The College Dropout

I don’t like the look of the city squad without Sterling and Jesus. Take Haaland out the side and it’s very one-paced going forward.

DCL has scored more than 12 league goals from open play in 2 out of the last 3 seasons for a midtable side. Many here would scoff at paying £45m for him.

Because he's a useful squad player. I think he's a good player and the fee seems decent too.. But if he scored 12 goals next season - I wouldn't be shocked. 12 (lower end) - 17 (upper end) is my expectation.

IMO unless we get another midfielder it's 9-13 for us. Unless the wingers and attackers are shit hot.

Not hot on Broja unless loan with an option to buy.

I'm a massive fan of Raphinha. Think he wouldn't look out of place in a team challenging for titles.

Arsenal and Spurs do all their deals in instalments too. Pepe was 20m upfront and 10m every summer.

These types of comparisons are misleading when comparing a player who played for the team finishing 17th in the PL to a player in the team that finished 3rd in the Bundesliga. Big differences in the quality of team mate and quality of opposition. like Raphinha is a massive creator. His expected Xa is 7 vs Diaby’s Xa of 9. And Raphinha is doing that in one of the weakest teams in the division while Diaby has those stats from one of the strongest. And obviously Raphs team mates didn’t tuck his potential assists away whilst Diaby’s over performed. Goalscoring wise Raphinha is pretty poor 1v1 or from better opportunities. He scores a fair amount of his goals from penalties and strikes from distance. IMO Hes more of a playmaker than a forward but that’s not obvious from the goals and assists. I would love Raphinha. Never seen Diaby but I’m dubious of attackers Coming from Bundesliga with great stats. Werner, Havertz, Bailey, Sancho etc. I like Sancho - but I don’t seem him doing 15+ goals 15+ assists in the EPL like he did in Bundesliga. I hope he proves me wrong but atm I don’t see it. I’d be happy with 10+ each for the lad.

He hasn’t played that much. For most of the last 3 seasons - he’s been close to last choice up top. Pep has preferred everyone else in that squad up top or wide. Including Grealish, Gundo and Bilva.

If there’s one thing Ronaldo proved last season. Is that you don’t have to build a team around him to get him to score goals. He’s not going to press but otherwise he’s a fairly fluid attacker. He’ll look to drop deep at times. Always on the hunt for space and a shooting opp. Reminds me a bit of a more aerially dominant older Aguero.

But likewise if you plan a higher line in the medium term, you sign players for it. You can have a low block with a decent amount of possession too. That’s Arsenal’s approach to last season.

All of the Liverpool defenders are pretty quick though. Matip, VDV, Konate and Gomez. None of them as slow on the turn as Botman appears to be. Plus Botman is going to partner Schar/Burn - who are also slow on the turn. And neither of our fullbacks are rapid.

Btw the Botman signing might indicate a persistance with a lowish block and counter-attacking approach that i'm not mad at. From what we've seen. You don't sign Botman to defend on the halfway line.

It does seem a good signing. But there's a reason why he wasn't given a long run at CF. I've often heard that he's better from wide positions which is another risk factor. But i'm not convinced by Martinelli so perhaps playingn on the left - Nketiah through the middle - Raphinha/Saka on the right is the way to go.

This one is more of a gamble than it seems. Never been close to prolific in England.

No idea but I assume any fee looks good for FFP. Dummett & Longstaff could fetch 5-10m total. I suspect their wages are fairly low too.

Why give a player who might not make the 25 man squad a new contract? he would’ve been 23-25 at the start of the summer (incl. Targett).

Yeh that’s my concern. a part of me thinks - that the club thinks some club will pay money for Dummett and Longstaff…. and no such club exists.

City didn’t buy a bunch of 29 year olds to win the league. Aguero, Hart, Lescott, Toure, Fernandinho, Silva, Aguero, Balotelli, Milner, Dzeko, Johnson all younger than 27 when city signed them surely. They did sign a bunch of stepping stone players like Bellamy, the other Toure etc. But we are doing the same - that’s everyone we’ve signed so far bar Botman and Bruno. We are unlikely to make a profit on anyone else we’ve signed.

I was saying yesterday - Bale is mentally done with elite football. Warm weather training for the World Cup. He’ll probably score loads anyway.

He does seem a bit slow from clips. But he’s highly regarded in the game it seems. It’s a step up (or two) in reputation from Dan Burn.

I like Milanista. agree especially about Tuchel. Lukaku scored the most out of their genuine attackers (behind Mount I think) - his attacking style is so slow. I reckon Son would struggle there. It’s all so slow.

I suppose the first transfer window was January? Backup GK, leader in the dressing room short term, a young prospect. Apart from Johnson those were short term squad fillers. I think eventually we’ll need a window like the following one. All of those were players 21-26 on the way up. Those were signings the likes of Arsenal would’ve wanted. I think we are at least a year away from that and several commercial deals too.

At the moment we would just get a Robinho.

Nope. I don’t think we can get the right marquee signing until we are in the Europa league or close. The first summer Mancini was manager of City I think they signed David Silva, Milner, Dzeko and Toure. Something like that. There was a window they signed a couple legends and then the next they signed Aguero. We aren’t at that place just yet. We need 2-3 more Botman level signings. Start to be a serious top 8ish side so people can see this project is serious. Then we could get the type of player Arsenal, maybe Spurs and Man U should go after. A step above the Villa’s and Everton’s. I really hope Howe can lead us. Because another big statement is getting a ‘been there done that’ manager.