OneMoSalah

Buonanotte was brought in because he played for Brighton & under 21. Horrible game so far, Cardiff look miles better than us. Gittens is fucking wank, Dortmund laughing at us.

Tbf looking more into it, it seems the manager has noticed the sporting directors are a nightmare. But so is Maresca - 100% both need to go but the owners will only back one side if it comes down to it, the sporting directors. The argument for this youth based model really bearing fruit is a bit of a joke as well, isn’t it? All it has done really is drastically reduced the wage bill. Unless scraping into the CL on top of winning a trumped up pre season competition & 3rd tier of European football with a £2.5 bn pound squad (should of walked it) is all this mob has aspirations for there needs to be a shift in mentality at all levels. After the Maignan deal not going ahead & not signing a CB on top of trying to force the likes of Felix, Veiga amongst others on Maresca last season - I can see why he feels the need to be butting heads.

Interesting presser after game. Worst 48 hrs of his time at the club so he reckons as people didn’t show him & the team support 😂 Ironic, we finally get a win after 4 or 5 games without one & he comes out with that. Now everyone is talking about his presser & what he could’ve meant as opposed to the win. The guy is an absolute bellend, cannot wait to see the back of him. Moaning about not playing without players due to injuries & suspensions, injuries happen but he can easily stress to the player’s about their discipline record - we had countless red cards on the trot at one point and he said it wasn’t a problem. Seems he wants to be applauded for winning the Club World Cup & Conference League as if they were massive achievements but then he wants to be judged as if he is rebuilding the team. Make your mind up - cannot have it both ways.

This club getting a transfer ban wouldn’t be the worst thing. Save us signing utter dross for a period.

Won’t compete or win trophies penny pinching though - been saying it for seasons now. Everyone at the club seems to think that we’re going to find top quality players we need aged 23 & under on moderately low wages. Guaranteed that’ll never happen. Would paying his salary & bonus demands really have been that bad either? He’s reportedly on 250k per week, that isn’t outrageous for a player of his quality in this day & age. Given his pedigree on top of the fact he has been earning £10m+ a year for the best part of nearly 10 seasons since his Milan days - would anyone really have expected him to be asking for a small contract? Previous regime would’ve paid it no questions asked. Regardless, even if we had offered, no player who has the chance to pick from us or City, is coming here at the moment - but we should’ve been pushing a deal given his availability, quality and playing position ticked all the boxes. Or a competent sporting department would’ve been. Look how immense he was for PSG last season & plenty of big moments for City so far. Not to mention big international performances over the years. Would’ve been worth every penny & more.

Both City & Liverpool been heavily linked for probably a year now though. Would be a great signing for either club. Given our track record, there is no chance we will enter the race given he is; 1) a very good player & 2) over 21 years old. Shame because he would be a instant starter but we spunked £100m on Gittens & Garnacho.

They’ll never go for De Zebri, I know he has Brighton ties but he’d potentially be too volatile a personality for BlueCo. He would want a lot more say than Maresca & Pochettino got in terms of recruitment also. He was extremely critical of Brighton’s recruitment in his second season which led to their desire to part ways with him. Could you imagine dumb & dumber’s egos here if he called them out for shockingly poor recruitment (despite most of their signings being gash)? He has never lasted longer than 2 years at the 8 clubs he’s been at other than at Sassuolo, which is alarming.

Not specifically. His name was mentioned in another thread by other members also. It is 100% a case of ex player doing well elsewhere vs our players (mostly of a similar quality) in the same position are struggling. I don’t think Veiga would be the answer or a real improvement on any of our defenders. Hato also has the same flexibility in terms of positions he can play so his versatility, if it was ever an argument/consideration for some, isn’t something we don’t have either. He is probably on a similar level and has a similar ceiling - which unfortunately isn’t what we need - to the likes of what we’ve already gotten. I agree with some of the CBs you’ve listed as they are top quality, which is what we need. I have been waiting to see if this ownership group are serious enough to go out and buy top top players. For instance we needed a GK & CB, Donnarumma & Guehi were available for less than what it would’ve cost us to sign Garnacho & Giitens this summer. Yet they weren’t serious enough.

