Both City and United look impressive to me. Which, being neutral, is a verry good thing imho.
Our Rivals' squads next year - Manchester City (2016/2017)
- Thread starter Wumminator
- Start date
As much fun it is to wind up Arse'n Wenger, they still have a much better team than Chelsea imo, and will finish ahead of Chelsea. Chelsea, Tottenham and Liverpool will duke it out for the 4th spot.
Title race is solely between the Manchster clubs, but I fancy Utd to win the thing at the end. Agüero will have his inevitable injury times, and that's gonna cost City.
Utd have a more robust squad, and Mou is excellent at grinding out results, at least in his first 2 seasons at a club.
City's football will be more pleasant to the eye for a neutral, but Pep's going to need more time to make all these youngster signings work, and probably 1 or 2 additional quality finished product players in the next transfer window.
They're very good aren't they?
Gundogan, Sane and Bravo still to come.
Gundogan, Sane and Bravo still to come.
West Ham have been awful.
They start every season well, leading to many people proclaiming them runaway champions. It never works out that way.
I see nothing more than expected so far. City are a good team, playing well, and beating teams they are expected to beat. No cause for drama.
I see nothing more than expected so far. City are a good team, playing well, and beating teams they are expected to beat. No cause for drama.
As are Southampton etc. City are good. We are good. Bring em' on.
All of West hams decent attackers are out...no Payet, Ayew, Feghouli, Carroll, Lanzini, Cresswell, Sakho
Probably some more I can't remember
They have that kid we released up front, Ashley Fletcher
Whether West Ham are good or not, Man City find it easy to create chances and that's why I tipped them for the title. I am not sure we would have created the same number of chances if we faced this same Hammers side.
City really struggling to sell players, can't get rid of Toure, Bony is only leaving on loan and their going to have to subsidise the wages of Nasri, Managala & Hart to get rid of them.
I'll wonder what they'll come up with this year to pass ffp after last years 'alleged' bit of creativity.
I'll wonder what they'll come up with this year to pass ffp after last years 'alleged' bit of creativity.
FFP is dead to them now. We all know they were taking the piss declaring a profit in their last yearly results. The supposed rulers of the game have failed to take action. With the increases in tv money & sponsorship revenue
they will be announcing a huge profit in their next round of results. Pep will be spending huge amounts during his time at City (already the biggest spenders in this window) He wouldn't have took the job without assurances from the board that the cash will keep flowing.
That is a problem for nearly all english clubs.
Agree we struggle to mainly due to the crazy wages we pay our players and in recent year the £ has been strong against the euro although sterling has taken a tanking since last summer.
Funny pep and conte, are buying themselves a whole new team, great managers they are.......with their unlimited oil and gas money. Whatever you say about us, United built our own financial juggernaut after many may years under SAF, nothing was handed to our club on a plate, like the rest
Except Liverpool, God knows how they've got ~£70m back for the absolute dross they've sold. Don't think Spurs have done too bad this window getting £18m for Pritchard & Mason either, and Chelsea have been good the past few seasons though haven't sold many this window (again though, £8m for Djilobodji is good business).
Hasn't Mourinho spent £150m net and just broke the world record for a player?
What? We bought 4 first XI players. That's almost half of our starting 11. Conte has bought 3(Kante, Luiz, Alonso)and same for Pep(Stones,Nolito, Bravo). Also why does it matter where their money came from? It's not like we haven't spent a ridiculous sum of money like they have. And it's fair enough, the prices today are ridiculous.
Pep has bought 3?: http://www.transfermarkt.com/manchester-city/transfers/verein/281/saison_id/2016
And for conte, I admit, I overlooked that he signed , same as we did including Batshuayi. But Pep has bought alot of players. Reason I`m mentioning pep, I remember last season when being asked about joining Chelsea, he said something like they need like 10 new players. But anyway should be interesting to see how Chelsea, City and United do this season
Yeah, as if that has any relevance to his point.
What is the obsession with City fans and where United fans are from? Does it make his point any less relevant as @The Mitcher said?
We are a bigger club and have fans from all over. Why moan about it?
Sorry forgot about Gundogan. 4 it is. Zinchenko, Sané, Gabriel Jesus and Marlos Moreno are signings for the future.
Most city fans are from Stockport which is its own town but no one here complains
In
Stones
Sane
Gundogan
Bravo
Nolito
Haven't included players signed and loaned out or who will join later (Jesus).
