and MVG back as well

and MVG back as well

True.

So really there is quite a bit of change already in the squad with Eto'o, Ba, Luiz, Cole and Lampard all departing in the summer.

I do believe you can change too much too soon so I think we are just about right so far.....just the one striker I'd like to see come in now.

Gary Neville believes Chelsea will be too good for other teams this season in the Premier League.

 

Cheers Garry!

Edited August 11, 201411 yr by Slawth

City have confirmed the signing of Mangala now.

I've never seen him play, but if you have, what do you think of him? Do you think he's a good signing for them?

 

From what i have seen of him he is a bit like David Luiz, and i don't mean the good parts either. I watched him in the Europa League and he was all over the place, he would charge into tackles and would never hold his position. But i have never seen him play league football so i don't know if the player i saw in the Europa League was the real him or if he was just having a few poor games.

If bringing in Costa, Fabregas, Felipe Luis, Drogba and recalling Courtois while selling David Luiz and Lukaku doesn't constitute a busy transfer window, I don't know what does.

City paid €53m for Mangala, just wow!. Defenders are going for ridiculous amounts this winter & its not even the world class one. Figure makes zero sense considering Garay was sold for €7m, but hey Mendes was involved again.

Zabaleta Kompany Mangala Kolarov
Sagna Demichelis Nastasic Clichy

 

Loving that!

Isn't Clichy a starter Mr Sky?

Just got this message from a friend of mine in Uganda:

'Arsenal won but their fans are celebrating like they won the champions league.'

Good to know Arsenal fans on the other side of the world are just as delusional as the ones in our borders. There is something very strange about that club.

Gary Neville believes Chelsea will be too good for other teams this season in the Premier League.

 

Cheers Garry!

 

of course we will! 

 

btw, i hope mangala is a pile of sh*t! 

Edited August 11, 201411 yr by enigma

 

City have confirmed the signing of Mangala now.

I've never seen him play, but if you have, what do you think of him? Do you think he's a good signing for them?

Ridiculously fast, which is probably why City wanted him so much for their high line system. Very strong as well, hardly ever get the better of him one on one. Can have the odd brain fart moments but his speed usually bails him out. 

 

Basically, he's Pepe with speed. I would say it's a good signing considering his potential.

Edited August 11, 201411 yr by Remodez

If bringing in Costa, Fabregas, Felipe Luis, Drogba and recalling Courtois while selling David Luiz and Lukaku doesn't constitute a busy transfer window, I don't know what does.

 

I don't know mate I'm an absolute retard,

 

YAYYY! You win! Congrats!

 

 

Ridiculously fast, which is probably why City wanted him so much for their high line system. Very strong as well, hardly ever get the better of him one on one. Can have the odd brain fart moments but his speed usually bails him out. 

 

Basically, he's Pepe with speed. I would say it's a good signing considering his potential.

 

 

considering his potential, in the right team. I don't know if City are the best for bringing the best out of unknown defensive players tbh, but we'll see. 

Looks like those FFP restrictions really crippled Citys spending power . . .

In my irrelevant opinion, You can completely ignore Mangala arriving, Van Gaal's presence at United and Arsenals supposed rejuvenation as genuine title contenders, If Diego Costa scores two or three goals in the first 3/4 games and can take the pressure of his price tag off early, Then Chelsea will win the league barring an injury to him, However if he doesn't score in the first 2/3 games and the bullsh*t media start accusing him of being another Shevchenko,Torres and Crespo, Then it could get interesting, Anyone disagree with my theory? 

Isn't Clichy a starter Mr Sky?

 

The full back position is heavily rotated. Kolarov and Clichy both play a lot but i personally prefer Kolarov, he's very underrated. Came on leaps and bounds defensively last season. Zabaleta was overworked last season so Sagna is a great capture on a free and i expect there will be heavy rotation there too. Fantastic to be able to have like for like quality rotation options.

In my irrelevant opinion, You can completely ignore Mangala arriving, Van Gaal's presence at United and Arsenals supposed rejuvenation as genuine title contenders, If Diego Costa scores two or three goals in the first 3/4 games and can take the pressure of his price tag off early, Then Chelsea will win the league barring an injury to him, However if he doesn't score in the first 2/3 games and the bullsh*t media start accusing him of being another Shevchenko,Torres and Crespo, Then it could get interesting, Anyone disagree with my theory?

You're about spot on.

of course we will! 

 

btw, i hope mangala is a pile of sh*t! 

He is very quick, powerful and reads the game brilliantly. He is still a bit "raw" but his potential is enormous. Immensely strong back 4 at City now with possibly the best CB in football alongside the most talented young CB.

In my irrelevant opinion, You can completely ignore Mangala arriving, Van Gaal's presence at United and Arsenals supposed rejuvenation as genuine title contenders, If Diego Costa scores two or three goals in the first 3/4 games and can take the pressure of his price tag off early, Then Chelsea will win the league barring an injury to him, However if he doesn't score in the first 2/3 games and the bullsh*t media start accusing him of being another Shevchenko,Torres and Crespo, Then it could get interesting, Anyone disagree with my theory? 

 

I disagree, i think the top 4 is so unpredictable nobody has a clue what will happen. I'd put City and Chelsea level favourites, but i wouldn't bat an eyelash if we ended up 3rd and 4th, the league is so strong

Looks like those FFP restrictions really crippled Citys spending power . . .

