OhForAGreavsie

If his temporary registration with City had expired, and it seems it ran until 31st December, Lampard would have needed to be re-registered in either case. Clearly he was.

Nonsense I'm afraid. Think you must have enjoyed Christmas a bit too much Choulo. Presentation as NYC player. Man City's tweet announcing Lampard joining them on loan from NYC. BBC report confirming loan from NYC to Man City extended. You know all this Choulo, everybody knows all this. Time to chuck out the turkey sandwiches and get back to work mate.

City have publicly stated that they are paying Lampard's wages in full and, in all likelihood, are also paying a loan fee to NYC. I'm fairly certain that the FFP auditors will take a look at the size of the fee to ensure that it is set at an appropriate level so I highly doubt that there is anything going on here for FFP purposes. If anything, because of the high level of scrutiny this deal was always bound to attract, City have probably gone out of their way to make the loan arrangements as squeaky clean as can be.

Please don't all shout at once, but... The notion of consistency is, in my opinion, much misunderstood. None of us, footballers and non-footballers alike, is consistent. We all have performance ups and downs from day to day, and from week to week. Talent is the regulator. People with enough ability for the work they do, can be effective even when they are below their best but others, like Oscar, need to be at, or very near, their top level to make a good contribution. The trouble is all players are somewhere below their best most of the time. That's a problem if you happen to be one of those who can really only contribute when at your best because it means you are not going to achieve whole lot much of the time. When a player is said to be inconsistent as frequently as Oscar is, that's really just code for not good enough at this level. Of course Oscar not being good enough is not our big problem. Our big problem is that he's still the best option we have for his position. That's the issue we need to address.

I wouldn't say now @Barbara. In my opinion it's been clear since before Christmas 2013 that we need two AM upgrades. We can go around in circles but the bottom line is we will never be the team we want to be with any of Oscar/Schurrle/Willian as first choice players.

Oscar's problem is that his talent ceiling is too low. A ten for a club with our ambition should be an outstanding play maker with great tactical awareness and work rate as necessary bolt-ons. He generally has the bolt-ons but there's nothing he can do about the low ceiling.

I only saw cork play once, for the 18s, and he impressed me more than Chalobah does. Chalobah does more eye-catching stuff but he also makes many more mistakes. In terms of solid, reliable, professional contribution to a team, Jack is ahead.

Apologies for repeating myself but in Oscar we have a player who is of backup quality. Outstanding is the benchmark to be a starting quality ten for a club with our ambitions.

It's obvious that we need to strengthen the squad yes, but that's not the same as being obvious that we will.

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I watched a number of Chalobah's performances for Watford as well as being a regular visitor to a one of their fans' forums while he was there. Along with the positive, I saw many negatives too and this was reflected in the comments I read. Granted most posts were of the positive kind including one bemoaning that Chalobah would be missing a game and saying how incredible it was that an 18 year old was the key member of their midfield. We have to remember though that this was just the writer's opinion. There were also many more sober, and in my opinion more accurate, assessments. There is a phenomenon in football where new, and especially young, players benefit from an expanded honeymoon period. During that honeymoon, a player is given maximum credit for everything he does well, while anything he does badly is either excused away or just ignored all together. As a result of this the general tendency is for the quality of these players to be overrated. Eventually though reality breaks through.

No he doesn't. Very, very few of the ambitious passes Wilian attempts find their intended target. Most often they are misdirected or cut-out. Either way, possession breaks down on him an awful lot.

Outside of the World Cup, I haven't watched Cudrado but he looks OK. I'm a big Firmino fan but he hasn't been playing as well this season. A lot of misplaced passes from him. I don't mean stats wise, for all I know the stats would contradict what I'm saying, but he has not been as effective in completing the passes that damage the opposition as he was being last term.

