BlueLyon

If we go that way then they should be playing 20 hours a day to justify the cash they get. But their pay is not going from my pocket nor yours. All we care is their performance on the pitch and I find this date 4 days after PL pointless because either key players wont play, will take it as a training session but in USA or even risking an injury. The last could affect our game in EL final if we get there.

EL finals have varried for past few years. 2015, 17, 19 were played at end of may, 16, 18 were played in mid may. CL usualy follows about a week later always. Its true La Liga sides have less break because la liga ends later, but PL was in this situation for years. Its nothing new. Its good to have extra game inbetween but in this case just 4 days after playing every couple days, this game wont be useful at all. Its 13 days break till EL final, even if we play another game which is still enough to kill our tempo if that was the case. I would understand if we played this game one week after Watford and one week before EL final in Europe, not USA , so it doesnt affect us but keeps us in shape.

Well its common to have that pause between end of season and CL/EL final. Its not like this match will be of any bigger challenge than trainings we do every week. The players will have very busy schedule ahead for the may and the last thing they want is another meanlingless trip to Usa only 4 days after PL end.

Why are we playing New England Revolution on 16th may in USA? Just 4 days after PL ends and two weeks before EL final (if we qualify) The only explanation I can see is if we bring Pulisic so soon and he plays this match in new club in his country, but even then its stupid. Players need some rest ffs.

I agree with him too. CL is a bit overrated because the winner is regarded as the best team in europe, gets all the attention etc, but its often not the truth. Real won 3 CLs, but couldnt even win la liga once during that time. Same with Chelsea when we won it. However regardless if we like it or not, its the prestigious tournament and if you are a big club, you have to compete there. Simple. Sarri has to understand that qualifying to CL is priority always. League is the better evaluation how good team actualy is, but if you compete for PL title, you will certainly qualify for CL too. After all, all knockout tournaments, be it world cup, CL or fa cup, luck almost always play its part.

He gets away because he had massive performances in many big games and has the biggest character in the team. If he gets the extension for another year, I wont be pissed.

Tottenham has 4 incredibly easy matches left. Arsenal on the other hand plays wolves and leicester away in the last two rounds. Id count they will lose points sooner than Spuds. IF we somehow win remaining fixtures, Arsenal must not win at least two (draw and loss would work). They have european fixtures too, maybe they get caught up. The question is can we win 4 games left? United, Leicester and Watford? From what I have seen in this season, we will surely drop points somewhere if not twice. We probably have more chance to win EL because it seems players get motivated way more if they can win a trophy. We have experience on our side too. But even Frankfurt and Arsenal/Valencia is going to be a challenge for this team.

Despite the nice amount of cash we earned from sales, one of biggest mistakes (beside obvious Kdb, Salah etc) was that we couldnt keep other few players because they wanted to leave. Lukaku, Mata, Sturridge,...have all proven they CAN add value to their new team. They left because we didnt give them a chance, but if you look their paths they eventualy got benched by another big club. If we handled things differently, we could have realy good bench nowdays, or at the very least we wouldnt need to buy all those backups like Remy, Giroud, Batshuayi, Drinkwater and bunch of others through the years. I guess the main reason they left was how we treated them and not just the fact we didnt play them. Because they dont play regulary elsewhere and they dont try to leave like they did here. Essentialy we shown them they have no place here and thats why they left. Partly they were also stupid not to wait a bit longer, but considering there were so many examples over the past years, it couldnt be just that. The club gave them false promises, didnt have faith etc and they saw it. You have plenty of quality players elsewhere that have limited roles, but arent forcing move away. Because they know competition is real there. If they play well, they will play more. Here we kept favouring certain players over others, regardless of the form.

Dont want to take anything away from Tammy, but IMO he wont be the striker we need. He lacks that comfort on the ball that is absolutely necessary for us. He is a target man, but IMO what we need is hardworking, agressive forward with good ball control. That would help us press the opponent better and also play more fluidly in attack against packed defences. He needs good PL loan first and then we will see. I would bring Reece and Zouma back next year and hopefuly we can loan Mount, Tammy and Tomori to PL teams for further development. If we get ban, losing Kovacic might also mean we have to keep Mount for squad depth.