 

Using reported full fees (with add ons included)

Fernando - £12m

Bacary Sagna - Free

Willy Caballero - £6m

Frank Lampard - Loan

Bruno Zuculini - £1.5m

Eliaquim Mangala - £31.9m

Costel Pantilimon - Free

Joleon Lescott - Free

Gareth Barry - £2.5m

Marcos Lopes - Loan

Albert Rusnak - Loan

Emyr Huws - Loan

Jack Rodwell - £13.25m

That leaves us with a net spend of £35.65m

Likely:

Javi Garcia - £12.8m

Bruno Zuculini - Loan

Karim Rekik - Loan

leaving us with £22.85m

Possible:

Micah Richards (£4-8m)

Matija Nastasic (£15-20m)

Scott Sinclair (£2-4m)

John Guidetti (£2-4m)

So we may well end up breaking even over this window.

I disagree, i think the top 4 is so unpredictable nobody has a clue what will happen. I'd put City and Chelsea level favourites, but i wouldn't bat an eyelash if we ended up 3rd and 4th, the league is so strong

 

That's not what the bookies have us as fella, Chelsea have a points total prediction of 85, We are at 83, With United at 77 and Arsenal at 75, They have Chelsea as firm favorites and you have to respect that.

In my irrelevant opinion, You can completely ignore Mangala arriving, Van Gaal's presence at United and Arsenals supposed rejuvenation as genuine title contenders, If Diego Costa scores two or three goals in the first 3/4 games and can take the pressure of his price tag off early, Then Chelsea will win the league barring an injury to him, However if he doesn't score in the first 2/3 games and the bullsh*t media start accusing him of being another Shevchenko,Torres and Crespo, Then it could get interesting, Anyone disagree with my theory? 

 

I disagree. I think Costas main strength is his never say die attitude. He will miss 3 sitters in a match and then score in the 88th. Whether he hits the ground running or not, wont have an affect on his overall contribution come may. Just my opinion

He is very quick, powerful and reads the game brilliantly. He is still a bit "raw" but his potential is enormous. Immensely strong back 4 at City now with possibly the best CB in football alongside the most talented young CB.

 

Yeah, he'll probably do well...

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The b@stard...

we're getting linked to eto'o now, i really dont want that to happen, id rather take a punt on ballotelli at this stage 

That's not what the bookies have us as fella, Chelsea have a points total prediction of 85, We are at 83, With United at 77 and Arsenal at 75, They have Chelsea as firm favorites and you have to respect that.

In the 'Strikers' thread I posted a little bit about predicting expected performance from the goal returns of each title-challenger's goalscorers.

While by no means a flawless metric, it does give a really good insight into expected vs actual performance and how likely those contributions will be maintained into the new season.

For example, Aguero only contributed 16% of goals to Manchester City, but that made him second-best behind only Yaya Toure's monstrous performance despite having an injury-hit season. Given his talent, an injury-free season to Aguero would make it hard to argue against him hitting Suarez/Bale levels of performance. Toure and Dzeko most probably won't replicate or improve on their contributions from last season, but they will still be very effective, and it is not unreasonable to expect Silva, Nasri, Navas and especially Jovetic really step up to more than make up the difference. Signing a defender of Mangala's calibre and style should hopefully improve their defensive record, potentially knocking 5-6 more goals off their conceded tally from last season (i.e reversing the Demichelis effect). I think they have a lot of areas in which we can reasonably expect them to improve, and therefore City is in a strong situation.

It's very similar at Chelsea, where you didn't need any complex statistical analysis to conclude Chelsea just didn't score enough goals to be successful. We've improved that with Costa (who will provide raw firepower) and Fabregas (who adds goals and creatvity to bump up others' contributions). Add to that the room-to-improve for Schurrle, Oscar and Willian and like City it's easy to see why the bookies have installed both City and Chelsea as favourites. 

The real question marks for me are United and Liverpool. Rodgers tried to address the goalscoring hole in their squad directly,  which if you look at history is almost always consigned to failure. Suarez scored over 30% of Liverpool's goals and that's not taking into account the intangibles such as his aura and presence that demands attention from the opposition. Rodgers also seems to be betting on Henderson/Coutinho/Allen improving, Gerrard replicating his exceptional form or Emre Can being an unqualified success, none of which seems a wise option.

I'd say Man U will almost certainly improve; Rooney, RvP and Mata will not repeat their poor contributions under van Gaal. There are obvious question marks over their defense, however, which will probably cost them in the end.

 

The wildcard is Arsenal. Similar to Chelsea, when Ramsay was out and Giroud and Ozil lost their way, Arsenal fell apart and just didn't score enough goals. While Chelsea fielded a bumbling trio of forwards, Giroud and Ozil actually had decent seasons overall. Arsenal need Giroud and Ozil to at least match their performance from last season plus Ramsay to replicate his extraordinary form just to maintain 4th place; they need Sanchez to come out all guns blazing to improve on it. By contrast, the bar was set so low by Chelsea's forwards last season if Diego Costa just gets 10 goals we are already better off.

By looking at how likely each team's players is to replicate their level of contribution to last season we begin to see the pattern reflected in the bookies' offering. Most people are banking on City and Chelsea as most likely to improve. It's widely accepted that both United and Liverpool had "exceptional" seasons in different ways. But it's Arsenal that most intrigue me, my head says they seem the most likely to challenge City/Chelsea for the title but my heart knows that at some point along the way they will choke.

Edited August 12, 201411 yr by SydneyChelsea