford it because they’ll just aim their marketing and ticketing reach to those who can, and they don’t care whether a change in kick off time means fans can’t make the games because they earn more from the TV revenue for the change in KO time.

Not one lower league or non-league club was ever consulted about getting rid of FA Cup replays. And the top division clubs have the cheek to say it’s for player welfare because there are too many games.

Plus there are too many law changes to the game, the quality of officiating is terrible, VAR was needed in this sport over a quarter of a century ago and by now should be seamless and adding to the quality yet it’s only just been introduced and nobody knows how to run it properly and it’s ruining the game further…

Something needs to happen to put a stop to the suits at the top of the governing bodies plus the boardrooms and shareholders of clubs ruining this sport any further. They’ve all got their grubby hands all over every facet of it to monetise it until it’s stripped bare and bereft of being the sport we all once loved.
 
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Pellegrini's last season was dreadful but we had the excitement of knowing Pep was coming and the hope of things to come to look forward to.

This season is more annoying because this was forseen (apart from rodri's acl) loads of us said the squad is too small and too slow lasy summer, pep and txiki not seeing that is unfathomable to me and with very mediocre opposition this year, the chance was right there to get 5 in a row, something that we'll likely never have the chance to go after again. to completely waste that opportunity the way we did is more upsetting to me than the actual drab performances.
 
The most depressing thing for me was watching PSG who were brilliant last night v Villa (they were also pretty good against City and Liverpool) and realising how far we have fallen behind them in the space of two seasons.

I used to say most other teams were not on the same planet as City…….unfortunately the same can now be said of Europes top teams compared to City.

It took probably 10 years for City to actually look like they belonged to Europes elite and in probably 18 months we are back to where we were when we first qualified for the Champions league.

I am not that entitled that I think we should be winning the league every season but the drop off should have been foreseen and planned for.

Winning the league last season was incredible, but the signs were already there plus it was obvious we had an ageing midfield that was in need of a refresh.

Hindsight is a wonderful thing but as much as I was desperate for Pep to stay, have we pandered to him and left some of his decisions unchallenged , such as him turning down the opportunities to strengthen pre season and deciding to virtually go with what we had last season.

On the bright side PSG and Barcelona have gone in the opposite direction in the period that we have declined so it’s not impossible that we can quickly turn it round again.
 

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