Top 6 is absolutely crazy in PL. There are at least 5 teams that nowdays deserve to play in CL. No other league has such competition each year. I predict that sooner or later PL will get 5 spots in CL at this rate.

Eden could have Messi esque games till the end of season, he wont win it. It will be either Sterling or Dijk. When is the voting though? If its after season ends, it will be a player from a winning team.

Defeats happen, but many top teams rivaled them very fairly and betaten them on quite many ocassions. We and United are hardly top teams or in great form. De Bruyne is in and out. Once he was fit, Pep clearly prefered Bernardo over him for a while, despite Kevin was already match fit. Sterling is on fire, obviously he will play. But soon he drops form, Pep will bench him for Sane. He doesnt have any loyalty to players, they are just projects for him. And when he has to count on them, it strikes back.

Indeed. Dont forget their run to europa league final either. Won against United, Villareal and Dortmund. Against Dortmund, they were 3:1 down at anfield, but managed to overturn it to 4:3. The main reason they were 8th was because Klopp played his football against anyone. They played city, but they went there with attacking philosophy. And they won both times. Sometimes they also lost to terrible teams because of that. But they sticked with their plan. They developed. Also later seasons, he had realy good games against big teams. Their players had strong mentality and character in all those games. They did suffer some realy bad defeats against smaller sides though and that pissed many many fans, calling for his head. What is Sarri doing? Goes to park the bus against Liverpool. We went all out against City and we got trashed 6:0. Do that 3-4 times more and eventualy we will learn from mistakes and overcome them. If we dont, then Sarri is clearly not the manager for us. What we should be doing is playing attacking football (not all out attack, nor park the bus, but balanced attacking football) in every match. And then develop it. There will be defeats, but we will learn and evolve. Parking the bus is getting us nowhere near "Sarriball". Its just temporary solution to avoid big defeat at anfield.

Yeah, that should be priority. Marina knows finances, we became fully self-sustainable club during her time with all the sponsorships, but she doesnt have enough knowledge regarding football projects IMO. Wish we could get someone in the mould of Marotta, Monchi. Because United has DoF, but a clueless one. So we better get a proper one to make the club great again. Now that we are set to play attacking football (under Sarri or anyone else), we need DoF more than ever. Just two summers where we buy players that actualy fit the team would massive improvement for us.

He is good but his teams have peak at average teams. He was destroying everything in bundesliga and now he is doing the same in PL below top 6. Thats his peak. Both Bayern and City took heavy Ls in CL against big and small teams. This has nothing to do with luck. He is plain and simple shite against determined teams. Why? Because he wants to BUY to create similar team that he created in barca. And his loaded team is too much for small weak teams, but they cant compete against the best. They mentaly struggle because they were all bought in last two seasons and dont give a shit about City realy. I have seen warrior like performances from smaller teams, this city one is bunch of spoiled lads who have all the talent in the world, but dont know the grit and determination. And thats on Pep. Because he was buying everything instead of building a team slowly. If Sane underperforms, he just drops him. If he Otamendi underperforms, he just spends another 50 on new CB. But result is you get mercenaries who dont care. If he developed Otamendi and trusted him, maybe he would by now be a reliable CB unlike Laporte etc. If he played Sane as much as possible, he would return by giving everything he can. But Pep rotates all the time, many times unneccesary, and thus doesnt have 11 regulars who are absolute must to win CL. Real, Barca everyone had undisputed 11. With Pep you never know who will be two CBs and who will be two main wingers or 3 midfielders. We were lucky back then with Drogba and others because that 11 gave it all for this club. Nowdays we are buying players that dont give a shit. Same with United. Thats why we suck. They dont offer that extra. United and we have seriously bad boards, thats why even with the spending we dont get near City or Psg. Liverpool is the only english team that has proper project. And thats because they built their team gradualy. When they bought Salah or Dijk, they wanted those two and those two only. And they played them until they completely fit in the squad. They wont rotate them every week, they wont bench them during bad form. They make them undisputed starters and rely on them 100%. I remember Mou wanted only Drogba and we played him through thick and thin until he was greatest striker in blue. When we bought Morata, we bought him because we needed a striker. Once he turned shite, we dropped him and vice versa nowdays he couldnt give two shits about us. Player loyalty is still the most important value in football. And thats the difference between Pep and Klopp. When Barca signed De Jong, you know they want to make destiny with them. Same was with Pool when they bought Dijk. They went over everything to get that CB. When City buys a player, its just another toy for Pep who will be dumped the moment they find a new one. It was the same when we got Morata. We need to INVEST in the players, not just buy them.

