Manchester City

[KingMessi]

Marca reckon City now have 400 million fans! Impressive seeing as i have only ever met 1 which was a taxi driver in deansgate and there never seems to be many at the Emptyhad. Something makes me think they are telling porkies.

Twist. Marca don't know that there are two teams in Manchester and added the figures for City fans and United fans together.

 

[DonAK]

Marca reckon City now have 400 million fans! Impressive seeing as i have only ever met 1 which was a taxi driver in deansgate and there never seems to be many at the Emptyhad. Something makes me think they are telling porkies.

The day MARCA reports something right about a Non-Real Madrid/Atletico thing is the day the world will go down.

 

[Ini8]

The day MARCA reports something right about a Non-Real Madrid/Atletico thing is the day the world will go down.

And the day Mathieu will stop smoking.

 

[Morten]

Hope for the leagues reputation that City wont win the league in a while. At least Chelsea gets pretty far in cl and put up a fight, City is just awful.

 

[khaled_a_d]

Hope for the leagues reputation that City wont win the league in a while. At least Chelsea gets pretty far in cl and put up a fight, City is just awful.

tbf they had difficult draw after a difficult draw for sometime now

 

[antonnn]

Deliver Pogba or go: Begiristain must be under more pressure at Man City than Pellegrini

COMMENT: Manuel Pellegrini is under increasing pressure as his side have put up a limp defence of their title, but he has been hindered by a string of poor signings
By Greg Stobart

Manuel Pellegrini is a dead man walking at the Etihad Stadium, if recent reports and rumours are to be believed, and one could be forgiven for thinking that the blame for all of Manchester City’s ills this season – and there have been plenty – could be laid at the feet of one man.

The second half of the season has been dismal, the Chilean’s adherence to 4-4-2 has cost the champions on occasion and if Pep Guardiola were available then Pellegrini would almost certainly already be gone.

But if the manager is a man fighting for his future, then so too are the men who appointed him and who are charged with providing him with the tools to carry out his job: Ferran Soriano and Txiki Begiristain.

The Spanish directors appointed Pellegrini in 2013 after sacking Roberto Mancini and the decision was vindicated with last season’s title triumph. The pair deserve credit, too, for seeing through the owners’ ambitious plans for the launch of a new super-Academy in the form of the impressive Etihad Campus.

But they have badly let Pellegrini down in the transfer market and Begiristain in particular is under increasing scrutiny over how he allowed City to be left with an ageing squad lacking the top quality needed to challenge for titles.

City’s ambition from the top down is to dominate world football. They want to be the home of the greatest players and the biggest trophies. Indeed Begiristain and Soriano were brought in to help them realise that very ambition, tasked with repeating the success they enjoyed at Barcelona.

But despite spending more than €200 million on new signings since Begiristain’s appointment in October 2012, City still rely on Sergio Aguero, David Silva and Yaya Toure for match-winning moments. They sit lousily in fourth place in the Premier League, nine points behind Chelsea having played one game more, and continue to fail in the Champions League.

City were held back last season by Financial Fair Play restrictions that meant they could not follow through on their interest in the likes of Angel Di Maria and Alexis Sanchez. And yet Begiristain still spent €43m on the signing of Eliaquim Mangala, who can’t dislodge 34-year-old Martin Demichelis from the side. Fernando, meanwhile, has been a completely pointless signing at €15m and Wilfried Bony has been little more than a very expensive back-up.

In 2013, Stevan Jovetic arrived for €27m and City would be lucky to recoup half that fee and Alvaro Negredo was cast aside after just one season. Fernandinho (€34.8m), Jesus Navas (€18m) and Demichelis (€5m) have been solid as part of the support act but surely supporters should feel entitled to expect more.

Begiristain was brought in to attract the big names to Manchester and accelerate Sheikh Mansour’s plans for global domination and he simply has yet to deliver. He has blundered dramatically, even down to details like allowing James Milner to run down his contract so he could leave for nothing at the end of the season.

This summer, then, is surely make or break for the 50-year-old if City’s billionaire owners decide to back him in another transfer window, while their emergance from the constraints of Uefa's monitoring period of FFP breaches allows more manouvering room to invest in the squad.

The likes of Paul Pogba, Ross Barkley, Raheem Sterling and Kevin De Bruyne are all targets for City as they plan a summer of upheaval to rejuvenate the squad. An ambitious move for Jack Wilshere has been discussed, while Koke of Atletico Madrid and Monaco's Layvin Kurzawa are also being heavily scouted ahead of potential approaches.

