Probably not but it will be a fair fight. It will obviously be very disappointing if Ederson can't beat out Bravo.
Manchester City 17/18 discussion | "If you're here for the Champions clap your hands" (#6505)
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In the latest episode of the United Hour Podcast, Nik (@Rood) is joined by CEO Duncan Drasdo and Financial Director Andy Green from the Manchester United Supporters Trust for a special episode on all things behind the scenes at Old Trafford including a brief history of MUST and their aims today, views on INEOS and Sir Jim Ratcliffe so far, and the Old Trafford regeneration.
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Fair play to City, it looks like they are getting their business done very early indeed, they seem to be going after players that fill the gaps in their squad and fix the problems they have, money seems to be no object, and from what Bernardo Silva has said so far it sounds like they are also looking to get players who want to play for Guardiola. If they do indeed sign Walker, Mendy, Ederson and Fabinho, they will be in a very strong position indeed for next season.
I'm sure that Guardiola wants to start the preseason with a complete a squad a possible rather than try to integrate pièces late like what happened this past season - ergo, they will appear to have overpaid in some cases but we'll have a better perpsective on how it ultimately fit into the market by late August
They'll end up spending 300m. How is that even possible? We're the richest club in the world and couldn't spend that. The FFP worker well then.
Still not convinced there's enough balance in that team yet.
And they're still irrelevant.
And they're still irrelevant.
Pep needs to win the League and at least make the final of the CL or his season will be considered a complete failure given how much money he's spent/will spend imo. Nearly 500 million he's spent himself, to improve an already good squad, Christ.
Meh, it will take time for his team to adjust. Like Bayern and Barcelona I expect his 3rd season with City to be his best by far. You can't expect a starting 11 with 5-6 players to walk this league. Tactically wise, City are a few years behind Spurs. I still expect Spurs to finish ahead of them. As for us, Mou's second season is usually his best as well but if he is having a massive overhaul I will wait till his own third season. The money for me is irrelevant.
People charge premium for EPL clubs because everyone knows we have the money. We flaunted our tv deal. Even Monchi said he doubles the price iirc when EPL teams become involved in a deal. Sissoko went for more than Kante is no indication of quality.
Theyre gonna spend a ridiculous amount, and it was always bound to happen considering how much they've wasted recently, and this being Guardiola's first trophy-less season.
That said, if he does win the league, it will be forgotten.
Pep was touted as the second coming though. He's come in and hasn't improved them too much. They were playing very good football at one stage, but they were doing so under Pellegrini too, without having to spend half a billion on transfers.
I think he highly underestimated how difficult this league is.
If he wins, it will be. If he doesn't though, the pressure will really be on him. If he doesn't win anything next season I wouldn't be surprised to see him go on a sabbatical again tbh.
That's what the media does. He has crazy standards set. I never thought he would win the league. Funny enough I thought Spurs would. The fact is that the style he wants to implement is by far the hardest of all the new managers and the most complex. The difference here is that he has less quality so it's only logical that he would do worse. I don't get why it's so surprising to people tbh. English football doesn't need to be saved lol. The money is so much that it drove other top European clubs insane! The way I see it, he is going to try and do what Cruyff did at Barca in terms of changing the culture. I actually thought City would finish 4th and We would finish 2nd.
This league will be entertaining for sure.
I think the pressure was always there, and always will be. The guy comes with unrealistic expectations. Whatever he ends up spending, he needs to win the league and have a decent go at the champions league for his time at city to not be considered a failure.
Guardiola is turning out to be a managerial fraud. Talked about academy and wanting to Bring young players through and is now ready to spend 500 million in three transfer windows just to find a trophy. He might win it eventually as something will stick for him. It does go to show how overhyped and overrated he is.
The team he has bought i think will play something like this, two years in a row now he will have best squad in the league.
--------------Ederson(40 million)-------------
--walker----stones---Otamendi---------Mendy
-----------------fabinho/carvalho--------------
--Silva-----De bruyne----silva--------Sane
------------------Jesus-------------------------
Bench- Aguero,sterling, Fernandinho,bravo,kompany,yaya,shit defender.
The team he has bought i think will play something like this, two years in a row now he will have best squad in the league.
--------------Ederson(40 million)-------------
--walker----stones---Otamendi---------Mendy
-----------------fabinho/carvalho--------------
--Silva-----De bruyne----silva--------Sane
------------------Jesus-------------------------
Bench- Aguero,sterling, Fernandinho,bravo,kompany,yaya,shit defender.
Could you just imagine the outrage among the media if we spent 500m in two seasons.. Pep seemingly getting away with it because his "rebuilding" what ever that means.
Where on Earth has 500 million come from? So far he's spent about 250 if this keeper comes in. That's a hell of a lot (but obviously across two years) and he's also let about ten players go. I do think he's getting a lot of stick here, we will end up spending a similar amount. Difference is hes had to let about ten players go on a free whereas we've spent madly on wages.
Think City have given up hoping that a top manager will help them become a dominant force. They strategy is more about trying to get the most highly rated personal for each position.
I mean, with a team like that, even Mark Hughes would have been pretty successful.
I mean, with a team like that, even Mark Hughes would have been pretty successful.
they've reportedly bid for Mbappe as well - are monaco becoming to them what southampton are to liverpool?
He spent upwards of £200m last season.. only one of which was a success (Jesus) and its reported he has £300m to spend this.. that's a serious amount of money for a manager who is claimed to be a genius but seemingly he has to open the chequebook to be successful.
That's not true, is it?
