where on earth did you get this from. First of all a small fraction of clubs can pay £50m for any player aside from the salaries they want. Secondly players are not groceries, they also have opinions and preferences and they’d far more likely to join a club that can spend like it’s christmas and that has a good chance to win the league. Why on earth would they rather come to a team that hasn’t won the league (or the CL) in 15 years, like us?
Pep has taken stomping teams and steam rolled leagues for years with far superior squad depth but hasn’t reached a CL finals in… 7 years? When he did, Xavi-Iniesta-Messi shat their way there and they were already absolute world class when Pep joined.
I agree they at least get good players, but that again was already the case before Pep, the group of Aguero, Silva and Kompany etc. were already a world class spine that won the league a couple of times, and several of the defenders Guardiola have brought in are average.
Pep’s good no doubt but to take world beaters like he does and continuously fail to even reach a CL finals is impossible to ignore. Mou and Fergie for example have done more impressive things, and for me it has gone so far that even if Pep wins the CL within the next couple of years I just feel like sighing.
I also agree United are fun to laugh at, they’re the worst lol but at least they throw money at their problems, eventually they’ll hit it right and then they’ll have the last laugh on both us and City unless we pull a rabbit out of our hat. A EL win and CL next year would help us with that no doubt.
Yeah to be fair City don’t hold the current transfer records for defender, GK, striker or midfielder. Funnily enough that’s Liverpool and United.
Firstly, they inherited a core of truly special players which helped tremendously. Now they did buy terribly during Hughe’s tenure but have been buying quality ever since and most players were available to other clubs too.
United just like City initially have invested terribly in some mediocre players, you have to spend well especially now that players cost so much and also hire the right coach and they’ve done neither.
Because other clubs have spent bigger sums on players in the same position. That’s where I got it from mate.
Chelsea and Liverpool spent double on their goalkeepers to what City spent on Ederson.
United spent the same sum on Matic and even more on Fred than City did on B. Silva. These players were available for other clubs to sign prior to City coming in and matching what the club wanted for them.
Let’s not forget the potentially £95m that Everton spent on Richarlison and Sigurdsson…
I’m not saying every club could have signed all of those players - but they were available and they were obtainable. City just signed better players and spent their money in a far better way than anybody else did.
Ah well ok yeah I agree, I see them as a handful of clubs, the rest of the high-spending elite, but yeah I agree if you mean clubs like those, PSG and Barca+Real maybe. I guess I don’t see us in the same bracket as those clubs anymore, sadly.
The reality is though we wasted £90m on Xhaka, Mustafi and Perez and also spent £100m on two strikers a few months apart. We’ve lost Ramsey and Sanchez (£100m worth of assets) and tied down Ozil to a huge contract that hamstrings us financially. That’s easily close to £300m that we just haven’t made sensible decisions with. I’m not even saying Laca and Auba weren’t worth it - just highlighting how haphazard our transfer policy has been.
If we made better decisions over the last 5 years we’d have had a much more competitive and deep squad to work with.
You can find £100m blown on shite at any top club in the past handful of years or right before that probably. The difference I see for us is that we’re damaged as fk when we do it because we don’t have the financial muscle to parry for it. We sink with bad investments.
I disagree we lost Ramsey as a big portion of money, he wanted salaries we wouldn’t and shouldn’t pay anyway, Sanchez was traded for Micky, they were like for likes in that they’re both dead weights, we bought Sanchez for 30m or w/e it was, made him something like a top 10 player in the world, then he lost his mind as is evident by how he chose United over City just because they offered more money, we did well to get rid of him the way we did. In no way do I see them as £100m lost, and £100m on Laca + Auba is the best money we spent at the Emirates probably. So I don’t see £300m we could’ve done other things with, I see £85m of bad business we did with the first three you mention, and that I see in every top club I look at given a few years or so.
But I see a fragility in how dependent we are on nailing our transfers, say we get £90m this summer, pulled out of my arse, if we don’t make that money count, as in significant improvements in key areas… then to consider that Liverpool and City are in a different state atm, there are two other spots to fight for for top 4 next season adn I do not at all see us necessarily stepping past two out of scum even if they lose some momentum, United as they’ll probably spend wildly this summer again, and Chelsea depending on what they can keep at Stamford and who manages them at the end of this window.
Completely discounting City’s luxury of affording flops.
You mention Xhaka, Mustafi, Perez.
