weedman

OK. We're not in a position to 1) have 2 £40m strikers competing for 1 spot or 2) to be an attractive proposition for a £40m striker to come here to fight for a place. To come here to be fit and raring to go off the bench if last seasons record signing is having an off game. To play 14 times, mostly from the bench or whatever Davis managed. Honestly is it that different to what he had at Chelsea last season? He'd move to guarantee himself game time Why would Tammy chose to come here, a team that finished 11th, who already have an established young striker on the cusp of the England team, where he wouldn't be guaranteed a place, a team that only play around 40 games a season as there's no European competition instead of, say, a West Ham, or a Leicester, or even a Newcastle where he'd pick up a similar salary while getting far more opportunities in the medium term? Ollie is Dean Smiths guy, he's his striker, his number 1. We need a backup for sure, and that is Wesley with Davis as 3rd choice. If, and it is an if, Wesley is not fully recovered and is not capable of playing that role next season we need someone else, but it shouldn't be someone that will take up the majority of our remaining budget, that's where we need to find a younger guy learning his trade who's happy to come and be here as 2nd choice

I don't think it's that people don't want us to sign a striker, it's people don't think we should sign a striker for £40m just in case our striker who has basically played every minute of every match for at least 2 seasons gets injured. As much as people want us to "act like a big club", we still aren't Man City, we have limited funds. We're just not at the £40m for a backup stage yet. We don't even have European football to offer yet, big clubs play their rotation options 30 times a season, our first choices barely reach that. Players like Tammy aren't going to join us to sit on the bench and play in the Carabao Cup, he can do that for Chelsea. We could use a striker IF Wesley isn't up to it (which only the coaching staff will actually know for sure, despite anyone's opinions on the matter on here), if he is recovered then he's a more than capable backup and I'd rather see that £40m spent on a midfielder

Kudos to villa for making a piece of clothing look like it's about to cry

Had he ever even been to Ireland except to play football? I'm English and Australian but my great great something was Scottish and if they called me and asked me to play for them I probably would (for the experience), but if I had to make a choice between England/Australia or Scotland I'd drop Scotland in a heartbeat Jack isn't Irish, he's a Brummie who just happens to be eligible to play for them

Dear god if Foden had done that they'd still be talking about it now!

With Maguire being fit the possibility is finally here for Gareth to bring him in for Mount, go 3 at the back with 2 holding midfielders, with Trippier in at LB for extra stability. Sterling and Rashford up with Kane to chase long balls over the top, the dream

I'm not saying that's not a factor, but there was a lot of criticism thrown his way long before he started openly expressing those views. He's been heavily criticised by villa fans since the first time he made an error, and from the outside footballing community since he accidentally stepped on 2 players heads! Blaming it on him being outspoken on racism is just conformation bias I love him and have since we signed him, I think he's our best defender by a mile and if you take him out of the team Konsa would start to struggle, the fact he's such a good public speaker just makes me love the guy more. Him and Jack are the 2 players I actually love like I did the likes of Yorke and Bosnich when I was a kid

I think it depends on Wes, if he's OK then we should be OK with Davis and Traore as extra backups but if he's not going to get back properly then we'll need a first choice backup. The only people that would really know are the coaching staff so I'm confident that they'll do the right thing either way though

You're saying you want him to lose 10 pounds becuase he's doughy and he could stand to lose some fat because he's not in peak physical condition. Given that he's one of the fittest and most conditioned players in the squad, I'd say that's nonsense. Why don't we replace doughy McGinn with peak physical specimen Danny Drinkwater while we're at it, after all, it's the 6 pack that matters most with professional footballers

I mean this is nonsense, he started every game for us last season and spends most of his time bombing up and down the wing, whatever he's doing is clearly working as he must be one of the fittest and most durable players at the club! He's not a model, we're not making him hit his weight before a shoot, he has to be fit enough to play every match all season without getting injured...which he just has

A Leeds fan who wants Bielsa to stay at Leeds? Hardly surprising seeing as he's their entire identity

Forget Sterling, he is direct which gives him an advantage compared to the others, but what exactly does Foden offer that Jack doesn't?

I mean, if that were true, why wouldn't it just be announced? It's not like it helps our bargaining position if all the clubs already know about it, so what possible reason could there be to have not announced it? Hell it would probably help his chances of playing for England on Friday if he was a City player already!

