Douglas Luiz flies in

[john@staustell]

But tomorrow we can put him in the 'GONE' thread!

http://www.mcfcwatch.com/2017/07/14/dou ... teammates/

Douglas Luiz flew into Manchester last night to complete his move to Man City in a deal worth an initial £10.7million, rising to as much as £14.1million in future.
The news that he was leaving his homeland for England was broken by Fred Caldeira of Esporte Interativo, who received the information from his colleague Lucas Pedrosa.


Earlier on Thursday, Douglas visited Vasco’s training ground for the last time and began to say his goodbyes to teammates. Goalkeeper Gabriel Félix posted a photo of himself with Douglas with a caption wishing the 19-year-old well on his new adventure.


Douglas is not expected to stay long in England. He will undergo his medical and get to see the spectacular City Football Academy, but he is expected to quickly join CFG partner club Girona FC on loan, where he will get to experience La Liga.
But having invested an eight figure fee in the Brazil under-20 midfielder, City are sure to see him as more than a sell-for-profit signing and will be hoping he can team up with compatriot Gabriel Jesus in Pep Guardiola’s first team some day.

[john@staustell]

Completed apparently

[Nigels Tackle]

woofuckinghoo

chances of him making a first team appearance?!

[Fidel Castro]

woofuckinghoo

chances of him making a first team appearance?!

Well, if this is the most impressive video they can put together, I'd say next to no chance cos he looks shit

https://youtu.be/HtGkpSnnnuU

[john@staustell]

woofuckinghoo

chances of him making a first team appearance?!

So he's supposed to?

[nottsblue]

The likely turn of events

Bought for £10m. Loaned out for a season or two. Sold for £15/20m as he turns out to be half decent, though not good enough to complement our existing squad.

Or

Bought for £10m. Loaned out for a season or two. Sold for £5/10m as he turns out to be not as good as we had hoped and we take a small hit on the fee.

Or

Bought for £10m. Loaned out for a season or two. Comes back and takes place in our squad as it turns out he is good enough.

Hoping for option three, but suspect option one is how it will pan out

[john68]

As we have changed from Manchester City 'FOOTBALL CLUB' to the City Football Group and our tentacles . have now reached globally into almost every continent, I am beginning to wonder who or what I am now supporting.

I have little or no interest in New York, Melbourne or any of the other clubs that I am supposed to have some form of kinship with.

I feel the same about some of our more recent signings. Are we buying young talent in order to ensure we have the next generation towear the City shirt with pride in our 1st team at the Etihad or merely buying up talent as a money making project?

Lots of talented kids coming in, immediately sent out on loan to increase their saleable value, who were never bought to play for us, who we will never see and who who are simply sold on at a profit for our owners?

[john@staustell]

Money making exercise John. You can see it starting to roll in.

BUT it can all be laid at the door of Platinis UEFA and their idiotic fair play..

I don't mind following NYC and Melbourne City. Don't know much about Yokahama and I'll be surprised if the Montevideo branch ever appear on my telly!

[Dimples]

We want to dine at the top table.
Eclipse the Rags. Beat Real, Bayern, et al. Win the CL, repeatably.

The 'City football family' is part of that process. AFAIK we are the only club with this model. So we have a head start on everybody else.
Like we do with the Academy (look at the Rags panicing about this now...) and in so many other areas.

As KK might say, I am lovin this, just lovin it....

[Saul Goodman]

woofuckinghoo

chances of him making a first team appearance?!

Zero

[Mikhail Chigorin]

As we have changed from Manchester City 'FOOTBALL CLUB' to the City Football Group and our tentacles . have now reached globally into almost every continent, I am beginning to wonder who or what I am now supporting.

I have little or no interest in New York, Melbourne or any of the other clubs that I am supposed to have some form of kinship with.

I feel the same about some of our more recent signings. Are we buying young talent in order to ensure we have the next generation towear the City shirt with pride in our 1st team at the Etihad or merely buying up talent as a money making project?

Lots of talented kids coming in, immediately sent out on loan to increase their saleable value, who were never bought to play for us, who we will never see and who who are simply sold on at a profit for our owners?

I think you've summed up my own thoughts quite succinctly John.

In fact, at times, it feels as though we're conducting some sort of 19th century empire building project, collecting 'colonies' - in the form of other football clubs - wherever they can be found all over the world.

It even feels almost surrealistic, almost unreal and slightly disquieting at the same time, even though it's been already mentioned that it's been forced upon us by attitudes and activities abroad.

The worst part though is that we are also a 'colony' ourselves; the possession and tool of a greater financial power located in Abu Dhabi and, to this extent, our future is not in our own hands, but in the plans and whims of those hands far beyond these shores.

[john68]

A point well made MC, reflective of the point made by the late Tony Benn; that before the British establishment could go out and colonise the World, it was necessary for them to colonise the British first.

Each generation accepts the environment it grows into as the norm. Personally, I feel as supporters we are a million miles away from where we stood even not so long ago.
The fences and gates around Etihad, the same around the CFA. There is now a huge separation between club and supporter. Many of my teen mornings during the school holidays were spent sat with mates in the Main Stand at Maine Rd watching Malcolm Allison berate big Derek Kevan for not taking training seriously enough or Big Mal putting the likes of Bell, Lee, Summerbee and the rest through their paces.

Nobody came to shift us and Dave Connor occasionally gave us a lift back to Wythenshawe, Even the chairman, Albert Alexander gave us time for a chat about the offield behaviour of Tony Coleman.

Am I just a customer now?

[Beefymcfc]

Yes, you are John, but that's the way it's always been. The differences from yesteryear are immense, just look at the deals now compared to then. Customer and supporter are the same in this context and those who weren't there back then will have their own meaning of the words. For instance, my lads love the 'experience' that going to City brings, yet I have a different perception. The multi-millionaires that own football now have never had the experiences I have and the majority wouldn't understand what we supporters have been through. There's only a few that actually get us and one of those has just left the club (Zab's) and one that was forced out a few years back (Mancini). The last is probably Vinnie, and how long left for him?

I personally don't care about the CFG, it's not my bag, all I care about is MCFC and adapted my support to the changing times.

[Dunnylad]

I think it is an interesting point about the changing role of the supporter / fan over the years. Took the kids to the T20 Blast the other day at Durham - Lancashire won so I was rather smug even if I kept it relatively quite for the kids sake - but what happened at the end is that the kids waited on the pitch and the Durham players came back out signing autographs and posing for selfies/photos. Now most of these aren't household names - Paul Collingwood as an exception - but the excitement my two had for meeting the players they had just seen on the pitch was incredible. Now my son is a huge City fan, but the 'distance' from the City players of today is quite wide by comparison and he remarked "That wouldn't happen at City would it Dad?" Whether that takes some of the shine off his experience as a football fan I don't know, or whether it is 'horses for courses', but there is something to be said about having that closer connection between fan and player, maybe if we did we would cut them a little more slack when they don't perform to their best?

[sheblue]

Professional football is a money making monster of a machine. Its all about TV and social media, the importance of the average supporter is diminishing at an alarming rate.
Just look at all the social media stuff the club does now, Inside city and all of that stuff, who is that really for.
Its a very different game now.