Out
Hart
Bony
Nasri
Mangala
MDM
Upgraded fairly well there, Stones better than MDM, Bravo better than Hart, Sane potential better than Nasri, Nolito ahead of Bony and added depth to MF with Gundogan.
Would seek slightly light at CB with Mangala going but Pep seems to have plans for Kolarov to play there.
Stones
Sane
Gundogan
Bravo
Nolito
Haven't included players signed and loaned out or who will join later (Jesus).
Out
Hart
Bony
Nasri
Mangala
MDM
Upgraded fairly well there, Stones better than MDM, Bravo better than Hart, Sane potential better than Nasri, Nolito ahead of Bony and added depth to MF with Gundogan.
Would seek slightly light at CB with Mangala going but Pep seems to have plans for Kolarov to play there.
They've spent £170m this summer, I'd fully expect them to have upgraded a lot.
That's a big blow. Not sure about their home grown quota though, too many foreign players?
They had 18 foreign players and they could only pick 17.
Thing with Yaya is, he could still be their best CB in my eyes by a considerable distance if he gave 2 fecks.
Worse still, apparently he's pulled the race card - him & Seluk really deserve one another
I think there is now overwhelming evidence that Pep may be a bit of a c***. What he did to Hart I can understand but Yaya contributed so much more imo. Don't think he deserves to be left out the sqaud, but if Pep wins the CL in his first season one will remember what he did to Hart or Toure.
Don't think Pep (or Mourinho) did anything wrong in trying to marginalize the players who they thought were not really in their plans. Don't understand why people think they are acting as cnuts.
What a load of nonsense. Why is Pep dropping Hart and Toure any different to him dropping Bony or Mangala? If he doesn't fancy the player in his system then he has every right to drop him. That's why you back a top manager to make those decisions. Both players have had stick for years on here as well for being mistake prone and lazy.
Both have been excellent for City in years gone by, no question, but it's time to move on. If the manager thinks that he doesn't make our best squad now, then why should they continue to be played because they've done a lot for the club in the past? Does Beckham still deserve a spot in your midfield?
Toure knew he had no part to play in City's season, Pep got rid of him when he was at his peak so it was obvious what was going to happen. I'd imagine City have tried to get rid of him by offering him a few quid but it looks like he's happy to sit on his arse all season and collect the money. The same goes for our Schweinstieger.
You have to give it up to City, regardless of how they've made their way to the top 4 in the league and how much money they've spent (which is irrelevant to us fans), they have come a long way.
The Manchester Derby is now viewed as a big game around the world, most likely because it's Jose v Pep. The big papers around Europe have had it splashed across their back pages. Whatever happens, it's going to be an exciting 3 years (at least).
The Manchester Derby is now viewed as a big game around the world, most likely because it's Jose v Pep. The big papers around Europe have had it splashed across their back pages. Whatever happens, it's going to be an exciting 3 years (at least).
^ Hope it is a good game, regardless of result. Just hope it is not a dull game, with all this hype about it.
Will take a dull tumescent 1-0 win right now.
So would Jose, and even thought I hope I'm wrong I think thats where the smart money will be going.
I read a Guardian article recently that says Jose wants our players to bully City. Looking at their squad, it's full of small, non physical lightweights. I'd love us to absolutely shit on them in that regard, as Toure used to always do that to us.
Kompany is still not ready for tomorrow's game and Gundogan said earlier today: "Ideally, I think I’d need another week or two of full training to be at 100% but sometimes in football 90 or 95% is enough to a job for half-an-hour or whatever is asked of you." So he'll be on the bench, ideally he'd have started and de Bruyne would be pushed out wide. Sane looks like he should be fit enough to start if desired. Up front personally I'd go with Iheanacho but would also consider Nolito as a false nine, Bailly's had a good start and is very physical so it might prove fruitful to take him out of his comfort zone. My biggest fear tomorrow is definitely set pieces and Ibrahimovic v Stones. Stones is good and had an impressive start but physically Ibra can bully him.
For tomorrow I'd expect:
Bravo
Sagna Stones Otamendi Kolarov
Fernandinho
Sterling Silva de Bruyne Nolito
Iheanacho
For tomorrow I'd expect:
Bravo
Sagna Stones Otamendi Kolarov
Fernandinho
Sterling Silva de Bruyne Nolito
Iheanacho