Ankit_Sircar

After ~4 months - when we tradhed WHU 5-0 - I had once again a truly fun and entertaining afternoon with my team. After  a long week of work and issues, it was a perfect 2 hours to spend in front of TV. Hope you guys and supporters all around the world felt similar, this is what it is for, isn’t it?

Already done or pending final confirmations:
Havertz £60M + 5M Kovacic £25M + 5M Koulibaly £17M Mendy £16M Ziyech £8M Loftus-Cheek £15M + 3M Kante contract expired Felix loan expired Zakaria loan expired = £141M initial fees + 13M add-ons
So these are the ones already completed or just about to be finalized. In addition to bringing in a lot of income these moves also take around £1.5M a week off the wage bill (£70-80M a year), as well as trim down the squad size by a whole 9 players. 
Already under negotiations:
Mount £55-60M to United Pulisic £10-15M to Milan CHO to somewhere for £10-15M Azpilicueta free transfer to Inter Lukaku to Inter --> ideally a straight transfer or loan with a firm obligation Bubbling under:
Maatsen permanent move for £15-20M? Ampadu permanent move for £5-10M? Chalobah maybe sold for £15-20M? Sarr to just about anywhere to get him out Aubameyang to just about anywhere to get him out  
Pull off all these moves and it could easily end up surpassing £250-300m sales in a single summer transfer window while also getting around 20 players off the books, the vast majority of whom are seriously undesirable to keep. Still a long way to go and lots of deals to conclude but the signs are promising IMO.
Once most of the outgoings are done we can finally start focusing on incomings for the rest of the summer.

I think letting Jorginho go in January was the right move, unless you feel he should have been given a new contract. If we had been anywhere near challenging for the league with Arsenal then maybe it would have been more of a consideration but in our position as good as writing the league season off and having just signed Enzo, it was a good amount of money to bank on a 31 year old who would have been leaving on a free 6 months later.
Kova falls into a similarly difficult category with what to do with him next season. He'll be 30 during next season, has never had the best injury record and I don't think has played particularly well this season. With a year left on his contract, do you renew and look at keeping him here on a 3-4 year contract? Especially if Kante signs back up as we'll have two similarly aged, similarly injury prone players in the same position being relied upon. 
As a side note, there's also been a lot of talk that Kova doesn't want to sign a new contract and would like a new challenge anyway. With this in mind, it makes sense to sell now than let him leave on a free in a year's time. I understand the position the board are taking with this, especially when they walked through the door to see two players worth millions leaving on free transfers last summer. 

Cohesion in midfield and attack clearly wasn't there tonight. We looked like an international side with about 6 debutants to be honest.
Having said that, I do like to try and find positives and building blocks out of games and it is now 3 clean sheets in a row and defensively we're looking solid with the two centre backs. Mitrovic barely got a touch tonight. Silva has now just come to be expected to drop 8 or 9/10 performances every game now, but Badiashile looks a really good signing who should only continue to improve with age and experience. 
I thought Enzo was very good considering he's been ultimately thrown in at the deep end tonight with next to no training. Tonight could easily have seen him put in a deer in the headlights performance like Saul did on his debut, which would have people ridiculing immediately but he looked assured, confident, incredibly comfortable and in typical Argentinean style, isn't afraid to put his foot in. The biggest issue tonight was he isn't a holding midfielder. He can play there if needs must like tonight but he's already been pigeon holed into that type by the media over here who as usual are clueless. He was crying out for a midfield partner tonight - someone who at times would allow him to push forward from deep and make things happen. You'd like to think Mount or particularly Gallagher at times would spot that and just sit in that transition to let him push up but it never happened. Hopefully Kova is back next week and Zakaria isn't too far away as I think that suddenly will give us a different look.
Offense was disappointing. I'm not sure why Mount and Gallagher pushed so high up regularly as it not only left such big gaps but Mount in particular was eating up any space you'd have liked Mudryk to take up, leaving him completely starved in that first half. Also by both looking to sit in the half spaces between the wide men and Havertz there was no one centrally to drop in the hole and create. I know Gallagher is pretty limited technically so needs to go ball hunting to get the best out of him but today he really needed to show a disciplined side to his game which wasn't there to play a bit more conservative and deeper and Mount needed to operate centrally. I think if Kova and Felix are back next week to take those two spots you start seeing a bit more of a cohesive and creative attack in our game to be honest.
Having said all this and from an attacking perspective we were disappointing, we came up against an incredibly dogged and organised team who have kept games close with all of the big teams this season, and despite the lack of chemistry in our game we created three very good chances in Havertz one across goal, hitting the post and Fofana in the second half off the line. Another day you score a couple of those and we're not really conceding at the moment and it looks a comfortable and good win. It's fine margins at a period where the side just needs a bit of confidence and a little run of luck and fortune to kick on a bit. It'll come but like everything, it'll need a bit of time and won't be an immediate and over night fix.

Surprised at the reaction on here tonight, although on reflection maybe I'm not. This forum, social media, etc is so negative at present it becomes a grind just to bother trying to interact and have constructive discussions about the club.
We've lost 2 attackers to injury in the first 15 minutes today, to now bring it to an even 10 players out. It's not just a couple of squad players out, we've got 6 or 7 players injured who'd be locks to start in our strongest set up, and it's getting stretched every passing week. When Liverpool had injury problems 2 years ago they were in a similar position to us now and just about built momentum when players returned late in the season to save a top 4 spot. When City struggled to keep key players fit they finished about 20 points off Liverpool the one season. I think a bit of context is needed when considering just how depleted we are across the pitch at the moment.
Could have easily folded tonight but I thought we played well up to the penalty area. Kovacic and Zakaria both were excellent not just individually but looked like they complemented each other very well and it made a difference having their legs together in the middle compared to Jorginho. But thought the football was pretty pleasing on the eye in phases, being brave from the back and midfield to play out of City's press and it opened them up at times. We just lack a cutting edge - it doesn't help when we have a few attacking options out injured and our two full backs, but it does probably run deeper than that and longer term we need a couple of additions in those areas to create and finish chances in the final third. To be honest watching us tonight, we looked a lot more like Potter's Brighton - trying to gain control of the game and playing comfortably on the ball but lacking a killer instinct in attack.
I personally though come out of tonight's game more pleased with the performance despite the loss, than I do the draw against Forest for example where we were awful. 
City was always going to be a struggle and will be again at the weekend, the key will be can we play a bit more positive like this against Fulham and Palace because we'll find it easier to open teams like that up and hopefully offer a greater goal threat than we did tonight.

Apparantly Tuchel is in my hometown now. 😲

We have one of the most expensive and talented squads in all of Europe. A squad that any coach would salivate at having.
And yet we play as if we’re Everton who have next to no talent. What on earth are we doing in training? How does a side containing Auba, Sterling, Havertz, James & Chilwell on each flank etc look this poor? 
I’m well and truly starting to really sour on Tuchel as our coach. He’s a fantastic man off the pitch but the level he has this ridiculously talented and expensive squad playing at is completely unacceptable. 

everyone is just standing in place. i would hate playing with this team

It's too slow at the moment, but we have 5 players in a line in attack, and then a big gap between them and Kova and Mount. We have to get someone in the half space in between to link everything. Can't expect Kova to thread a ball through a back 5 on the edge of their box all game. Someone has to take the initiative to drop a bit deeper.