He never looked that brilliant either in any of the variety of positions he played anyway. Was he a LB? A CB? A 6? And whilst folk will say he’s doing well or is better than player X Y or Z, in all likelihood he’d of been just as much a bag of shite as the rest of them here. Thats just based off of our recruitment strategy & the success rate these sporting directors have had with 75% plus of their signings. If we want to replace players like Tosin, Badiashile & see a huge improvement in the first 11 then the replacements need to be TOP TOP players who are lightyears ahead of them. Not more average/similar level of players - which is 100% what Veiga would’ve fallen under. Anyone saying otherwise is just lying to themselves. Hato was apparently a good signing in the summer now everyone’s going on about Veiga & saying he should’ve been kept. And if we loan/sell Hato & sign another player of similar profile/level it will be the same again 100% 😂

Maybe not getting to the next stage of the CLs is the wake up call BlueCo need. They said they thought they’d assembled a top CL quality squad when they got rid of Poch & it’s clear they thought the Europa Conference League & Club World Cup was some sort of vindication & proof that what they were doing was working as well as with Maresca’s tenure. How wrong. Still think that to spend £2bn & other than a handful of signings (Caicedo, Palmer, Estevao as well as Neto, Cucurella & Fernandez - when he can actually be arsed to run back - to a much lesser extent), it should be studied at Harvard as how not to do a squad build.

Rosenoir will likely a candidate. It will not only be financially viable for BlueCo but also something they’ll see as a real plus with the multi club model. I mean he hasn’t done too badly there but he is definitely not the right guy as he is going to be another spineless BlueCo puppet. Fans can revolt… they won’t care. Look at the situation at Strasbourg, the fans don’t want them there yet they do not give a fuck and are running it as a feeder club. Sporting will be the same if they make it happen. Amongst whoever else these go for. Regardless. Winstanley & Stewart need to go. How many wank signings have those made? How much value for money have we gotten? How many poor managerial appointments? As much as Maresca is hopeless & also needs to go, without changing the personnel above we will never get any real traction. I cannot think of any signings barring Caicedo, Palmer, Estevao & to a lesser extent Pedro Neto which actually look like good signings for Chelsea FC (not Strasbourg) under those sporting directors.

In all fairness Enzo Fernandez can follow him out the door as well if the price is right, he has no right to not be happy at all. Cannot afford passengers in football. He is arguably one of the biggest we have had in years. So slow without the ball. But yes Maresca has to go. As do the sporting directors.

Still yet to be convinced Veiga was a big improvement on what we have already also though. Or am I missing something? I mean our CBs now we don’t need players around the same level. We need top class quality. Same with the GK position. Veiga’s profile maybe would’ve been better for the squad (left foot, cover CB, LB & DM) but one would argue Hato also does the same? Nobody here for sure would’ve been able to say what Veiga’s best position was based on his minutes here because he played all of those roles & was clearly more of a swiss army knife player than someone who specialised as a CB, LB or a 6. I don’t think any of the players Maresca froze out in that January (Felix & Veiga especially), in terms of quality, were vast improvements on what we had/currently have. Felix playing more would’ve perhaps would’ve prevented him from running Cole into the ground but that was about all his worth given how reluctant the manager was to use Nkunku behind the striker. Tosin signing was a bad move though. Always was. Better than what we already had? No. Get the feeling he came into replace Silva in terms of being a more experienced player and it was always going to backfire horrifically because he hasn’t got the same ability or experience. Seen comparisons with him coming in to Cahill signing at the time too. Captaining Fulham and being a non capped England international is not the same.

The striker, wingers, all poor. I am sure you were one of the ones who said these attackers would’ve warranted a title challenge earlier in the season too, no? Clearlake/Stewart & Winstanley have no intentions of us competing at the very top it is so clear. Simple as that. You don’t sign Garnacho, Gittens & Delap when your team has been crying out for top GK & CBs for about 5 years. Even when your manager has said about a CB publicly. The recruitment has been wrong for so many seasons now. The manager also has to be reviewed in the summer because his inflexibility against smaller teams is killing us. Like you need to be able to see these teams off to give yourself the best chance of competing for titles, dropping points against the likes of Sunderland, Leeds, Bournemouth just undoes any points gained against the likes of Arsenal, Liverpool, Spurs & whoever. Tbf his ability was always there but it was the consistency that was a massive concern. Not to mention the fact he was always a luxury player who lacked the bit without the ball. People forget he’s went under a big physical transformation at City, shed a lot of weight & has had to buy into Pep’s approach where everyone has to work without the ball. I am very doubtful Maresca would’ve gotten that out of him, proof is in the pudding, Cole & Enzo still waltz around as if they don’t have to do their bits without the ball. Not to mention none of the defenders or midfielders seem to want to compete in duels. However its worked out for Cherki - him going there to Pep, with top top players, in comparison to him coming here - it would’ve been a wrong move. I was 100% convinced us signing him would’ve been a bad move & still stand by it.

