Catching up with Manchester City - what will it take?

Calpol

Calpol

Calpol

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First of all congrats to City for winning another title.
With the team seemingly hitting their best form of the season and a treble beckoning I've been thinking about what it will take to overhaul them and if anyone can do it. After a middling start to the season by their standards, it has all come together in the last few months whilst everyone else has limped to their final league position. Arsenal's implosion seemed inevitable to some, United have laboured since January and Newcastle have over achieved in a first monied season. Liverpool are in transition, Chelsea and Tottenham are rudderless despite the former's embarrassment of riches.

City just seem to have a platform that can continue to dominate and leave the rest fighting for 2nd place. Its hard to argue that Pep is not greatest manager of this generation with his ability to build great teams in his image and his desire appears undiminished. They also have such a squad depth and board structure that means that the manager doesn't have to worry about how much of a transfer fee was paid for a player and therefore benching or dropping a £100m player is not an issue. He's been allowed to spend a year teasing Grealish into the team, can protect developing talent like Foden and Haaland whilst being able to jetison players who are easily good enough for top 4 but maybe not good enough for Pep.

Are we in an era where only state owned clubs with unlimited funding can contend? Does monopoly become a real risk if FFP is not fully implemented and potentially tightened?

My own team Manchester United are realistically miles off City. I can't see us challenging them within 2 seasons and fear for the FA Cup Final. Even if Qatar are successful ( and part of me will die if they are) then The gap to close is vast.

Anyone else think City can be challenged domestically or even in Europe.
 
Of course they can be challenged. Arsenal should have won the title this season and they have scraped past Liverpool in recent seasons. A point here or there would have made all the difference.

As to Pep being the best manager of this generation I just don't really see it. Hes gone from Barca with peak Messi and a team of absolute generational talents to Bayern in a league where they have the best side by a country mile and cherry pick their competitions best players from them ever year and now hes at City, a team with a fantastic squad when he arrived and massive investment every year since.

Hes definitely a top top manager but I don't consider his CV particularly impressive when you consider the resources at his disposal. Can anyone really say he has over performed massively in any job? He still hasn't won the CL at City (he should win it this season but who knows).

When the likes of De Bruyne, Silva and Haaland move on/retire I think they will struggle. Fundamentally they have a great set up there and recruit well but getting truly world class talent in is also a bit of luck and without De Bruyne I don't think City would have won the title this season. Without Haaland they wouldn't have won the title this season. Silva took RM apart on his own almost in the return leg in the CL.
 
If City aren't implicated in any significant breaches, it will be challenging to envisage a scenario where Newcastle doesn't eventually reach the top. This would set a precedent for others to follow suit, and the Public Investment Fund (PIF) exerts even more influence than City's owners do. While you could argue that the North East may struggle to attract the most distinguished talent, it's important to remember that everyone has a price. However, the building process may take considerably longer.

City is currently enjoying a perfect alignment, but it's the culmination of 10-15 years of bending the rules. It's undeniable that Pep is one of, if not the best manager of this generation.

Clubs may challenge City head-on over short periods, as we've seen with Liverpool, but they fail to maintain the pace. It won't be long before other Premier League clubs' fans start protesting in the streets and signing petitions requesting a state takeover.

You also have those who believe it will all fall apart at City once Pep leaves but with the people they have in place and the foundations they've built, I don't see it.
 
fez said:
When the likes of De Bruyne, Silva and Haaland move on/retire I think they will struggle.
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People always worry about great players moving on but a club like MC has the resources to replace people. I've seen people saying Man City just won titles because of Aguero and David Silva. They are gone now and replaced by Haaland and KDB. Liverpool won the league after Suarez and Gerrard left. In 5 years time who knows what other talents will have emerged. When Aguero was in his pomp nobody had heard of Haaland now he's broken the record for goals in a season. Maybe there's a 15 year old somewhere that will score 40 a season for MC in future. Plus in general MC have amazing squad depth, they are well placed to cope with losing players as anyone. To illustrate, in their last match they beat Chelsea (a team who spent £600m this season) and kept a clean sheet, all whilst having this on the bench:

Dias
Stones
Gundogan
Haaland
Grealish
Rodri
KDB
Bernardo Silva
Ederson

That's not a bad bench to have considering the first XI was good enough to brush aside Chelsea.