Thanks Dee. No I meant it literally and I do believe it to be the case. Although I am not personally aware of City fans' frustrations with the players you list, and despite the fact that I fear Milner* above all when we meet City, I accept what you tell me. Nevertheless, in my opinion, those three contribute to their team being a more capable side than ours. The fact that City fans would prefer better players in those positions is neither here nor there in terms of this conversation. I don't believe that I do overrate City's squad. I see its flaws, as I see ours. It's simply that, all flaws considered, I consider City to be better than us. *We're talking about this season, not last, so it's not especially relevant but when we went to the Ethiad for last season's league game and Milner was missing, I was delighted and hopeful. As I watched the CTV build up to our return for the FA Cup fixture a few weeks later, I laughed at Bobby Stuart's ignorance while he claimed Milner to be a weakness. He gave that as a big reason why he felt City's midfield could not compete with ours on that day. On the other hand, I could not believe what I was hearing from our former winger. Looking at the constitution of their midfield I was very downbeat and could see little hope. Milner bossed us, as he had done before and will probably do again, so City won comfortably. There are a lot of people who, despite lacking any technical or tactical insight, are paid to spew nonsense just because they used to know how to kick a football. As a pundit, Bobby Stuart let himself down very badly that day.

He said it for sure but I find it hard to imagine he meant it. After all, Jose has seen us play.

Thanks Jay. And how would that solve the problem Jose was talking about about? He said that none of the players on the bench are as good as the starters. If he meant that, which is the question you asked, then how would mere rotation have solved it? I ask again, if Jose does not think the available backups are good enough then what could he have done about it in the last 1-2 months?

Was on the point of liking this till I read the sentence about us having the best 1st XI. Of course I respect that this is your point of view, but I don't share it. City's top team vs our top team and my money would be on City. Worse, I believe City could lose as maybe as many as three top players in certain positions and still put out a better XI than us. Absolutely agree with everything else though. Top post.

Matic is a key part of our attack.

How old is Kane?

If he meant that, and I'd say he does, then what could he have done about it in the last 1-2 months?

I agree with Jose. I'm not saying I'm backing him because he's the boss, I'm saying I share his opinion.

I think the XI Jose picked today is our best XI. It is not as good as we'd like it to be however. It does need improvement and we're all acutely aware of this each time the side under performs. The trouble is that none of the backups solve the issues we have. Many of them are essentially unusable in my opinion. Some of the youngsters might help in future but it seems Jose is unconvinced that their time has come yet. I hope to see one or two kids involved on Sunday but, first and foremost, I want to win.

For the last two years that would have been my automatic reaction too but no longer. What I've seen from him more recently has given me pause and caused me to think we should reassess what we might be getting and what else could be available. I didn't see all of his displays this season but those I did watch didn't excite me. Thing is, it is tough to tell whether the output I've seen was only a question of form - no one is great all the time after all, rustiness or something else. The problem is, I don't think we can rule out something else and that's why I say there is reason for caution. By the way, if he did join I'd be tempted to try him as our 'ten'.

Firstly, just to state it, I've been consistently critical of Willian because his offensive contribution is not good enough and not because of a comparison with any potential replacement. I have been a long standing fan of Marco Reus but I confess that, for a while now, I've been less enthusiastic about us signing him. His performances after eventually getting his season under way were hit and miss, mostly miss. I'm worried about what he may have lost to the accumulation of injuries. If I were asked now, yea or nay on Rues? I'd say let's look very, very hard for alternatives before taking the plunge.

There is a strong chance that Alex reminded us all about this observation because, earlier today, I reported a post which used the word yid. Therefore I'd like to thank Alex for his prompt response. I think however that, despite understanding your need to resort to legalese, your original message (quoted) is not as forthright as I would have liked it to have been. The wider view; taken by football authorities, Tottenham Hotspur, Jewish organisations, anti-racist groups, and nobodies like me, is that use of the word yid in a football context is not OK. You have responsibilities toward the site so, if it really is necessary for you to use the shelter of the legalese then fine. Surely though we can still ask people not to use it at all, rather than to do so sparingly. Because anti-Semites use the word, anyone else who does, can, and will, also be associated with such thinking. It isn't only a question of what the user means. It's also about what the listener hears and what it says about me if I insist on using a word which I know causes her or him offence, however innocently I say I mean it.