danyjr wrote:Already has spent quarter of billion this year

Similarly spent €200m last year despite finishing 3rd

If he doesn't win EPL/CL this year he will hurt his reputation even further than he already has.

Also what was that Financial Fair Play thing?

Both him and Mourinho have no excuse. If he fails to win the title now

Mourinho is not winning the title with Lukaku as a CF, forget it

danyjr wrote:
Also what was that Financial Fair Play thing?

His Highness is not interested in posting huge profits so every summer he opens his petty cash jar and invests mega ding thus providing the transfer market with much needed liquidity.

The accounts come out, we've made a profit of £10M and all two shareholders nod sagely and see how they can upset the footballing world the following summer.

Wonder with what kind of excuses Peptards will come up with after the season, they're pretty exhausted by now but then Pep and his fans are pretty imaginative in that regard.

NO EXCUSES

urbaNRoots wrote:Wonder with what kind of excuses Peptards will come up with after the season, they're pretty exhausted by now but then Pep and his fans are pretty imaginative in that regard.

tbh I think pep has the same problem as klopp. all efforts go into the attacking side of the game but defending gets over looked.

N O

E X C U S E S

With that being said failure this season won't stop him from being a legendary manager, but it will certainly knock him down from being the best manager out there right now to probably just like a top 10, maybe not even top 5.

I honestly don't care about the money spent tbh.

I look at who they signed, outside of Silva who do you realistically think turn them from a 3rd place team to 1st.

Unless of course you think that signing 3 fullbacks magically make up a 15 point difference.

Like I said in the transfer rumors thread, someone else is going to have to make an impact to make up that difference or Pep himself is going to have to improve his own performance.

If they signed Sanchez or a quality CB then sure, but I really fail to see how a collection of fullbacks turns them from 15 points off Chelsea to Champions.

RealGunner wrote:Both him and Mourinho have no excuse. If he fails to win the title now

I think Mourinho has more of an excuse. United have been out of top 4 consistently for what, 4 years now?

In all honesty his team is still 10 points behind City in terms of squad quality, if not more.

danyjr wrote:

RealGunner wrote:Both him and Mourinho have no excuse. If he fails to win the title now

I think Mourinho has more of an excuse. United have been out of top 4 consistently for what, 4 years now?

In all honesty his team is still 10 points behind City in terms of squad quality, if not more.

They finished 4th in Van Gaal's first season and only missed out in his 2nd season on GD to City.

This is what I was saying before when I said Pep is judged on a different level positively or negatively.

They finished 6th last year after spending 200m, near enough half of that on Paul Pogba and just spent like 70m on Lukaku.

Yet here you are making excuses for him.

Pep's Empire already fighting back ffs

Tbh I'm not making excuses for him, I expect him to win the league.

But I don't understand the mindset of how spending loads of money on fullbacks changes anything.

You already must think "no excuses" before that even happens because I really fail to see why it would change anything for anyone.

Mendy and Walker are not going to turn a 3rd place team to 1st, it's not happening if they are to win the league then there's other factors that will have to take place.

We are not going to look back if they win the league and say " Mendy and Walker won them the league ".

Yeah if Pep does not win the league this season, he has flopped. It's as simple as this.
I regard him as a genius coach and being a genius coach coupled with this unprecedented investment in the squad, a squad no less which won the league a couple of seasons ago and always was considered among the favourites as is, I would expect him to walk the league.
I expected him to walk the league last season and he didn't. That's why I think he didn't do that great last season already.
If he doesn't win the league this season (or wins the CL/reaches the CL final or something), has has flopped massively.

Yeah this is where I disagree.

You must have already decided he must win or flop mindset because Silva aside none of the signings are "massive statement, we must win everything" signings.

Lukaku will have a bigger impact than Walker or Mendy, as will Morata and hell Lacazette probably will too.

Those are impact signings, they are signed for that. No other club in the world can sign 3 fullbacks and people are acting like it changes everything lol.

Also the investment is meaningless, we need to get past this idea of giving a shit about money spent tbh.

It's just a number, it means absolutely the sum of *bleep* all.

I implore all of you to completely ignore it and instead focus on what is being bought and what sort of impact those players we have.

Bernardo Silva is arguably a better player than both Morata and Lukaku.
And let's not forget he's coming into an attack made up of Sterling, Sané, De Bruyne, Silva, Aguero and Jesus the Christ.

Sterling cost what, 70 million €? De Bruyne, 75m €? Sane 50m €? Jesus 35-40 or something? All bought within the last 2 seasons. Then they also bought Bony for 40m or something just to have him sit in the stands. Iheanacho what about that kid.

Hundreds of millions payed for centre backs in recent years. Now another 150m spent on full backs.

It's ridiculous.

NO EXCUSES.

Mole it's because they're looking at the fees not the players lol. It's one reason Pep has been so harshly judged in general. They're looking at the bottom line, not taking into account that City doesn't give a *bleep* about money and starts negotiating at 50m (as you've said).

Then they look at 200m spent and think that the squad should be contending for the CL because they're stuck in a mindset from 6 years ago where that's probably what that would have gotten you, before City decided they REALLY don't care about money.

I still am on the NO EXCUSES bandwagon as of right now, but I empathize with your point way more than everyone else

Let me say this: you can't call Danilo and Walker trash players and then also talk about spending 150m and so they must win the CL. You're contradicting yourself because you're admitting the signings aren't that great, then expecting Pep to be able to make CL winners out of players you just said were average because of the bottom line.

I don't care about what was bought last summer tbh, it's completely irrelevant.

I'm talking about what has been bought this summer to make up the 15 point gap?

Bernado Silva, will likely have a big impact along the lines of most other big name signings.

Mendy, Walker, Danilo - 3 fullbacks albeit 3 very good ones but are not going to turn a team from 3rd to 1st.

