Manchester City Post-Mortem

[BigChief]

Right, a bit of controversy, stay with me here...

When I saw the teamsheet and the absentees from the starting line-up my jaw hit the ground. The very first cognitive thought was "Is sly old Kenny doing a deliberate throw-away and sticking two fingers up at whiskey nose?".

Reina's laisez faire attitude to goalkeeping all night and the lacklustre passing among those that do actually know how to pass didn't change that feeling.

Suarez not even featuring could have been a case of "well Demento you wanted him out for most of the season, lets start tonight!"

I'm not upset at the result or the performance tonight. Neither reflected LFC and I'm glad manure are back in the chasing game with their threadbare squad.

[Yozza]

Right, a bit of controversy, stay with me here...

When I saw the teamsheet and the absentees from the starting line-up my jaw hit the ground. The very first cognitive thought was "Is sly old Kenny doing a deliberate throw-away and sticking two fingers up at whiskey nose?".

Reina's laisez faire attitude to goalkeeping all night and the lacklustre passing among those that do actually know how to pass didn't change that feeling.

Suarez not even featuring could have been a case of "well Demento you wanted him out for most of the season, lets start tonight!"

I'm not upset at the result or the performance tonight. Neither reflected LFC and I'm glad manure are back in the chasing game with their threadbare squad.

We'd never throw a game mate

[Nicey]

Right, a bit of controversy, stay with me here...

When I saw the teamsheet and the absentees from the starting line-up my jaw hit the ground. The very first cognitive thought was "Is sly old Kenny doing a deliberate throw-away and sticking two fingers up at whiskey nose?".

Reina's laisez faire attitude to goalkeeping all night and the lacklustre passing among those that do actually know how to pass didn't change that feeling.

Suarez not even featuring could have been a case of "well Demento you wanted him out for most of the season, lets start tonight!"

I'm not upset at the result or the performance tonight. Neither reflected LFC and I'm glad manure are back in the chasing game with their threadbare squad.

That works for me, Job done, a good nights work then, I can go to bed happy

Its been Emotional

[KingKenny77]

To say we're in the same position as we were back in February is pure nonsense. We're 2 points off 4th place. How many points off it were we in February?

I love the contradiction here First you say we've not been good enough for 20 years and then you start yearning for the times of 3-4 years ago. Make up your mind

We're not getting fourth without Suarez out for eight matches - not that we would get fourth with him in our team.

Rafa Benitez if given the right funding and the right support would have won us a League title.

Rafa Benitez was the best thing to happen to this club since Shankly walked through our doors in 1959.

[Craig_H]

Right, a bit of controversy, stay with me here...

When I saw the teamsheet and the absentees from the starting line-up my jaw hit the ground. The very first cognitive thought was "Is sly old Kenny doing a deliberate throw-away and sticking two fingers up at whiskey nose?".

Reina's laisez faire attitude to goalkeeping all night and the lacklustre passing among those that do actually know how to pass didn't change that feeling.

Suarez not even featuring could have been a case of "well Demento you wanted him out for most of the season, lets start tonight!"

I'm not upset at the result or the performance tonight. Neither reflected LFC and I'm glad manure are back in the chasing game with their threadbare squad.

Nice theory but no. Reina was fuming with himself over that first goal. He aint that good an actor

[Exiled_red]

We'd never throw a game mate

[Mostar]

They are facetious comments to what I perceive as stupid transfer policy. Quite why anyone would want to sign a British footballer over a foreign one is beyond me. Are you telling me there aren't better foreign footballers than Adam, Carroll, Downing and Henderson?

No I am telling you that you should change your name as you are insulting Kenny with your Kevin Phillips and Heskey's comments.

If you gonna critize him for buying Carroll or Downing or anybody else ok but there is no reason to be so offensive as he doesn't deserve that.

Not today, not ever.

[DannyMan2006]

You're missing my point somewhat. It's not about fees, it's about performances.

A good player is a good player and a poor one is a poor one - the fees dont change that and if you sign a good player, then he's a good player who you're happy with, likewise if you buy a poor one, you're disappointed because he's poor.

If Downing had cost us £8m, the poor level of his performances would be exactly the same. He wouldnt be good enough. Likewise, Bellamy was free and is a good player who's performed well. That would be exactly the same if he had cost us £10m.

Would you be saying Downing was a good signing if he had cost £8m?

The money doesnt matter, if they're good then great, if they arent they need to be moved on.

EDIT - and i'm now going to play my joker - LDP agrees with you. :bird:

I would say that if we paid lower fees on Downing and Carroll then I could have lived with them tbh. I remember when Rafa bought Riera, he wasn't great but he was as could as we could reasonably expect for the fee.

Downing hasn't been rubbish IMO. He's just been very average. He gives us some balance and he does help stretch the opposition due to him hugging the touchline. He also plays in a way that helps Enrique stand out. For about £8m I'd have said fair enough.

