• Dear Guest, Please note that adult content is not permitted on this forum. We have had our Google ads disabled at times due to some posts that were found from some time ago. Please do not post adult content and if you see any already on the forum, please report the post so that we can deal with it. Adult content is allowed in the glory hole - you will have to request permission to access it. Thanks, scara

What are we missing?

metalgear said:
true his randomness causes chaos but best left far up the pitch where there's less damage to our play.
his agility and sudden darts puts a lot of pressure on defence. instead of perisic and kane it should be more threatening and more fun to watch with Kane and moura as the two up front. Keep perisic on the wing to feed them crosses.
Click to expand...
It’s really really slim pickings
I’d rather play kulu and Brian over him
 
Absolutely essential in January are a high-quality CB (allowing Conte to turn Dier into a squad player, moving towards offloading him in the summer) and an oven-ready RWB who can start games, and be alternated with Doherty/Spence (Emerson needs to go in January).
 
Mikey10 said:
Absolutely essential in January are a high-quality CB (allowing Conte to turn Dier into a squad player, moving towards offloading him in the summer) and an oven-ready RWB who can start games, and be alternated with Doherty/Spence (Emerson needs to go in January).
Click to expand...
The defence is clearly the issue when you look at the statistics
But we also need the existing players to be rotated more
Conte seeing that lenglet can play CB now is a positive
Romero won’t have the Messi cup to think about so should I’m theory be fully committed
Sanchez showed yesterday he fully understood the conte attacking way but still defends with weaknesses
Get Dier moved to a squad option and we should be better off
My only concern is how long some players take to integrate into conte ball
 
Just to highlight something that is missed I think
PEH and the GOAT have 8 goals and assists each, playing CM in a defensive team
That’s 16 between them
I’m gonna guess that is better than any other CM pairing we have had in a very very very long time probably over a season, let alone over a 1/3rd of one
 
With our pool of CMs i don't see us being in the market for someone to play in that area. If we were to buy a RWF who can also play CAM to cover Kulusevski then we are covered imo - that allows us to use 352 with two CFs and a creative player behind should we want/need to and we won't be left short in 343 if Kulu is out. I'm pretty sure that's how Conte sees it anyway.

RWB obviously an area to upgrade assuming that we are planning on moving on 2 of our current three before the start of next season.

Starting CCB & LCB the other areas of priority and a GK too.


Contrary to popular opinion i would have CCB as no.1 priority for January - an extra footballing defender to play alongside Romero and Davies/Lenglet would should allow Conte to play Doherty or Spence in the 2nd half of the season.
 
What I think we lack and I love Lloris despite his regression, but with his regression its going to be a more important subject.....is a new Captain, I generally think we lack a leader on the pitch and despite Kane for England I don't see him as the long term successor for Lloris, so it's interesting for me to see who we bring in to take that role as it will be needed soon
 
Grays_1890 said:
What I think we lack and I love Lloris despite his regression, but with his regression its going to be a more important subject.....is a new Captain, I generally think we lack a leader on the pitch and despite Kane for England I don't see him as the long term successor for Lloris, so it's interesting for me to see who we bring in to take that role as it will be needed soon
Click to expand...
For me Bentacur or PEH
 
Sometimes what we are missing is patience. Rewind the clock back and last year we were in the Conference League and didn’t look close to getting top 4. This season we’re in the Champions League last 16 and 4th in the league.

Yes, our 4th place is perilous but better get used to that. There are now 7 clubs vying for a top 4 place so 3 will miss out whatever happens. Plus 3 of those clubs have insane money levels and will spend it however they feel necessary.

Conte has achieved so much with us alreadt and yet we are booing him and asking for Pochettino back. Why? Because we don’t play tippy tappy football and often don’t turn up for the first half.

Im not denying that some of that is an issue and has led to me thinking perhaps I’d prefer good football, BUT we have seen signs of us playing good football against both Liverpool and Leeds. The Bentancur winning goal for example was a great quick move and the kind that we would all like to see regularly. But sometimes circumstances don’t allow for it to ALL be like that. Sometimes we have to play ugly football to conserve energy, or sometimes the players are just having an off day. Sometimes we try to play good football but things just aren’t clicking. Looking at City’s performance and result yesterday. Opposition teams aren’t just there to fall over for us. They have their own desires for success and to get a result. So they will try to stop us playing this flowing football.

Add in injuries to key players like Kulusevski and Son and it should be no surprise that we haven’t always been at our best without our best players.

Finally, yes our defence is awful BUT we have a transfer window coming. Let’s hope we can bring in a couple of next level defenders who can help us improve as a team. Then that coupled with not having a fixture to play every few days SHOULD put us in a much better place.

So we need patience as the team IS heading in the right direction in spite of how first halves may suggest. And we need to back Conte, yes me too as I have often been overly critical and wanting change just for ‘beautiful football’ and let’s see what can happen over the course of the rest of the season. IF we fall down to midtable at the season end, then maybe questions can and will be asked, but those questions ought not to be so desperate at this stage of the season given where we are.
 
billyiddo said:
With our pool of CMs i don't see us being in the market for someone to play in that area. If we were to buy a RWF who can also play CAM to cover Kulusevski then we are covered imo - that allows us to use 352 with two CFs and a creative player behind should we want/need to and we won't be left short in 343 if Kulu is out. I'm pretty sure that's how Conte sees it anyway.