I offer you Adebayor, Mangala, Otamendi, Wilfred Bony, Nolito, Jovetic, Zuculini, Nastasic, Negredo etc etc.
We cannot just go out and buy another 30-40m replacement for our 30-40m flops.
We cannot afford to offset the wages of our expensive players so they can be moved to other clubs like City do.
We have to live with our flops and that’s not something City have to manage.
The absolute delusional and bullshit defending of City in this forum sometimes.
The only defending is really against calling him a fraud, which is ott.
CL is a knockout, things happen. He achieved 100 and 98 points playing great football. Maybe he isn’t your cup of tea but saying bc he got knocked out by a decent Spurs side in a 2 game playoff where they weren’t outscored seems off.
198 points in two seasons of prem. I bet this will stand for as long as I live. 3 seasons not winning CL is disappointing, not fraudulent. One of only 6-10 proper contenders wins it every year. One game against Spurs is what you are pointing to? There are countless examples of the very best managers failing in one or two games.
Are you trying to catch A4T for the nonexistent troll of year again?
well he lost to Chelsea, then to Real Madrid, then to Barca, then to Atletico, then to Monaco, then to Liverpool, then to tottenham in the CL. The teams he managed before the City spending spree were teams that had just won both the league and CL within a couple of years, and then just the league with City.
A big points number is an argument but not a very strong one, points vary with seasons, rules, teams etc. A fat thick squad helps you win the league over a year as you can parry for injuries and form, look at how he has De Bruyne and Kompany out and still wins the league, give them to the close contenders these two seasons instead, Liverpool would’ve probably won it this season and United could’ve maybe given them a run for it under Mou. Give them to us and we’d probably… make top 4, barely
but I can add that I agree he is not a fraud in that dramatic sense, but he certainly has question marks. To me he is a luxury manager, he wants to play the type of football where if you have excellent players all over the pitch it looks great most of the time, but that’s where his comfort zone is. If you don’t you’d probably want other managers. And it is easier to assess a manager’s skill when they punch above their relative weight, like W did for a while, like Mou did etc. So for me, at least good, but the best? doubt it. Could other managers win the CL and the league if they had his teams and money, yeah I’m certain. Probably 5-10 managers could, most in-fashion managers I expect would have, like Zidane, Klopp, Pooch, Allegri very likely, not surprised if Simeone did it etc.
I’m talking about the quality of City’s spending over the last 3 seasons - since Pep arrived. Bravo and Nolito were flops but by and large they’ve done well in the market.
And you’re reaching really… they lost minimal sums of money on players like Jovetic, Nastasic and Nolito. And they made money on Negredo… they sold him for more than they paid for him.
Also… in what world has Otamendi been a flop?
Nobody here is defending the spending of City - I’m just pointing out that other clubs have been in a position to sign players that City have too. They are signing 2 or 3 players for the £100m other clubs waste on one player.
I’m not defending what clubs like Man City or Chelsea have done to achieve their success, in fact I’ve always criticised any club that doesn’t spend what it has generated from its own supporters.
My point is that Guardiola can no way be described as a fraud.
If he is, then every other manager from every other club, in every era, is also a fraud because no one else has achieved what he has.
With that kind of squad, is that really an achievement?
Not coming close to winning CL once is downright fraudulent with the squad he has had.
Klopp reached finals twice with inferior squad and once beating Pep in process.
I am not only pointing at Spurs game but all 3 seasons. He lost to Monaco, Liverpool & Spurs and none of those three you can claim to be better than City.
it happens. It is only 3 years. Only Madrid and Barca have won the last 5.
Sample size of 198 is 76 games. You are talking about one offs. Anyway, no one is deifying Pep here, but your fraud label is off the mark and I think you know it.
Doesn’t matter. For most parts CL despite being a knockout tournament, it is always won by the richest club.
You can’t tell me if given 3 years to best manager and best set of players, all you can manage is Quarterfinals, then that is an utter waste of time and money.
But why is that comparison necessary?
Say if other clubs spend their money optimally, would that have changed the fact that City spent close to billion dollars and made the playing field uneven?
It isn’t always won by richest club… this year it certainly won’t. Look, you are obviously wound up and don’t want the slightest bit of debate. I get it - I am not the biggest Pep fan and it is fun to hate him, but if we are going to look for hyper-successful frauds, there is a line before I would think of him.
Can’t understand how anyone dismisses 198 points. I’ll leave the issue here bc it is pointless.