The only times I've really seen a top EPL side that's winning trophies struggle due to letting players go was Arsenal selling Vieira and Blackburn selling Shearer. In the majority of cases the best teams can cope with it and new blood comes in.
 
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HangTime said:
People always worry about great players moving on but a club like MC has the resources to replace people. I've seen people saying Man City just won titles because of Aguero and David Silva. They are gone now and replaced by Haaland and KDB. Liverpool won the league after Suarez and Gerrard left. In 5 years time who knows what other talents will have emerged. When Aguero was in his pomp nobody had heard of Haaland now he's broken the record for goals in a season. Maybe there's a 15 year old somewhere that will score 40 a season for MC in future. Plus in general MC have amazing squad depth, they are well placed to cope with losing players as anyone.

The only times I've really seen a top EPL side that's winning trophies struggle due to letting players go was Arsenal selling Vieira and Blackburn selling Shearer. In the majority of cases the best teams can cope with it and new blood comes in.
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I agree up to a point but KdB is absolutely world class and without him I don't think they would have won the league. Those sort of players aren't easy to find or buy. Yes you can buy top players but truly world class players aren't that easy to get. I think RM will struggle when Luka Modric retires, he is that good despite their massive spending on their midfield.

They will always been an elite team but certain players are just irreplaceable.
 
The thing is though if they are irreplaceable presumably other teams can't get players of that calibre either. So they won't be outgunned and will just have better squad depth to cope as the season progresses. They don't care if an equivalent of Saliba gets injured they just play someone else. I agree KDB is top notch and really makes a difference in games but that doesn't mean they will struggle without him. Ronaldo was world class and MU won the league after he left. It's a conveyor belt, there are always good players coming through. Zidane was as good as any player mentioned in this thread and Real Madrid have still won things without him.
 
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I think the domination City are showing right now reminds me really only of times in the past like when Man United were winning everything late 90s, and we got sick of them. It's only natural in sport. We see it a lot in Formula 1 and after a while it gets difficult to enjoy as much with the same winner all the time. I don't hate on City despite the financial investigations, but would like to see the loopholes properly addressed and I think the only way to nip this in the bud is to impose harsh penalties. They are an exceptional side. What they did to Real just shows how good they are and that Arsenal should not be ashamed that they were rolled over by them as well. No club in the World can compete right now.

The squad depth combined with financial power is very hard to compete with. Arsenal did so well and as others said, were kind of ahead of schedule with their young squad. I just hope they have the ability to keep competing going forward next season and keep the momentum up rather than fall away as they seem to be now.

When you get to City's level, it's very hard to break that positive feedback loop of success and winning and constantly adding and attracting the best players. I mean it realistically could be that they stay like this for a further 5 - 10 years.
Perhaps it needs one or more of the below?

1: Pep to leave
2: One of KDB or Haaland to leave or get injured long term
3: Newcastle to invest in some heavy signings and really push on
4: Arsenal to get Saliba back and make some intelligent signings to boost the squad
5: Liverpool and United to do the same and try to compete
6: Harsh penalties on City to try to help matters years down the line by imposing financial restrictions on them
 
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www.theguardian.com

Perhaps one day this whole age of football will require an asterisk | Jonathan Liew

Whatever you think of Manchester City’s wealth or Newcastle’s or PSG’s owners, football’s regulatory framework has never been fit for purpose
www.theguardian.com www.theguardian.com

Decent piece this, the fella makes some good points. Cheating in football is on a sliding scale, everyone does it. It was coached into us as kids, appeal for every throw and every corner regardless, try and con the ref into giving penalties. Is it really a surprise its hit this sort of scale?Right now I cant think of another sport where this is even remotely acceptable. I've never seen Tiger Woods going into the rough and dropping an extra ball out of his pocket to get a better lie. Couple of isolated ball tampering incidents in cricket I suppose and a bit of match fixing but thats not really the same. Melbourne Storm NRL team were stripped of league titles due to salary cap breaches but other than performance enhancing drug cases, I think every other case revolves around football.
 
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