RWB obviously an area to upgrade assuming that we are planning on moving on 2 of our current three before the start of next season.

Starting CCB & LCB the other areas of priority and a GK too.


Contrary to popular opinion i would have CCB as no.1 priority for January - an extra footballing defender to play alongside Romero and Davies/Lenglet would should allow Conte to play Doherty or Spence in the 2nd half of the season.
Click to expand...
I agree
I can’t think of anyone that we could get in January buts paraticis problem
 
Grays_1890 said:
What I think we lack and I love Lloris despite his regression, but with his regression its going to be a more important subject.....is a new Captain, I generally think we lack a leader on the pitch and despite Kane for England I don't see him as the long term successor for Lloris, so it's interesting for me to see who we bring in to take that role as it will be needed soon
Click to expand...

I have never believed that making a keeper you captain is a good idea ( to far away from play most of the time). Its just my choice but i have always thought that a captain should be a M/F player as they cover more ground and are involved in the game more.
 
El Guepardo said:
Sometimes what we are missing is patience. Rewind the clock back and last year we were in the Conference League and didn’t look close to getting top 4. This season we’re in the Champions League last 16 and 4th in the league.

Yes, our 4th place is perilous but better get used to that. There are now 7 clubs vying for a top 4 place so 3 will miss out whatever happens. Plus 3 of those clubs have insane money levels and will spend it however they feel necessary.

Conte has achieved so much with us alreadt and yet we are booing him and asking for Pochettino back. Why? Because we don’t play tippy tappy football and often don’t turn up for the first half.

Im not denying that some of that is an issue and has led to me thinking perhaps I’d prefer good football, BUT we have seen signs of us playing good football against both Liverpool and Leeds. The Bentancur winning goal for example was a great quick move and the kind that we would all like to see regularly. But sometimes circumstances don’t allow for it to ALL be like that. Sometimes we have to play ugly football to conserve energy, or sometimes the players are just having an off day. Sometimes we try to play good football but things just aren’t clicking. Looking at City’s performance and result yesterday. Opposition teams aren’t just there to fall over for us. They have their own desires for success and to get a result. So they will try to stop us playing this flowing football.

Add in injuries to key players like Kulusevski and Son and it should be no surprise that we haven’t always been at our best without our best players.

Finally, yes our defence is awful BUT we have a transfer window coming. Let’s hope we can bring in a couple of next level defenders who can help us improve as a team. Then that coupled with not having a fixture to play every few days SHOULD put us in a much better place.

So we need patience as the team IS heading in the right direction in spite of how first halves may suggest. And we need to back Conte, yes me too as I have often been overly critical and wanting change just for ‘beautiful football’ and let’s see what can happen over the course of the rest of the season. IF we fall down to midtable at the season end, then maybe questions can and will be asked, but those questions ought not to be so desperate at this stage of the season given where we are.
Click to expand...

Very good post.
 
billyiddo said:
With our pool of CMs i don't see us being in the market for someone to play in that area. If we were to buy a RWF who can also play CAM to cover Kulusevski then we are covered imo - that allows us to use 352 with two CFs and a creative player behind should we want/need to and we won't be left short in 343 if Kulu is out. I'm pretty sure that's how Conte sees it anyway.

RWB obviously an area to upgrade assuming that we are planning on moving on 2 of our current three before the start of next season.

Starting CCB & LCB the other areas of priority and a GK too.


Contrary to popular opinion i would have CCB as no.1 priority for January - an extra footballing defender to play alongside Romero and Davies/Lenglet would should allow Conte to play Doherty or Spence in the 2nd half of the season.
Click to expand...
Same for me as well. I think we'd be up within a point or two of Arsenal if we had another central defender of similar quality to Romero.

I think over the next two windows we need....
(At least one) Centre back - I think we really need this player in January to give us a decent chance of CL qualification.
A bona-fide first choice RWB (Dumfries would be perfect but I think the price and competition for him will be too big).
Another option to play RWF (I think this can probably wait until next summer)
A new GK.
A creative midfield option. I'd love Maddison as I think he could give this team and squad loads.

That's 5 players in 2 windows, which should definitely be easily doable in terms of pure numbers.
The problem is that we're not really going to be raising any money from selling those that aren't really good enough to be here like Sanchez, Tanganga, Royale, Doherty, Moura and Gill. Which means we might need to be looking to the bosman and <18 months left on contract market. For reference here are some of the players in those positions who will be in that circumstance come January....

Goalkeepers:
2024: Pickford, David Reya

Centre backs:
2023: Skriniar, Ndicka, Tosin Adarabioyo, De Vrij, Marquinos
2024: Bastoni, Lucas Hernandez, Pau Torres, Badiashile, Nico Elvedi, Mohammed Salisu, Matip

Right Wing Backs:
2023: Dalot, Stephane Singo,
2024: Pavard, Max Aarons

Attacking midfeilders
2023: Tielemans, Kamada, Thomas Lemar, Ruslan Malinovskyi,
2024: Maddison, Zielinkski, Olmo

Wide forwards
2023: Rashford, Zaha, Asensio, Tsygankov, Memphis Deepay, Adama Traore, Sergi Canos
2024: Ousmane Dembele, Pulisic, Zaniolo, Lozano, Nico Williams, Ismalia Sarr, Rayan Cherki
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back