Manchester City Post-Mortem

[Mostar]

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?

I think it does as they said that they will not spend what we don't earn and will stay within FFPR boundaries and missing out on CL will put a serious dent in our spending abilities.

[~LFCHistory~]

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).

Sorry but this is nonsense. Yes our options were limited by a lack of CL football but I just cannot believe that Downing and Carroll were the best players we could have possibly bought in the entire world with 55 million pounds. Sorry, just not buying it.
It was our old fashioned and frankly ridiculous transfer policy of limiting ourselves to either buying British/PL proven players that caused to end up spending insane amounts of money on average mid table players.

[Lecter]

A front 3 of Carroll, Downing and Kuyt doesn't exactly scream pace and guile.

Andy Carroll - Seriously what are his strengths ?? - He's **** in the air, on the ground and positionally he's woeful too. Sell him ASAP.

Downing is so far out of his depth it's not funny anymore. He simply doesn't have a strong enough personality to make at a club wth big expectations.

Spearing and Johnson were decent I thought.

We can still get 4th spot but we need to spend a considerable amount this month.

He got crap delivery though

Perhaps if Kuyt, Downing could beat a man and put a ball in

In terms of delivery today was probably the worst we have been

Even Adam you could see Carroll talking to him at the start of the game and saying the type of ball he wanted, did Adam put one in - did he balls

The only ball of note today was Enriques ball to the backstick which Carroll won and got a knock down for Kuyt which was well-blocked by Kompany (who was excellent)

[danperkins]

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.

What a skewed view, if we had unlimited funds well then you're point would stand.

By you're explanation there, we would have had an extra £15 million quid to spend on other areas. Unfortunately money kinda is an important factor when you'd don't have a blank cheque book.

Very simplistic view IMO, strange logic.

[Craig_H]

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.

Well then stop lauding him as the genius who had us in utopia.

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?

I'll try to be a bit less harsh on you because you're young, but trying to compare us to United is frankly a pointless exercise because it's a completely different kettle of fish. You're comparing a bloke who's running a business, established for 15 years, with someone who started less than a year ago. It's completely non-comparable.

When you say 'time is slowly running out' what exactly does that mean? Is your alarm clock about to go off?

We're TWO points off 4th with 18 games left to play. Arsenal and Chelsea BOTH have to come to us. We've played City twice already and gone away to Arsenal, Chelsea and Spurs, plus Everton & Stoke. Those games are out of the way, the team is still a work in progress which is gelling and we're TWO tiny points off where we need to be. Compared to Arsenal, who's manager has been there 20 years and Chelsea who have had £500m spent on them in the last few years. What do you seriously expect from us?

I know you want to be top, and i do too but you have to look around and assess the realism of your expectations. It's not a level playing field here, we have to compete against rivals who have had years of development, who have had the best part of a billion quid spent on them and who havent been ravaged by cunt owners.

You're still young, you've got plenty of time. Stop panicking, it's a marathon, not a sprint.

[Mostar]

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.

Kevin Phillips and Heskey now are not LFC material and you know that very well.

[MrMichael]

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.

They did.. though one blunder cost Chelsea pretty much that for one player

Point is that about half the money spent looks good, half of it not so good. The Carroll fee was mad, but then the context of the Torres fee was too, so that one really is a bit of a special case. Yeah, absolutely we should have banked it instead, but hindsight is wonderful. Downing, well, I remember Spurs spending similar money on David Bentley.... we definitely overspent too but not to quite such a disastrous level.

[hoppermcgrath]

Stole this from elsewhere

"Downing is so frustrating .

He is like a Piss horn - Looks great but fcuk all penetration"

[KingKenny77]

I think it does as they said that they will not spend what we don't earn and will stay within FFPR boundaries and missing out on CL will put a serious dent in our spending abilities.

Exactly, Craig H clearly hasn't done his homework.

[Lecter]

I thought he looked good first half. Again, the problem is still the quality of the delivery. People were floating in crosses and Carroll was competing with both Toure and Kompany for almost every ball. Even if he wins in the air, he's not going to be able to do anything with it

[kris90210]

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?

Yes, I see your point Craig, but like I said, it's just so bloody simplistic! If the fee doesn't matter then would you be happy if we'd spent 30+ million on Enrique? Simple question.

And I think you vastly overestimate their wealth if you think they'll shrug off 55 million on players we'd struggle to recoup even half that on if they were sold now. But time will tell on that, but certainly everything we've read seems to suggest that they spend within their means as opposed to 'doing a city.'

[Craig_H]

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.

We do have loads of cash.

And living within our means - well City arent and our FFP ratios are already infinitely better than their's. So if Uefa allow them to get away with it, we can too.

[KingKenny77]

Kevin Phillips and Heskey now are not LFC material and you know that very well.

Some would argue that neither is Adam, Carroll and Downing, just saying - that's not my opinion.

[MrMichael]

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.

Stop it, you're just being silly / annoying, and it doesn't contribute to any sort of sensible discussion.

[Craig_H]

I think it does as they said that they will not spend what we don't earn and will stay within FFPR boundaries and missing out on CL will put a serious dent in our spending abilities.

I'm sure if they need to spend more now and recoup it further down the line, they will do. They arent idiots and they know that the more costly option is consistently being out of the CL.