The Manchester City Thread

If the plan was to stay at Man City ti keep himself fit, arguably not even going to have a massive signing on fee/wages.

FFP takes into consideration wages aswell

It's a rant but whatever.

Awful result today but I think a result like that has been overdue, we've had narrow escapes in basically every match since Boxing Day (Burnley, Sunderland, Wednesday and Everton). We've kept picking up results more or less all season but all the same problems have kept cropping up - dodgy defending, slow inaccurate passing and blunt attacking - and today was the first time we've done them all at the same time and been properly punished for it in the league this season.

Aside from the systemic problems, we've also got personnel issues that are ridiculous given the money spent since Pellegrini arrived and the heights we've reached in his time. Two unconvincing keepers, one consistent full-back who has been played into the ground, no truly reliable centre-backs, a midfield that hinges almost entirely on the whim of Yaya Touré and the diminutive genius of David Silva and a front-line that is embarrassingly lacklustre when Aguero's knackered.

And all that without even mentioning how unbelievably shit our set-pieces are. Bit sick of Pellegrini at this point to be honest.

Good luck at Chelsea then.

I'm not expecting it to go well.

Fernando is garbage, complete waste of money. Haven't seen him play a decent game

He started off really well but got that injury two or three matches in and has looked completely off the pace since then. Unfortunately so has Fernandinho for the most part. There are far too many players looking like shadows of their former self.

Do City fans agree with a lot of others that Kompany is a bit overrated?

Guy was insane in 2011/12 but I've always felt like he's lived off of that season for some time now despite making mistakes a lot of the time. He seems to get away with a lot whereas Demichelis on the other hand gets dog's abuse in comparison.

Yes and no.

On his best day he's still comfortably the best centre-back in the league and one of the best in the world. On the other hand, his best day doesn't seem to come around as often as it did, and his decision-making has noticeably deteriorated. Personally I think it's the result of a combination of several factors. Age, a defensive system that provides him with significantly less cover than it should do/used to and a lot of injuries.

I still think that if you put him in a system like Chelsea's or like City's in 10/11 or 11/12 he'd flourish but probably not to quite the same extent as he did.

Demichelis is just awesome though.

Kompany is mainly overrated due to 'pundits' falling over each other to be mates with him and can't find fault with anything he does, so they blame Demichelis and other football fans take that as gospel. He's been 'poor' for 2-3 seasons, at least compared to the beastly 11-12 season (which was basically perfection). He's still one of the best 'leaders' in the game though and basically irreplaceable.

Demichelis has been our best CB since last January and that's a fact

Aye, I think this is a very good example of how stupid many pundits and journalists are when it comes to football. When you're 'in', you're in. Regardless of actual form and ability. It's the same reason Joe Hart gets so much leeway and you still hear him described as being in good form.

Did you think it was a penalty yesterday?

A soft one but yeah I think so. Monreal's looking for it but Kompany leaves his knee out and catches him.

I was more surprised that he didn't get a second yellow for the foul on Sanchez than I was upset about the penalty.

Yeah that was criminal from Dean. About as clear a yellow as you can get.

I think the reasoning there was he wanted to play advantage (rightly so) and I don't think it's "advised" to send someone off after a situation like that.

Bizarre as it is to say this about a City player, he should have stopped play and sent him off to be honest. It was a blatant second yellow.

Aye, they would've scored the free kick anyway

I could see Kompany ending up at the likes of Bayern Munich or Real Madrid in the next season or two.

Don't see it. I don't see why the club would want rid of him and I don't really see why he'd want out. He's already a club legend, he's got a young family (his wife is a Mancunian blue) and it's not like Bayern or Madrid will give him a pay rise or anything. With hindsight I think Mancini's last season was the chance for him to leave.

YouTube Stream of the Hamburg game

What's with the friendly halfway through a season?

£££££

Need to regain their confidence after losing at home against one of the most cowardly big clubs in history imo

Combination of the two with a hefty dose of PR.

Also some of the youth get a training camp with the first team in Abu Dhabi.

Poor Ambrose went full Micah Richards in the space of 2 seconds: Attempted an overhead then got injured

Whats the news on Lampard? Went off after 20 with a hip injury

I saw Celina got his 'debut'. How highly is he rated? Just too bad he seem to have chosen Kosovo over Norway on international level.

He felt something in the warm-up, but felt he could run it off so they played him for 20 mins to see. Was taken off as a precaution but I think he's fine.


Celina had a great chance at the very end which he probably should've scored, didn't see much from him though (was watching in work so wasn't playing much attention). I think Pellegrini rates him pretty highly (enough to bring him on the tour at least)

Thought Evans played great, a lot more adventurous than other 'debutants'

Not sure about the club as a whole but I've seen him a few times and he's never particularly impressed me.

Demichelis signed a year extension to his contract. Great news. Would love to see him be a coach when he's done