Well he did make City dominate league, but why? Because he has world class attack and equaly world class back up for each of them, except for DM. Why? Because his cash pit is limitless. However there is a problem with spending. Because all he got is a bunch of mercenaries that dont give two shits about City tbh. That allows him to keep his players fresh, also if Sterling injures himself, he still has Mahrez and Sane on the bench for example. Thats absolutely crazy. Its easy to dwarf the likes of burnley, newcastle etc. But we have all seen how city struggles when they go against team that wont take shit from them, like Liverpool this and last year or Chelsea last year. Same is in CL, teams wont take shit from Pep, they want to win. And so far they did. Pep lost to frikin Monaco and this year to Spuds. Neither is prime Real or Barca. I must say Pep is a genious in his own way. He made a way to dominate the league by blasting away everything below top 6. He created big fish in a small pound. Whenever they play a strong determined opponent, they lose 9/10 times. But his City is nowhere near elite. His philosophy is interesting and quite special indeed. But as a manager he achieved nothing in europe since he left barca and for obvious reasons. Because he has a million flaws. No backup plan, rotates key players all the time, so he cant expect them to give 110% because they know they might not play next time, his love for ball playing CBs instead of defenders that can actualy defend etc. He won the league with record points, but this has to be the most overrated english team I have ever seen. Some say it could be the best ever, I can only laugh. United, Chelsea, Arsenal, Pool have all had better teams, teams that won back to back titles or won CL. Even Pool has a chance now to completely outshine City if they win PL this year, nevermind CL. I can confidently say Pep is never going to win CL with City. There are three knockout rounds to the final and there will always be at least one smaller team that will give everything to win or a big club that will simply outplay them. Same can be applied to Psg. I bet they would always finish in top 3 if they played in PL. But they cant do shit in CL. Dont get me wrong, these days he is a good coach, but nowhere near great one.

Unpopular opinion probably but I hope we are nothing like Pep anytime in the future. If we try to model after someone, it should be Klopp. If not for the style, then certainly from financial aspect. City can spend twice as much as we can, while Liverpool is around the same, so reaching the top is more realistic for us if we follow Liverpool project rather than City one.

Leroy Sane is reportedly unhappy at city. And with Sterling heavily favoured over him, he might decide to put in a transfer request. If we could pull off a reverse De Bruyne and develop him into a star (in case Eden leaves).

What is going on with him? He used to be one of those tough defenders who dont give a shit while still not being a prick. But these days he gets rattled so quickly, panics, loses shit, starts bitching about every single ref decision and not in a positive way. Every time the camera points at him, he is screaming at something and looks completely rattled. When we are losing its especialy evident. He went from my favourite player into someone I dont mind replacing any time now. Has nothing to do with his performances, he declined a bit, but I thats understandable in new system. However his acting and behaviour on the pitch is awful.

Phisicaly he is absolutely ready. So many youngsters we had couldnt cope with PL because they were not strong enough. Tammy, Musonda etc I am fully convinced James will make it if he keeps his head down and work. And obviously if we give him enough play time and as soon as possible. Azpi has declined big time, it would be smooth transition indeed.

Perhaps. If Conte solved issue with him and he stayed fit in full preseason with us instead of chilling in brazil or wherever he dissapeared to for half a year before he joined atletico, then its very possible he would have at least one more 20+ goal season with us. Aside from his usual drop in form during second half of season, he shown no decline here. Im fully convinced we would benefit more with Costa in the past two years than strikers that replaced him. Just his presence alone gave us that fear factor and passion that is long gone now.

Sarri probably locks himself in smoke room during breaks instead of giving motivational speech and instructions for second half

Well at least it wasnt boring 1:0 win like usual

But we need ball playing defenders Christensen and Luiz having masterclass again. Trying to show Laporte they can do worse. Give me Zouma any day of the week. And that midfield. What exactly are they good for? Allways exposed in defence, do nothing in attack.

Ancelotti is done. Playing at home needing to catch up 2 goals and he plays CB at RB and midfielder on left wing.