But can Begiristain fight off Europe’s finest to deliver the biggest names?

Pogba, for one, is the golden boy of European football and a deal for the Juventus midfielder would prove that City belong among the elite. But it is a deal mired in complications, not least the fact that Real Madrid, Chelsea, Manchester United and others all covet the midfielder as well. Sterling, too, would be a vastly difficult deal to pull off.

Anyone could throw money towards signing a striker from Swansea, but it is signing the very best that will take City to the next level.

The foundations are all in place for City. They have won the title twice in the last three years, they sell out their 50,000-seater stadium and train in the incredible facilities.

Yet the domination they crave, the standing in the game alongside Real Madrid and Barcelona, is impossible without the big-name players that capture the imagination, pack out stadiums and sell replica shirts.

So far, it looks like Begiristain and Soriano are piggy-backing reputations built off the success of a world-class coach in Guardiola and Barcelona's academy that produced a once-in-a-generation team including Lionel Messi, Andres Iniesta and Xavi.

Begiristain’s record at Barcelona includes the embarrassing signing of Dmytro Chygrynskiy for €25m, with the defender returning to Shakhtar Donetsk for a cut-price fee just a year later having played only 12 La Liga matches.

He also negotiated the deal that brought Zlatan Ibrahimovic to Barcelona for €46m fee plus Samuel Eto’o, who was valued at €20m. A year later, Eto’o had won the treble with Inter while Ibrahimovic was loaned out to AC Milan after falling out with Guardiola.

In short, his record as director of football is hardly flawless – and when considered against his record in charge of City’s transfer strategy it begins to make troubling reading.

And so it is that ahead of a monster game against Manchester United on Sunday, the highest echelons of the club are not simply mindful of a derby against their bitter rivals, but about the medium and long-term future of the club too.

Khaldoon Al-Mubarak will again be in attendance on Sunday ahead of meetings with Soriano and Begiristain early next week. The need for significant change as part of City’s journey to the elite will not be lost on any of them.

City just done fucked up in general this season.

 

[khaled_a_d]

I don't get what happened to Txiki ,he was way better with us than he has been with City
In his 1st 5 summers with us he built the team through bargains with good scouting ,since 2008 Pep wanted more authority and that lead to the likes of Ibra,Hleb and Chygrynskiy deals and he made couple of stupid risky signings himself in Henrique/Kierson deals but he was still able to deliver the likes of Alves/Villa /Pique/Keita and overall he helped the club a lot
But with City while he has delivered the league with Pellegrini ,and appointing him was not bad either considering the alternatives after Pep ,Mou & Ancelotti prefered other clubs but his signing was a bit weird . no bargains whatsoever ,most of them really overpaid and many flops

 

[BenRobbins]

Mangala and Bony for £80+ million is criminal and he should be shown the door for just those transfers.

 

[Bucky]

How long until Mansour begins to get bored with his "investment" I wonder...

Brought a couple of titles and still, this season has been poor for what surely should be a dominant side with such deep pockets

I seriously hope they finish outside the top 4.

 

[Vlom]

It's unbelievable that City spent 1400M€ since 2007/08 to have the squad they have, tons of average overpaid players .. shitty (no pun intended) job from the sporting directors.

 

[1611]

But with City while he has delivered the league with Pellegrini ,and appointing him was not bad either considering the alternatives after Pep ,Mou & Ancelotti prefered other clubs but his signing was a bit weird . no bargains whatsoever ,most of them really overpaid and many flops

There is absolutely no way you can convince a player to take a pay cut to join City. No way

The only way this can happen is if they somehow get a Pep/Klopp/Ancelotti type manager

Anyway, anyone else feel like they'll make a move for Bale using Aguero to drive the price down? Seems like a win-win for everyone. Aguero gets his dream move, Bale goes to a stadium with not enough fans to boo him

 

[Jenks]

I think Bale to United with De Gea going the other way is more likely. With the new home grown rules that look like they're going to be phased in in coming years City are going to have to invest in more local players. Supposedly they want Wilshere, Henderson and Sterling this summer.

 

[BenRobbins]

So which one out of Ancelotti or Klopp with be managing at the Emptyhad next year?

 

[Dan1983]

Klopp probably.

 

[1611]

Any chance that Aguero forces a move to RM? I think they can get Isco in return.