Nolito, £13.8m, Gundogan £20m, Zinchenko, £1.8m, Sane, £38m, Moreno, £4.7m, Stones, £48m, Bravo £15m and Jesu, £27m.. that's a total off £168m.. not quite £200m but factor in they brought in about £20m in player sales.. that's a huge turnover which goes largely unnoticed by the English media.
We've spent £200m according to the English media too. Doesn't matter who we sold either.
It gets even more hilarious when they get granular with transfers. Pogba is £100m, or as Jamie says "Kante was Xakha money and Arsenal didn't go for him" (ignoring the fact that Kante was ~£15m cheaper and said other clubs wanted him but he wanted Conte).
Back to City though - it looks like they'll easily smash last year's spend. I think we'll have to too tbh, our squad is some way behind theirs.
I think Sane was a pretty good signing for them as well. But yeah, Pep is on track to spend at least £400m in his first 2 seasons in England. Genius football manager though...
I forgot about Sane to be honest, he's been good if not spectacular in his first season. Still though the rest have been rubbish, Bravo who they want to replace already, Stones is a mistake waiting to happen and Gundogan can't play from one week to the next.
Great! We have 2 greedy boards in common, lol!
Targets at the back?
What says you won't. At the end of the window both city and United will have spent alot. Atm city have a headstart but are about 50m more spent than United, griezmann alone will turn that on its head.
Also the media speak of cities spending just as much. You just watch and read about United more.
Great! We have 2 greedy boards in common, lol!
Not just us 2 either. Don't think United would have targeted Europa if it didn't offer CL. Football is and has been all about money for the last nearly 30 years.
Anyone can do a quick search online, net money spent over the past 5 seasons by both Manchester clubs are virtually the same. It's a lot but it's a silly argument to point to since both clubs spend big
Is FFP not a thing anymore?
Seriously, everyone's focusing on potential 500m (in two transfer windows) and not 1 poster has mentioned the amount of dead wood we have to get rid of. Hart, Mangala, Bony, Nolito, Nasri, Fernando, Delph all don't fit the bill and need to be moved on.
Navas, Willy, Clichy, Sagna, Zabaleta have already been let go. That's a total of 12 players going out so far with Kelechi being a doubt. You'd at least expect us to bring in 5-6 players.
People having a meltdown about us going for Mendy, it's not like we didn't had dinosaurs for fb's who probably should've been moved on 2-3 years ago.
Plus the state of our bench last year was dire. When compared to teams like Real and Chelsea we had Navas, Nolito as our backup wingers for young, inexperienced Sane & Raheem.
I'm not surprised we've brought in Bernardo to address that. 3 quality players for 2 positions seem fair no?
Navas, Willy, Clichy, Sagna, Zabaleta have already been let go. That's a total of 12 players going out so far with Kelechi being a doubt. You'd at least expect us to bring in 5-6 players.
People having a meltdown about us going for Mendy, it's not like we didn't had dinosaurs for fb's who probably should've been moved on 2-3 years ago.
Plus the state of our bench last year was dire. When compared to teams like Real and Chelsea we had Navas, Nolito as our backup wingers for young, inexperienced Sane & Raheem.
I'm not surprised we've brought in Bernardo to address that. 3 quality players for 2 positions seem fair no?
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And there lies the problem.. you've spent massive amounts on these players (with the exception of Hart) and a year or two down the line they are disregarded and shipped out for what you'd imagine to be at a loss. How is that any way to run a business? Admittingly over the past few years we've spent money on players who haven't worked out and we take losses on them when selling but you do it on a bigger scale than what we do.
This does seem to be the way they are going now. It disproves the belief many Blues have about how well the club is run.
They were chasing Pep for a number of years. He would have known all about the squad deficiencies & the PL in general. The plan for last season was to give him a load of cash in the TW. He was going to deliver the PL & a decent CL run. This season would have seen a modest (in City standards) outlay in the TW along with bringing some players in from the youth system.
The plan now seems to be to buy big for every position. Would be very surprised if questions aren't asked about where all the money is coming from
what the hell happened to Nolito? he was playing well until he was froze for no apparent reason (to the outside)
Since the red card really and oddly enough, the player himself claims Pep hasn't talked to him to explain anything. He made the wrong choice when faced with the option of signing for Barcelona for less in the summer. Lucho at least played him at Celta Vigo & the B team whereas Pep eventually sent him on loan when coaching there. Shame, he could've helped Barcelona but I too am curious what happened to largely be ignored
I agree with Mangala and Bony but even then later was justified at the time, dude was scoring for fun and had more goals than Sergio in that calendar year. Rest is similar to any other club's bad buys (except Nasri and Hart ofc). It just doesn't work out sometimes. (Felipe Luis, Darmian, Depay, Elneny, Gabriel, Sissoko, Janssen, Moreno etc.)
This. Anyone? Surely such a grandiose spend must be borderline-shady.
Mendy and Walker as fullbacks
one of Van Dijk and Bonucci as CB, probably Van Dijk, since Bonucci wont move i guess.
Theyll have the same problems as this season with no defensive balance in midfield and nogood defenders. Who knows how the goalkeeper will be. Obviously theyre excited about the attack and itll be too much to handle at times for the opposition, but defensively they need big reinforcements as well as actually getting a system that works for them.
They have riches of talent in the attacking department and have signed some top class young talent within the past 18 months but are yet to sign a decent defender.
I just find it amusing that players bend over backwards to ingratiate themselves to Pep by lauding over his training methods and tactics - those said methods didn't prevent them from finishing 3rd and 15 points behind the eventual winners.
Headline in July 2016: Delph 'amazed' by 'unbelievable' Guardiola. Turn it in.
Pep has been well and truly humbled this season.