345 million on 8 defenders has Peppy spent.

And presumably we can say he couldn’t work with the defence he inherited, because he got rid of them all?

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City’s defence for the 2015-16 season (the season before Pep took charge) was:

Sagna - 33 years old
Zabaleta - 31
Kolarov - 30
Clichy - 30
Demichelis - 35
Mangala - 25
Otamendi - 28
Kompany - 30

Kompany wasn’t got rid of. Otamendi is still there. The only other player under 30 from that defence was Mangala, and he was rubbish!!!

Of course Pep had to change that defence!!

comment by RipleysCat (U1862)
posted 2 minutes ago
And presumably we can say he couldn’t work with the defence he inherited, because he got rid of them all?

————————

City’s defence for the 2015-16 season (the season before Pep took charge) was:

Sagna - 33 years old
Zabaleta - 31
Kolarov - 30
Clichy - 30
Demichelis - 35
Mangala - 25
Otamendi - 28
Kompany - 30

Kompany wasn’t got rid of. Otamendi is still there. The only other player under 30 from that defence was Mangala, and he was rubbish!!!

Of course Pep had to change that defence!!
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Yeh, fair point.

But Pep doesn’t really have a track record of working with players that haven’t cost a fortune, does he?

Doesn’t really matter, but the defence expenditure does stand out.

Wouldn’t it be nice if he worked with a youth prospect or bought a young talent for a low fee?

Well, I like it when United managers do that anyway.

That would always be nice.

I don’t see that as a criticism of Pep however - after all he has done that at Bayern and Barcelona.

I think that is more a criticism of City’s approach overall. How many youth players have really been given a chance at City since the takeover? A handful in 10 years? At best.

The academy is producing players, but I can’t help but feel the club see them as a cash cow first. Not given a chance because the club is able to buy players, and if those signings don’t work out, go out and buy again. It does irk me to be honest, especially as these past few weeks alone it looks like several promising youngsters are on their way out.

Yeh that’s fair enough, though I do feel that sometimes City fans play down Pep’s influence at the club.

Let’s be honest, if he wanted to work with more youngsters in the first team, he could.

I do hope that the emergence of Foden will be a turning point. It’s a shame that Eric Garcia has rejected a new contract, seemingly wanting to return to Barcelona. But What happens with Foden next season will be crucial to how the other young players view their future. And also how the club hopefully starts to realise that youngsters can have value to the first team as opposed to being sold off (with clauses that can make the club money)

If Foden isn’t an integral part next season, then I feel that many other youngsters will look elsewhere.

Ironically, it’s been reported that Sancho wanted out because City wanted Sanchez. United got Sanchez, City still lost Sancho, and now Sancho could be heading to United!!!

comment by RipleysCat (U1862)
posted 2 minutes ago
I do hope that the emergence of Foden will be a turning point. It’s a shame that Eric Garcia has rejected a new contract, seemingly wanting to return to Barcelona. But What happens with Foden next season will be crucial to how the other young players view their future. And also how the club hopefully starts to realise that youngsters can have value to the first team as opposed to being sold off (with clauses that can make the club money)

If Foden isn’t an integral part next season, then I feel that many other youngsters will look elsewhere.

Ironically, it’s been reported that Sancho wanted out because City wanted Sanchez. United got Sanchez, City still lost Sancho, and now Sancho could be heading to United!!!
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Haha, it’s a funny old world.

Nice to hear an honest view on it.

I suppose the other big unknown is when Pep calls it a day and who replaces him.

Appreciate what you say about the club but still believe the manager largely dictates policy on this.

We've used the Continental system for a number of years where the manager indicates what position needs filling and the DoF identifies the players.

comment by Winston (U16525)
posted 1 hour, 52 minutes ago
Yeh that’s fair enough, though I do feel that sometimes City fans play down Pep’s influence at the club.

Let’s be honest, if he wanted to work with more youngsters in the first team, he could.
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I think playing down his influence is probably a counter balance of rival fans often overplaying what he is there to actually do.

I really like the look of Chelsea at the moment, think they’ve got a great mix of youth and recruitment and I’d like City to have a better balance of that. It often seems like the stakes are too high for us though, there is a desire at the club to compete to win every competition we enter, and when we have squad players earning top dollar, although he could suddenly start playing youngsters, it’s never going to happen really is it.

“Doesn’t really matter, but the defence expenditure does stand out“

Course it does. They’ve spent enough on defenders recently to have made every season ticket holder a millionaire. I’m not oblivious to it! The defence has been solid though, as mentioned virtually as tight as Liverpool’s much praised back 5 last season. I think there has been a lot going on this year that has affected them though, key injury, nobody claiming lb, and off the pitch distractiond

With Garcia going, I’m sure there’ll be another one to come in too.

That’s the risk with bringing in European players to the academy