Keeper from Benfica - might be good, who knows really but I doubt he'll be worse than Bravo.

Like I said Bernado Silva aside there's nothing there that screams "must win league and good enough to swing 15 points from last year".

I think they will win the league but you guys acting like they bought 5 Bernado Silva level players lol.

Also let's be clear the reason you are all going nuts is due to the amount of money they spent on 3 fullbacks, think about how stupid that sounds.

Like I said if they win the league no one is going to go" you know those Mendy and Walker signings, they were the difference makers lads ".

Huge fan of mole right now

Haven't seen him on this sort of a roll since 2012

The excuse that he buys shit players is no excuse.

He's getting all the players he wants.
He wants a GK from Barca? He gets a GK from Barca. The GK he picked fails to perform ? He gets a new GK, on e of the top rated young ones, for a huge fee.
He crashes out of CL against Monaco? Hey let's buy 2 of their best players.

He's happy, he is at home, because he is with his Barca buddies Soriano and Txiki who fulfill every of his wishes compliment of Emirates oil money.

NO EXCUSES.

Winning the league is the bare minimum so that he isn't a massive flop.
Even then, he has only achieved what Conte did with a team that finished 10th, plus one Marcus Alonso and Viktor Moses.

Let's not kid ourselves. City got Pep in order to win the CL. Him winning the league was taken for granted.

Great Leader Sprucenuce wrote:I don't care about what was bought last summer tbh, it's completely irrelevant.

I'm talking about what has been bought this summer to make up the 15 point gap?

How is that irrelevant? What was bought in the last summers determines the team he has.
And A LOT OF QUALITY was bought.

And what gap? The gap to Chelsea is made by Pep himself. When he came in, Chelsea had finished, what, 10th or 11th.

You're making poor excuses for him.

So NOW a lot of quality was bought last summer.

Yet all I see on here is how every signing flopped lol.

Great Leader Sprucenuce wrote:They finished 4th in Van Gaal's first season and only missed out in his 2nd season on GD to City.

This is what I was saying before when I said Pep is judged on a different level positively or negatively.

They finished 6th last year after spending 200m, near enough half of that on Paul Pogba and just spent like 70m on Lukaku.

Yet here you are making excuses for him.

I'm not a fan of Mourinho so I have no reason to defend him. They are both trying to buy success.

Having said that United's squad is far worse than City's. If you don't agree with that then there will be no point in discussing further.

Like Hans mentioned, I too expected City to have won EPL, in fact by February. So I was quite shocked to see Chelsea in that place instead, given that they did terribly in the transfer season last year and pretty much panic-bought a flop like David Luiz - whether he was a flop is a discussion for another night.

City have the best squad in EPL, as they did last year. Silva. Touré. Agüero. De Bruyne can pretty much play for any top team. In fact Guardiola's decision not to play Agüero for a few games was a direct reason why City went out of the title race because they dropped quite a few points on those critical matches. I also think Gündoğan's injury played a role, because he was on form for City when he was playing but that is just luck; City's squad are strong enough to cover for such injuries.

Their defence was shaky last season and he has now spent around quarter of a billion to strengthen the defence alone. That should leave no excuses. Don't tell me Chelsea's defence is special. Azpilicuta, Alonso and David Luiz are not special in any way. They just had a good coach who saw what was wrong and what was right with them and fixed it early on in the season after seeing how it would otherwise leak. Guardiola stubbornly didn't, kept insisting on playing Bravo only to replace him the next year

And for the record I still expect City to win EPL with ease. But if they don't then questions marks over Guardiola become facts. Don't get me wrong, what he did with Barça was fantasy football, especially with they way he got players from Tercera División to play Champions League football and winning it. That deserves utmost respect and even the most extremist Madrid fans will acknowledge that. But trying to buy his success by spending big money and then flopping, I'm sorry, it is an act of fraud.

Peace out.

Not really impressed with a lot of City's signings. Unlimited amount of money to spend and the majority is spent on costly young players with high potential. They need to buy more established world class players that actually fit Pep's system.

Alexis would be a good start. Martinez/Boateng for CB. Should have also tried harder to get Alves in.

Also think Pep needs to go all out and stick with what made him successful in the first place. 'Adapting' is always going to make the system weaker. Hype aside, a player like Banega would be a lot more useful in Pep's system than De Bruyne.

As for the money spent, 200m would have been considered a lot 5-6 years ago, but it's probably the equivalent of 100m nowadays imo.

Funny how Hans says in one post calls his signings shit and then next post says how they bought lots of quality last summer lmao.

You are going to have to be more consistent and leave less holes in arguments with me brah.

I expect a lot better of Hans than to mention Chelsea. It's completely ridiculous to claim Conte made some sort of Ranieri-esque difference to the team. They were always at least a top 4 team and title contender quality wise. They gave up on Jose in a weird season overall for the club.

That's not to say the job Conte did wasn't incredible, nor that his tactical changes were brilliant and I think that Chelsea team outperformed itself but it is to say that it's an outlier and therefore should be treated as such e.g. not comparing it to any other team who had very typical seasons.

What signing flopped?
De Bruyne is amazing. Sané has been really amazing. Jesus will be amazing. Sterling is still far, far better than Jordan Ibe, contrary to what Liverpool fans would have had us believe.

The ones that flopped were Bravo and Stones. Bravo has been replaced, and Stones is young and one year should now be plenty time to get him to adapt to Pep's style.

And now:
Bernardo is amazing. Mendy is amazing. Walker is arguably the best English right back and has been starting for Spurs, who were the best defensive team of PL in the last couple of years.

If this goes wrong, it's not because the players aren't good enough.
The players are fantastic.

If it goes wrong, it is because Pep has flopped.