It wasn’t for the first time – and I’m certainly not alone in this thinking – that it was so
obvious that our diamonds in the team are desperate for help. Even the slightly
rough ones.
Although we love a player who runs themselves into the
ground for the cause; imagine, I thought to myself after last weekend’s game,
if they didn’t have to expend QUITE so much
energy making up for the fact that very few of their colleagues share similar
ability.
Who are ya?
For ‘perfectly cut diamonds’ I can only, sadly and somewhat
worryingly, only REALLY refer
to two City stars – small in stature but head ‘n’ shoulders above the rest are David Silva and Sergio Aguero. However, although not
necessarily ‘pretty-pretty’ I’d also definitely chuck into that same category
Joe Hart, Vincent Kompany, Pablo Zabaleta & James Milner). These
are the ‘rocks’ of our team in ‘my humble’…
In the ‘rough diamond’ section of “Needs some work but has
potential to shine brightly”; I’d definitely, clearly label Eliaquim Mangala. And having not seen much of him in
a City shirt at least I might be tempted to slot Wilfried Bony alongside him in the same bracket; hoping that he’ll come good
after a sustained run in the side and without injury / international-competition-interruption.
As for the rest? Well they’re either, “Okay”,
“Fading fast” (in
a variety of ways) or have “Never been good enough”.
I am at risk here I repeating fairly recent Blog-postings,
having already done…
- “The maths – the possibilities” on 12th January 2015
- “On-pitch commitment and determination ratings” on 16th April 2015
…and will, no doubt,
join the hundreds of others in producing summer transfer window articles. And
so I’ll keep this one fairly brief.
Despite the huge criticism of our generally aging squad, I
think part of the problem hasn’t been necessarily age but has been ‘quality in
depth’ within the squad and, yes, I’m
going to also partially at least blame F(not-so)FP
for that situation.
And, so, I don’t actually think we’re THAT far off another Premier League winning team once again (but we can
forget even getting close to the final of the Champions League having witness the quality of Barca
v Bayern last night).
I expect us to bring quite a lot of numbers into the Etihad in the summer and although that might LOOK as though we’ve done a massive
summer re-build; potential critics and watching F(not-so)FP officials need to
be very mindful of the numbers (in Pounds
/ Euros too) that will no doubt leave us between June 1st &
September 1st. Incoming players will be “replacements” in the main
and not necessarily “additions” (hopefully
additions will come from a chosen few EDS
players).
But we do need players who will enhance what we already have; current stars, which,
most if not ALL Premier League clubs would ‘snap up’ given the opportunity.
Imagine…
- Just how much better Mangala would be with a stable and class left-back by his side (although I still think we need an additional, class centre half too to challenge injury-prone Kompany and the dependable but aging Demichelis).
- Imagine how much better David Silva would be with a couple of additions in the "Creative but also works a bit" department. Perhaps even Navas would improve also…
- With Jovetic AND, hopefully, Dzeko on their way out in the summer; imagine how much GREATER, with an additional couple of class strikers, Aguero would be; not being (mostly) the only danger / outlet up front.
Out:
In:
A class left-back, a central defender, 2 or perhaps even 3
class creative midfielders / wingers and 2 strikers (6 or 7…with a sprinkling
of EDS).
Incoming names I’ll
leave for another post or two…
Okay, Spurs have had a very
hit ‘n’ miss season displaying some very erratic form. But forgetting the very
scary first 4 or 5 minutes last Sunday - where the defence looked all over the
place and the home side were carving us up for fun - I thought we went to a
tough place and played extremely well for the majority of the time. We deserved
our win; our 3rd in a row.
Even Kolarov had a 7/10’er!
But Hart, Silva & Aguero were awesome and they, plus
others mentioned, will look far better with the arrival of ½-a-dozen or so
fresh, class players.
We’ve pretty much secured a Champions League place now; QPR at home next to hopefully help cement 2nd.
Preview to come on Saturday…
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