The point is that this summer we had big money in the bank. We had a chance to go out and buy a really top player and give us the opportunity to finally solve our left sided problem. We sorted out LB, great bit of business getting Enrique. But Downing Just hasn't delivered.

And let's be honest, Downing has never ever looked like a £20m player. Just like Carroll has never looked like being a player who will be worth £35m.

[MrMichael]

Tottenham spent ****loads before though. And they didnt have the heart of their squad ripped apart, the club nearly destroyed and sent to the brink of administration.

Easy to forget eh?

Indeed.

The headline fees for Carroll and Downing look ridiculous right now (and to be fair, they looked pretty bad at the time too), but its not quite as bad as people are making out. Overall we've spent net about £40m since Kenny came in, which is good money until you consider that we'd been making a profit in the transfer windows for ~3 years before that under H&G. We also reduced the wage bill, and cut a lot of slack from the squad. Unfortunately, we played so well in the latter half of last season that expectations were possibly slightly too for this one, and with a couple of key injuries (Gerrard, now Lucas) along with a couple of the high profile signings not bearing fruit, things haven't been quite as good as we would have liked, but its far from a disaster.

I do think that for Kenny (and Commoli, people tend to forget him when apportioning "blame" for some of the deals), their next couple of big transfers in are going to have to be good ones. At the moment now, the transfer balance is pretty much 50/50, Suarez, Enrique and Bellamy definite good moves, Adam to me is about a £7m player, no less and not much more, Henderson and Coates have a lot of potential and are unfair to judge right now, while Carroll & Downing look like blunders. A couple more real successes and thing will look much better. A couple more big spends on average or unsuited players and the skies will start to darken.

[el matador]

you cant rebuild a team in two transfer windows especially if you take into account the talent that we lost.

kenny bought some players, the team has improved but it still needs fine tuning. we still need another three or four recruits to turn us into title challengers.

a striker who can score, a defensive midfield player to replace lucas and another creative player in midfield to give us another option.

get those three and we will be much closer.

[yamiedo]

At this point in time. Take Downing, Kuyt, Adam and Carroll out of the lineup. Replace them with Gerrard, Maxi, Bellamy and maybe even give Shelvey a go. Adam and Kuyt take the pace out of our game. Downing is too inconsistent with his end product and Carroll is just not suited for our style of play. That's my opinion.

[Craig_H]

We're not getting fourth without Suarez out for eight matches - not that we would get fourth with him in our team.

Rafa Benitez if given the right funding and the right support would have won us a League title.

Rafa Benitez was the best thing to happen to this club since Shankly walked through our doors in 1959.

Suarez will miss Stoke (h), Bolton (a) and Wolves (a) in the league - you think we cant win those games without him?

I'd give your posts a lot more credence if they had a bit of accuracy.

And if Rafa was so good, why were you saying how bad the last 20 years have been? He was in charge for 6 of them, dont you know?

Either the past 20 years havent been good, and therefore your lauding of Rafa as being so great is nonsense - or suggesting that the last 20 years have been bad is tosh. Which is it?

[Yozza]

We're not getting fourth without Suarez out for eight matches - not that we would get fourth with him in our team.

Rafa Benitez if given the right funding and the right support would have won us a League title.

Rafa Benitez was the best thing to happen to this club since Shankly walked through our doors in 1959.

Are you Arn
Are you Arn
Are you Arn in disguise?
Are you Arn in disguise



I actually agree with you though

[KingKenny77]

equally you can't pin 20 years of bad results on the current new leadership. even if they are doing things right, it's still too early to talk about being a great team again. we have our moments, but having spent to bring in a young english spine to the team that will mature, they can now concentrate on bringing in the real talent. mark my words, we will bring in a few corkers in the coming year.

I do hope so, because I just don't think Adam, Downing or Carroll are good enough.

I hope Kenny uses this transfer market to bring in real talent, not just British footballers who are decent players, but not much else.

[Craig_H]

I would say that if we paid lower fees on Downing and Carroll then I could have lived with them tbh. I remember when Rafa bought Riera, he wasn't great but he was as could as we could reasonably expect for the fee.

Downing hasn't been rubbish IMO. He's just been very average. He gives us some balance and he does help stretch the opposition due to him hugging the touchline. He also plays in a way that helps Enrique stand out. For about £8m I'd have said fair enough.

The point is that this summer we had big money in the bank. We had a chance to go out and buy a really top player and give us the opportunity to finally solve our left sided problem. We sorted out LB, great bit of business getting Enrique. But Downing Just hasn't delivered.

And let's be honest, Downing has never ever looked like a £20m player. Just like Carroll has never looked like being a player who will be worth £35m.

But Dan, whether we paid £20m for Downing or whether we'd paid £5m, he'd still not be good enough. Ultimately, if the club is to succeed, we need quality players. If we dont have them and we fail, that they were cheap or expensive is neither here nor there.