Seen this coming. Not hard to outperform us. Just roll your sleeves up and make it tough physically. Our lack of physicality and flexibility is glaringly obvious, particularly scary how bad we are without Caicedo. Few more games like this and we will be in a proper fight to try scrape into the top 4 come the end of the season.

Defending aside, any chance these attacking players are ever going to truly flourish under him? Always seems to be whenever we play mid/low table clubs players look reluctant to run at their opposite numbers & pass it backwards/sideways… I know their deeper also & there doesn’t seem to be the same tempo but it is really annoying. Third goal wouldn’t happen if Maresca didn’t have a hard on for us playing unnecessary short passes in dangerous areas also. Was a few close moments with Sanchez kicking it out too. Personnel need to be improved upon A LOT but if it’s not on, don’t play high risk balls for the sake of it, get a feel for the game and be flexible when its extremely high risk. That comes from his philosophy as well as players actions/mistakes. Absolute clusterfuck after a few good results, signs of what will continue to happen unless he starts being a bit more flexible in games against smaller teams.

Disappointing how poor we’ve been at competing for duels & ball recoveries. Like next level abysmal. Tosin 7 ft tall & probably not won a header all night. Enzo given it the big one smashing Madueke vs Arsenal but has probably lost every 50-50 tonight. Cucurella the same. One of the only times Gittens took his man on & beat him, we score a goal. Neto also comes on actually looks to try dribble past his opposite players, couple of crosses but other than that no real quality in the attacking play. Again. Maresca hasn’t got a plan when we don’t play teams who want to play with their backline 25-30 meters higher up the park than Leeds did tonight. Yet isn’t part of the problem? Many many issues to solve from the manager to the first 11. On second viewing of that goal yes nothing he can do but has also kicked it to Leeds countless times tonight anyway.

Why was Gusto passing it to his CB who is maybe 3m away from him? Who is going to be under near instant pressure? And why is he trying to play it to the GK who is another 1 to 2m away and going to be under severe pressure from 2 players? As opposed to Gusto just playing up the line so we can get up the pitch? So avoidable. Don’t tell me thats not down to Maresca’s philosophy as well?

Tosin & Sanchez wow. Relegation fodder.

I’m sorry but don’t talk nonsense. If it was still 0-0 we would be playing the same way as we were in the first half because he wouldn’t think it was a bad performance. The manager wouldn’t have made any of the changes & I would still be watching Badiashile take 40 touches before passing it backwards. You don’t make 4 changes (3 of them attackers) in 15 minutes because not having ball playing CBs/a good defence is the only reason your losing 😂

Lucky as fuck. 2 big challenges that Cucurella & Tosin have to win convincingly regardless. Thats the basics.

Gittens finally takes someone on as opposed to passing it backwards, gets an assist 👍 The philosophy is dire. Could have Arsenals defence and still struggle if we played like we did first half. Or in countless other games v smaller teams.

On a yellow though. And in true fashion, we are due a red card. Regardless, no point playing any wingers if we are gonna keep passing it this slow.

I’m sorry but it’s not the player selection. It’s the philosophy. So one dimensional. Look at it, that back 3 with the ball, they’ve probably completed about 150 passes between themselves, majority sideways & backwards. Wheres the willingness to go more direct into Delap? Or try turn Leeds round quickly on the odd occasion when they’ve pushed up like (which you even see Arsenal doing a lot)? It doesn’t happen because the philosophy of this manager does not allow it… If you look at majority of the games against these sort of lower sides, it is nothing new regardless of the selection. Enzo Fernandez & Andrey Santos aren’t getting the ball quick enough. The same with Estevao & Joao Pedro. Always so predictable when we have got to break down a semi organised side. They were talking about Farke getting sacked a few days ago 😂

Was a clever signing if you listened to some on here though. Guys 7 ft and scared of heading the ball. Wouldn’t get a game at any other top 6/8 team yet he’s an undisputed starter here….. Yep. Did say beforehand that we would get something out of the Arsenal game and struggle here probably. Games like these are more common because you play more of these smaller teams that make it difficult to play through. No point doing well v Liverpool, Arsenal, Barcelona etc if your gonna struggle against Sunderland, Leeds, whoever else…