They spent 100 million on grealish in the summer. He’s had about 1 and a half good games for them and it matter not a jot to them. It’s seemingly a miss, and there is no impact to them at all. At any other club in the league, probably even Chelsea and Utd, it would be such a big hit to the plans and credability of the manager that the guy would lose his job. At City, Pep is partly immunized against that by having build such a good squad prior to that signing, but it’s example of the how the stakes are just so different.
On a different matter, How TF was the Foden goal considered onside. I didn’t see lines drawn, but he looked to the naked eye on freeze frame like half a torso ahead of the last defender.
I think that there always is one guy in his team that fails to deliver, often in his debut season, and then he just kills it the season after. Zinchenko was at the exit door after his first season - he was reinvented as a left back and helped them win the title in 2019 as a starter. Rodri and Cancelo are players I admired very much before they joined Man City, they were nothing special last year - they are unplayable at the moment. Bernardo Silva is doing a Xabi Alonso with his career at Man City, only without the “leaving” part. Sterling is leaving the club year after year but ends every season with double figures for both goals and assists in all competitions.
I genuinely expect Grealish to be great next season, he did go from Dean Smith to Guardiola after all (absolutely no disrespect meant to the former, you know what I mean by saying this). Maybe not Bernardo Silva great but definitely Sterling great. He’ll also have an ultra-expensive striker playing ahead of him, so that will help his numbers massively…
Can’t stand Man City for all that they are. Sham club.
With that said, terrible business about Cancelo. Could be most footballers I suppose. Wealthy with watches, jewelry and so on, so a prime target for thieves. Being robbed say, in the dead of night, while not being disturbed in your sleep, is awful. This is much worse again. Hoping he makes a full recovery, mentally, and the bastards who did this will hopefully get caught.
Horrible club. But definitely solidarity on this sort of crap.
Think this type of thing happens a lot more frequently than it gets reported in the press…
It also needs to be considered when a player decides to leave a club and gets abuse from their own fans…
Do we ever discover the actual reasons.!
Zinchenko arrived for a fee less than they will pay for some kids in the youth system, but I get your point. I think there is something praiseworthy, almost organic, about a club giving signings time to bed in. This was the basis for a lot of our success in the 70s and 80s. It was not just that the players needed to time to adapt, but that we bought from the same position of strength City now have that you’re buying for 2, 3, 4 years down the line, not the next game so you can afford this sort of slow transition. Even with the advantage of the money they have to spend, this is far more authentic an approach than you see with the likes of Real or PSG.
But you cannot look past the money. The reality is if you are wrong about Grealish and he doesn’t establish himself it wont matter at all. Again, partly they are buffered from the impact of that because of their pre-existing strength, but partly because they’ll just go and buy someone else and not think twice.
Horrible thing to happen, that no one should have to deal with. A friend had a knock on the door one evening a coupe of years ago, as he opened the door 3 guys barged in dressed in all black and had bats - they stole his car, nothing else, but his wife and two kids were in also - shook them right up for a long while.
Footballers are obvious targets - most burglaries happen when the player is playing, but these kinds of attacks are becoming more commonplace (or just reported more).
Scary times, and glad the lads alright - stupid cunt, playing for those scumbags.
I fail to see what club rivalry has to do with a player and his family being attacked and robbed in their home, by low life, work shy scum. Hating City has got nothing to do with it.
It’s possible they haven’t. There is no requirement for transparency and with the changes Pep routinely makes it’s entirely possible he can keep people out and put their absences down to anything else and have it not questioned.
But I’ll say again, the idea it is a competitive advantage to not test so you can keep your +ve players in squad is absurd.
Normally I’d agree with you but Pep has previous for PED’s. It would not surprise me in the least to find out that they’ve taken a calculated risk and hoped that asymptomatic cases would be the norm and not implemented a stringent testing regime to gain a competitive advantage. They have known philanderers and party boys in their squad who were even last week caught out and about. It strains credulity that they of all teams seem to be Covid free when virtually every other team has players out.
I’d be interested to see the case load amongst the clubs support staff who are in contact with the squad day in and day out i.e. cafeteria, gym, cleaners etc.
