Blue Armour

He did the same in pre-season as well to set up Pedro, from a Fabregas pass IMO, he's the closest we have to Drogba in terms of playing style. Which is why I hope we don't get Lukaku, who I think will simply push Michy to the bench just because of his price tag

Kind of 'meh'...like the rest of the City attack in general. Sterling was the only one who seemed to be doing something up front for them. De Bruyne tried some shots from distance but did not hit them as well he normally does.

Yeah..the crowd's reaction,.(or more so, the lack of it) after Sunderland had equalized was as if they were losing their third game in a row or something. Their play was not that special today...Sterling tried something different, Stones kept misplacing passes...and now they have that weird goalkeeping issue with Hart being dropped. But tbf, its probably going to take at least a few more games, or maybe even this entire season before Guardiola can leave his footprint on the club. And he did say that their first few game might be something like this

Tbf, what he was implying back then was that everyone was trying to buy the title, and not just him.

Tomo, our resident mythbuster.

Cuadrado and Willian on the right wing may not be a bad idea,..considering that Ivan and Aina are the only alternatives

Well we're not exactly averse to leaving last year's POTY on the bench now, are we

Now that its nailed on that we will be starting with our dreaded back 4, its completely up to our midfield to deliver. Last season, we did not keep the ball well enough, did not guard against attacks through the middle.. and our back 4 were exposed time and again for the poor defensive line that they are. I hope that at least this time, we hang onto the ball much better and expose the back 4 to as little of the ball as possible. This should work until we play one of the bigger sides.

Its tough for him that both the captain and the vice captain happen to be part of the same dreaded back four, where we really need replacements. Even if he does sign someone, ousting the existing players there is going to be tough.

Love how chested the pass from Fabregas onto Pedro's path, reminded me of certain no.11 and no, I don't mean Oscar. And fans forced him to delete his twitter a/c? Are we sure they weren't actually trolls? I can't imagine why anyone would care about chances missed in pre-season. EDIT: It looks to be still up though.

FB and CB I hope. At least that's what it looks like until Ivanovic starts against West Ham.

Haha, my bad.

Hope he can secure a decent full-back soon. Aina is not quite there, and is making mistakes that put the team under pressure, and Ivanovic doesn't seem to have moved on from his horror show of last season.

Speaking of Kante, his replacement at Leicester, Ahmed Musa scored a brilliant brace against Barca earlier today. If they Leicester had the two of them together this season, it wouldn't have been unrealistic for them to successfully defend their title.

Thanks for sharing the info about the clauses. Its the first time I'm coming across this information.. If its really true, then the purported transfer fee doesn't seem as bad. And yes, no one really has the right to tell another person how much they should or should not spend. However coming back to your own example, I can understand why you would want to spend 300 Euros on genuine kits. Because they are the real deal. But I can't say the same for Lukaku.

Hell...if you thought that the Pogba transfer fee was ridiculous, this one tops that or at least, comes pretty close. Its not a surprise that Mino Raiola is a common factor in both of these transfers. For that kind of money, clubs like Madrid have gone after the likes of Ronaldo and Kaka...players who have proven themselves at the highest level. Even our own big money transfers in the past, such as with Torres and Shevchenko, involved players of that mold.

The most important thing to note for now is that these kind of situations always happen, at any club. Even in Chelsea's recent history you'll know that its happened before with Drogba, Lampard and Terry as well... Drogba wanted out almost soon after he arrived, and he really wanted to leave around the time when Mourinho first left.., there was talk about Lampard to go to Inter Milan to reunite with Jose, and then there was the Terry to Man City saga in 2009. Granted the Costa saga has now gained more visibility because of people eavesdropping on his conversation with Ramos, but that's just how it is in football. Its up to the manager to bring the player back around, by convincing them that things can work out well off the pitch, and more importantly ON it.

The worst thing about all this is the transfer fee involved. For 50m+ you should be getting someone who is nailed on to perform week in and week out for the club. He can score, but when he's not in scoring form he hardly offers anything to the team...I remember that period in the middle of last season where he was an almost complete no-show for Everton. Granted they were playing terrible as a whole, but this doesn't exactly fill me with confidence.

Still have to remember, at 22 this guy is even younger than Lukaku. He will have shortcomings in matches for sure, but there are a lot of positives to look forward to. Even though he didn't seal two chances, he was a nuisance to the RM defenders, and threaded a great ball to Hazard under pressure.

Not saying its going to happen, but if Cuadrado stays...having Cuadrado and Willian on opposite wings, with Hazard in the center along with Michy/Costa would be pretty good based on current evidence. Might also solve our problems with defense when you have one CM less because of the formation....(Not all our problems, mind)

Yeah it was Burley. They were going on and on about ridiculous transfer rumors as well,...sometimes I wonder whether these guys even pay attention to the managers' press conferences, or whether they just repeat what news channels tell them to do like parrots.

Well a Belgian combination up front would be interesting to watch, I'll admit, but we already have one with Michy and Eden. Plus Hazard+Bayshuayi is more of little striker-big striker combo, which IMO works better than having two big guys upfront. We saw some of this combination at work today against Madrid. It was not for too many minutes, but I liked what I saw.

The only reason this player has a "sudden longing to return to his old club" is because no other big club is in the market for him.