Manchester City Post-Mortem

[BigChief]

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

He's a brilliant Bruce Willis.

Even if we didn't 'throw' the game we certainly made sure Man City's poorer slow players (Barry, Milner, Yaya) had no problems in the middle with any hint of pace from us.

[malg]

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.

[kris90210]

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:

What a strange, simplistic view

Of course the fee matters. How could it not? The more you pay, odds are they better the player. If nothing else, spending 55 million on Downing and Carroll has depleted our transfer funds to the extent that I'm sure it'll be a while before we have that sort of cash to spunk again, which limits our options in the transfer market.

Enrique has been a good signing, yes? What if we'd spent 15 million on him? What about 30 million? 50 million?!!? After all, the fee doesn't matter!

[Craig_H]

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.

People's expectations are wildly OTT and they moan, which i'd understand if we were 10 points off our target. We're TWO points off it, with 18 to play and our rivals for 4th still to come to us. And the moaning is off the back of losing away to City, which EVERYBODY else has done in the league

Some people seriously have no patience, it's instant success and perfection, or bust.

[Mostar]

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.

The problem is that those "blunders" as you put it cost us 55m and they are far from quality you would expect for that money.

My issue is that I don't think time will change anything and they are just not good enough to ever come close to what is expected from them at this level.

I think our all approach is wrong. We are buying specialists but most top clubs are buying versatile players that can play in few positions and can play on their own.

[MrMichael]

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.

Agree about the players, but did we really have that opportunity? Remembering we weren't even in any sort of European competition? Who would you have bought instead of Downing? And don't say Mata, choose someone who actually moved to a club NOT in the Champions League. I don't think its quite so easy when you're not playing fantasy football.

Personally I can see what the idea with Downing was, though we paid well over the odds. Problem being that he really hasn't been performing up to his previous level (apart from in the first few games when he looked quite decent).

[Exiled_red]

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.

[Exiled_red]

People's expectations are wildly OTT and they moan, which i'd understand if we were 10 points off our target. We're TWO points off it, with 18 to play and our rivals for 4th still to come to us. And the moaning is off the back of losing away to City, which EVERYBODY else has done in the league

Some people seriously have no patience, it's instant success and perfection, or bust.

[Lecter]

Nothing worth crying about really, we were toothless in the final third but 3-0 flattered them and we didnt get smashed.

Take it on the chin and make sure we start beating the dross. Tonight was only 3 points.


Sky cunts are giving it the whole "8 games without Suarez has started badly" as if having him means we'd have definitely won

Personally I thought in general play we outmatched them

They got lucky on the first goal

Second goal was really poor defending and they hit us on the break for the penalty

That said there was some poor performances today

Downing
Kuyt

How the **** Downing stayed on the pitch I have no idea

Thought Henderson was bright though today

The team that ended that game barring Downing (I'd put Adam in there) is what we should try to play

[KingKenny77]

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?

Benitez gave us two great trophies, but even a few cup wins cannot make up for this club's poor League performances over the past two decades. Only once did we ever look like winning the League and that was the 2008/09 season.

I'm sick and tired of us combating on problem, only to be confronted by another. What has this club got to do to a) get back in the Champions League b) challenging consistently for the League title? How much more money is needed? How many more managers are needed? Every season is going to our season, yet it never is. I'm 23 and I have been hearing this sentence since Roy Evans was in charge - by the time this club wins the League my corpse will be full of worm holes.

3-0 against City is a poor result - as poor as the 1-1 draw with Blackburn last week.

I'm just annoyed, United on paper have a poor squad and yet they are up there challenging for the title while we are struggling to break into the top four and time is slowly running out. We have a good squad, a squad capable of being in the top four, so why aren't we? If the players aren't performing what is Kenny doing about it?

[Craig_H]

What a strange, simplistic view

Of course the fee matters. How could it not? The more you pay, odds are they better the player. If nothing else, spending 55 million on Downing and Carroll has depleted our transfer funds to the extent that I'm sure it'll be a while before we have that sort of cash to spunk again, which limits our options in the transfer market.

Enrique has been a good signing, yes? What if we'd spent 15 million on him? What about 30 million? 50 million?!!? After all, the fee doesn't matter!

I think you vastly underestimate Fenway's wealth, if you think that £55m we spent on Carroll and Downing is going to seriously impact negatively on future spending power.

As for Enrique - if we'd spent £30m on him, his performances would've been exactly the same. He'd still be a very good left back. If we'd spent £50m, guess what? Yep, his performances would still be exactly the same, he'd still be a very good left back.

You seeing a pattern yet?

[Lecter]

As Craig said - toothless. Our game needs end product and some much needed pace upfront. Downing (who isn't the fastest) is probably our fastest player bar Bellamy (and Suarez).

Downing lacks bottle

With and without the ball

If he had it he'd probably be a half decent player

[Gibbo]

Oh and if Jelavic is the answer to our problems we are in trouble

[BootRoom]

What a strange, simplistic view

Of course the fee matters. How could it not? The more you pay, odds are they better the player. If nothing else, spending 55 million on Downing and Carroll has depleted our transfer funds to the extent that I'm sure it'll be a while before we have that sort of cash to spunk again.

Enrique has been a good signing, yes? What if we'd spent 15 million on him? What about 30 million? 50 million?!!? After all, the fee doesn't matter!

The fee is of vital importance considering we haven't got boat loads of cash and will be "living within our means", therefore if we pay big bucks for a player and it doesn't work out, we are potentially in a tight spot because we have to unload the player without taking too big a financial hit and re-invest in an upgrade. If we take a flyer on a cheapo player and it doesn't work out, it's a lot easier to recover from. We are trying to build a quality squad with finite resources so to glibly say the fees are irrelevant is nonsense.

[KingKenny77]

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.

Phillips and Heskey aren't poor players by any means.

Phillips has notched in 7 goals this season, he'd be a better purchase than Carroll, that's for sure.