This is precisely why I dont think those are the sort of dodgy deals City do. It’s the same as systematic doping. There is far too much potential to expose yourself to someone who can and will use it against you to think that it happens.
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Hopefully the little rat can get his wish anddddddddddd fucks the fuck off.
Don’t be silly we all know they take place within 5 days or they are off.
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That’s a nice shirt from Puma.
Why does he look plastic?
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Sort yourself out for goodness sake. Nice shirt?
Your love of everything city is nauseating.
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Docs signed then the medical? Isn’t that the wrong way around?
Fabrizio said “here we go!” so it’s all good
It’s getting as tiresome as Tyler’s “and it’s live” which we won’t be hearing 
Manchester City now has a defence worth more than half a billion euros: Josko Gvardiol (90 million) Rúben Dias (71 million), Aymeric Laporte (65 million), João Cancelo (65 million), John Stones (56 million), Kyle Walker (53 million), Nathan Aké (45 million) and Manuel Akanji (18 million)
Delete ‘worth’ and replace it with ‘cost’
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Akanji represents good value, and I remember a while ago when we were being linked with him. Man City are operating in a different orbit though, and the only thing we are waiting to see is if they will be slapped down and punished properly. If not, all bets are off as to what the implications will be.
At a guess, more nation state owners, and-or the powerful European clubs to come together in another format, better thought out and less rushed than the last proposal we saw, but crucially excluding nation state clubs and leaving them to do their own thing.
I read piece this week about the difficulty following up success like season and the importance of change in those circumstances.
It was a mess of a piece. It framed it as avoiding the “Dwight Yorke” issue, a player who by his own telling lost purpose after the success of the treble season and the premise was that without weaseling that out the team it will fall off from its high standards. It tells the story of Yorke even asking Fergie for a year’s sabbatical, which in this retelling made Fergie realize the need for change. Yet in reality, Yorke was allowed to continue at the club despite Fergie supposedly writing him off, and was again their top scorer the following year as Utd retained their title. They did so again the following year with Yorke still around. In fact Yorke stayed a full 3 seasons after having reached this dead end and Fergie enabled that, all during a historical run of title success. So what is the lesson in all of that?
Apparently, it is that Pep takes the same line that Fergie does, that change is required (even after demonstrating that Fergie didnt really follow that line with a player he’d identified as problematic). Apparently after the treble in his first season with Barca he demanded a new desk in the media room 
Barca didnt give him one. He won the title again the follow year. There is apparently a lesson in there about change and Pep’s pursuit of it after having achieved success.
The point? People should not expect a lesser city this year because Pep has already done his enforcing change thing because Gundogan and Mahrez have left and Cancelo might. It ignored that both Silva and Walker are trying to leave and Pep is trying to stand in their way and prevent it happening.
There is a story to be written about complacency and the need to change a successful side to avoid it. This guy, whomever it was, just seemed to decide that was his story and then inserted a bunch of facts that did nothing to support the idea.
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But the principle holds - to stay at the top you have to turn over players to keep things fresh and ensuring too many players don’t lower their intensity. Huge mistake we made last summer because of the ‘almost’ quad BS (we actually only won the two smallest trophies and were absolutely shagged emotionally from the pursuit of the other two). Teams need to be bringing in 2-3 top players every season and/or make other changes if they want to keep at the top.
Let’s not forget the summer after winning the Champions League, when our stock was at its highest. We didn’t improve the squad, which was a mistake in my opinion.
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The problem is that there is a very limited number of players good enough to represent Liverpool Football Club. And those players:
a) need to be available
b) need to want to play for us (Jürgen won’t take anyone who isn’t committed to the cause)
c) need to fit within our salary structure
d) need to be within our transfer budget
We simply don’t have the unlimited resources of Manchester City, Newcastle and all the other oil cheats; therefore, we can’t just throw money at players to entice them. And we obviously can’t compete when it comes to transfer fees.
“Strengthening the squad” sounds easy in theory but is far harder in practice.
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Agreed.
We did but nobody has come closer in terms of games played.
Disagree. I think a team has to find the balance between continuity and staleness. We let a couple of players grow old. That along with keeping hold of injury prone players tied our hands.
I haven’t seen Mascot post on here for a while, so the following comment is safe to say: Bob Paisley always said, “A player is not finished when he leaves Liverpool, he’s just finished at Liverpool.”
That was a big strength of his in my opinion. The ruthlessness to get rid but have a player ready to replace them. No flash in the pan either. He kept us at the very top for all his 9 years as a manager.
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That’s the transfer fees alone. Their wages would make it a billion easy.
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Sure the principal holds. It was more of a criticism of the specific piece I was making (although rather unhelpfully without posting it).
The piece raised something as an issue City will likely have to face. It then failed to demonstrate how this issue was actually an issue, it presented examples of people successfully dealing with it without them actually having done anything of the sort, and then pointed to how Pep “has done it again” all while refusing to present any evidence for how he’d done that and ignoring his attempts to actually do the opposite (fighting to keep players who have clearly stated a desire to have a new challenge than try to win again at city).
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