It's classic modern "reporting", basically, "hey, we've just made this thing up but we're reporting it as if we have inside info", followed by, "hey, that thing that we made up last month might not be true after all, here's the exact opposite that we're still just making up and pretending to have inside info, but now that we've reported on both things happening we'll probably be right whichever way it actually happens, although just to be sure we'll claim to have inside info on the middle ground happening in about a months time, please follow us and visit our advertisers"

You think we're signing a better LB than Targett for £10m? When he cost us £14m and was half the player he currently is? OK, if we can sign a new left back, on par or better than Targett, under 26, with good sell on value, for £10m, then yes, we should sign them. In the real world, where those players cost upwards of £20/30m, in a position that isn't urgent, we should bring a cheap alternative in as backup while we sign players we have more need for in our first team, like Buendia or a central midfielder, then, once our more pressing priorities are dealt with we can look at replacing our left back, who I maintain is one of the better ones in the league

The idea of only buying players that strengthen your first 11 is a good one, but only works in certain circumstances. In my opinion Targett is one of the best left backs in the league, and he's not some journeyman in his mid 30s we need to replace, he's signed up for the long term. We don't need to replace him, we don't even really need proper competition for him until we're playing 50 games a year in Europe, what we need is someone decent enough to play 5-10 games next season and give him a rest from time to time. If we had a backup left back already we wouldn't be signing anyone, because Targett is our man there. We could go out and spend all of our remaining budget on a young, highly regarded left back that will be expecting first team football and give him and Targett 20 games each next season, or get a short term backup signed cheaply, for the actual reason we need, allowing us to spend our money where we have more pressing priorities. Next season, when our more pressing positions have been filled, maybe we can revisit our need for a left back All the talk of "all the big teams have multiple players for each position" is all well and good but they're playing 50/60 games a year, a bit part player there could easily play 30 matches, we can't offer players that yet

I mean it was a puff piece for England talking about England teammates, he's hardly gonna be chatting shit about any of the players, I didn't see the whole thing but I can't imagine he said anything negative about anyone

Ugh this thread has descended into madness. There's no vendetta for gods sake, he was about to come on before we scored! The problem is Harry Kanes newfound love of effectively playing as a 10. To accommodate him you need more pacey "forwards" either side of him who will occupy that space he leaves and score goals, that role suits a Rashford or Sterling more than Grealish. (of course you could get around that by actually playing Kane as a 10, with another striker ahead of him then creators out wide like Jack and Foden, basically 4-4-2 but knowing Kane will spend most of his time as a 10 making it a 4-2-3-1) Southgate has a choice, build the team around Kane, or build the team around Jack. He's picked Kane - and honestly after the season he's had who can blame him?! Jacks also not even 100% fit either, but is there for if the system isn't working it allows him to change it up a bit. The way Kane plays I think suits the likes of Sterling and Rashford - as straightforward as Sterling's goal was last week, do you think Jack makes that run? I don't. I think he comes short and picks the ball up to feet, drives towards the box but has no options because the striker is loitering on the half way line for some reason. The part I don't get, is he's playing Foden, Foden is basically Jack 2 years ago with a left foot. Foden who once again completely failed to get involved as soon as he's in a team that doesn't completely dominate the ball, Foden who's main skill is quick 1 touch pass and move football, which none of the other player in the team do because they're all runners. Jack should be ahead of Foden in the pecking order, Foden is not good enough to replicate his Man City form in a worse team, Jack demands the ball and is always involved against everyone, he hasn't had as quiet a game as Foden had last time out in about 5 years. Jack left, Sterling/Rashford/Sancho right. The only issue really is that there's not really an option there on the bench to mix things up if it's not working

The thing is even if you accept that you can only play 1 of Jack and Foden, then 1 of Rashford, Sterling and Sancho due to their pace, which is a ridiculous stance in the first place, but IF you accept that, surely Sterling should be bottom of that list of 3 to start?! I'd also put Jack ahead of Foden as its easy to look good in a City team where you only have to worry about your work on the ball, with no other responsibilities whatsoever, but that's probably my own bias coming through

Playing Sterling and Rashford ahead of Jack and Foden would be like playing Sean Wright Phillips and Theo Walcott ahead of David Beckham and Wayne Rooney becuase of their pace

Strange that Southgate called the moderator at City Xtra to let them know what the lineup will be on Sunday but only mentioned the 1 player, wonder why he didn't mention the rest of the team when they spoke

He mentions aiming for Europe next season as well at the end

Just on this, it wasn't that Wilson was too old to be a good footballer, it was that he was too old and injury prone for the cost to buy him and length of contract + wages he would demand. He is a classic Bruce signing, expensive, good in the short term but no chance of getting any reasonable money back in the future and not sustainable in the medium to long term. Compared to where we are now with the youngest average age in the league, if we sold them tomorrow most of our squad would be worth at least what we paid and if we were to (hypothetically) sell everyone we'd make a lot more than we spent acquiring them

Pretty sure you can only be recalled during a transfer window anyway, I'm guessing to prevent teams being totally screwed over