Kanj

Zubamendi to City in Jan.

I will buy that entire originals line.

23 signings under his tenure from November 2021 -- 8 from abroad, 15 domestic. So yeah, has preferred I guess - the top 5 signings 3 of 5 were abroad (in terms of fee) and out of the top 10, 4 of those 10 were abroad. Wondering if there were that fell and didn't happen that we desperately wanted that forced us to go domestic. Might have been you, but it seems like the club's goal is to be in europe every year and push for a cup run; perhaps Howe doesn't feel like he has the time to gamble and goes for what works for him. We have a healthy mix of British and abroad players in the spine of our team (when fully fit). Schar, Botman, Tonali, Bruno, JL, Isak.

Mate, all do respect, Tonali was a signing Howe 100% pushed for - he's said it many times over. He said he "fell in love" with the player during the Milan CL campaign before we signed him.

He's talked at length about data analytics on the playing side (hence the folks he's brought in, the one who left for Liverpool, etc.). Maybe that doesn't exist at the recruitment level and that would be something Ashworth would needed to answer for. Nickson as chief scout used whatever the fuck he was doing but seemed to have had quite the laundry list of talented players he scouted for us that we did/didn't get over his time here.

Howe has mentioned he prefers and wants a DOF. He also didn't particularly enjoy doing the job of manager + DOF his first season but got on with it and did what needed to be done.

I didn't want to bring it up, but thought his defending on goal #2 was absolutely terrible.

I guess that side panel has to be an annoyance on the kit's design overall, but would like for adidas to ignore having to make it a contrast to what's around it. I'm going to hate saying this but the last 2 home kits under Castore were fucking perfect in terms of the stripes and no silly panels or piping etc.

@Kid Icarus and @Big River (i think our resident kit designers) -- this was on footy headlines of mock ups of the potential Juve kit with the template in question.

Always feel like it just sort of clicks for us and we go on and play proper football. We absolutely need to get Wilson and Botman back, imho. Wilson’s bantering, bravado either on pitch pushing Isak or pushing the rest of the lads and a key piece to how we play in big fucking Sven. I know those two are not coming back any time soon but we basically need Big Dan Burn to be 100% and playing above himself.

Needs to be fast, needs to be equal to or better than Burn/Botman in the air. Preferably he’s the ball carrier and you continue to develop Botman’s ball playing ability.

I think the major theme for me is we were an absolute force 2 seasons ago, and we had shown signs of it before the injury crisis and yet still worked our bollocks out to be 7th and should be in Europe. Yet, this summer was pure shit storm and now we have all this unnecessary drama where we had to scramble for PSR, Gordon + Bruno out all summer on international tourneys, Trips having personal issues, squad all out of wack, Mehrdad and Amanda leaving/needing money, Mitchell in, Howe and him butting heads potentially. All this fucking drama is so annoying.

Really takes us out of any rhythm.

This game is mad

I jinxed city massively like

Wow. Insane.

I miss happy, summer scout Kaka. This version of you is bad for the forum.

Wow. Feel for Rodri.

This is just man city’s world and we’re just attempting to shave a few points off their titles.

Need to be doing everything imaginable to get this lad more than 2 chances a game with one being a hope and hit. Hes absolutely deadly.

My favorite thing about him is how quickly he decides to move the ball on and it’s generally forward.

Howe apparently really likes him.

I know he probably won’t change but I’d love to see us get Bruno and Tonali in a 2 man pairing with Willock as a 10; Gordon, Barnes and Isak up top. Hopefully that solves isolation issues for Isak, it brings much needed pace to the attack, and can be the makings of simple triangles to keep the ball. Defensively it gives us better chance of not being cut through as well. When we counter we will have the front 4 bombing on. This also allows willock to float a bit and do us under and overlapping.

Great post mate.

just look at what we did to Paris at home and Arsenal at home just as early as last season. The Arsenal one in particular was an all out slug fest.