***Brighton v Champions Official Match Thread***

[Mase]

I’ve calmed down a bit this morning, but I still don’t understand this tactic of foot off the gas EVERY second half.

We’re on it first half and could be out of sight. But every second half we just invite pressure on to us. Happens every week so it must be a tactic. If we’re 2 or 3 up then fair enough - not at 1-0!!!

All great reserving energy for later in the season, but why not just win games now and we can lay off later?

[Nick]

100% agree mase and to me it's arrogance / mentality. We score and don't try as hard. And it's come unstuck


The club fucking up another summer - I think that's a collective one. This year there wasn't any rumours for anyone was there ? Other than an injured celtic striker when alvarez went.

The CLUB were letting the players who are currently letting us down fuck about all summer to see if they could be arsed staying remember- walker, bern, ederson whixh fucked our summer.

Remember that - some of these cunts stopped us from strengthing and should have just gone

Last year we bid for rice and got messed about by Bellend.

My biggest beef is the club think there was nobody good enough to strengthen us when stevie wonder can see so many half decent would help us as backup for rodri / haaland

[Mase]

100% agree mase and to me it's arrogance / mentality. We score and don't try as hard. And it's come unstuck


The club fucking up another summer - I think that's a collective one. This year there wasn't any rumours for anyone was there ? Other than an injured celtic striker when alvarez went.

The CLUB were letting the players who are currently letting us down fuck about all summer to see if they could be arsed staying remember- walker, bern, ederson whixh fucked our summer.

Remember that - some of these cunts stopped us from strengthing and should have just gone

Last year we bid for rice and got messed about by Bellend.

My biggest beef is the club think there was nobody good enough to strengthen us when stevie wonder can see so many half decent would help us as backup for rodri / haaland

Spot on Nick.

[Nick]

Just watched some of the walker interview on club app

We are not there for the second blocks /second blocks and the break has come at the right time. Well that says there tired or not mentally there. Fuckinf off with England doesn't help us?

He said he spoke in a team meeting Friday bla bla- clearly didn't work

[nottsblue]

One thing about yesterday's game was it was the first PL game in a long time where when we went behind I was expecting it and wasn't overly bothered

Normally when we lose in the PL I'm fuming. Cup games not as much. But yesterday was almost a resignation of our situation and that this era of utter dominance has started to decline. And quicker than I thought it would as well.

Maybe it's my lack of interest in other football, I don't know. And again, usually the International breaks are a huge letdown and I hate them for interfering with the bread and butter of the league. But I'm not bothered this time

The team as a whole don't look as committed as in previous years. Whether that's down to have won everything and broken a stack of records along the way. Maybe the hunger isn't there? That's understandable to a point. But that's also on the manager and coaches and club to ensure we have the right personnel in our squad to adapt to this. And quite frankly, I don't think the mix of the squad this season is correct. With hindsight we should have sourced replacements for Walker Stones Grealish Bernardo to name just four after the Treble season to get them integrated sooner. This is now a job for this summer. Which won't be easy, especially with the uncertainty around Pep and whether he will stay and for how long.

We will still be successful in the future, I have no doubts about that. I simply can't see a scenario like at the swamp when Bacon left and the rags went to shit and haven't recovered over a decade later. We won't see the success of the last 7 years again and that's OK. It really is, certainly in my opinion. You can't win everything forever. Maybe as a club we have been spoiled and maybe as fans we have become more demanding than ever before, which is totally understandable.

But maybe we entering a new, different phase of our history and perhaps we should give more allowances?

[Mase]

Agree with most of that Notts, disagree with giving allowances. Happy to do that as long as we see some fight - at the moment we’re not seeing any of that, and Pep called it out after the match.

We have a number of players that have asked to leave, I actually see now why the club usually accepts it and lets them go. Ederson, Walker, Bernardo - we should have let go, if that’s what they wanted.

Great that Pep has called out the players not fighting, but I’d also like someone to call him out for not fighting. The late subs, the wrong subs, not buying players that will improve us but getting in bang average players. Everything starts with him. He’s mentioned last season that players were playing through pain and injuries, so why not get players in last summer that will help?

Ultimately we all want the best for City. If Pep keeps the above up, maybe it’s better for Pep (and City) to have a break from football for a bit.

[PeterParker]

I think players like Walker, but no one takes him serious as a captain.
I don’t see how his talking can work.

There are so many things that from the outside look absolutely wrong with us and it’s frustating.

[carolina-blue]

Top post Mase
I would also add to the calling out of Pep that we need a bigger squad He likes the easier to manage small squad But that doesn’t cut it when we have aging and injured players , at one time it seemed we had two quality players for every position , what happened Pep best manager in the world needs to be told he needs to manage a bigger squad

[Outcast]

It's not a case just bringing in backup, our first 11 are suspect. We need young fresh blood to challenge for our aging injury prone demotivated first 11.

I'd ship out the following or at least consider it,

Walker - past it
KDB - injury prone
Nunes - what a waste
Grealish - after his last stint he can go
Bernado - not sure, declining
Stones - not sure, injury prone

We should go all out and get Wirtz no matter the cost. A young up and coming DM can cover and potentially replace Rodders when he packs up. A young striker wih bags of potential (can we retain Delap?). A right back and a midfielder.

No more aging average gap fillers please,

[Mase]

Clear head - we’ve got a fuck ton of injuries/players not wanting to play. Arsenal are 10 points off the top! Look at Real in La Liga and CL, probably similar to us. “Things can only get better”, as we used to say in the 90s.

Just cannot stand seeing no fight from 90% of the players and annoys me that Pep leaves it too late to make subs. Compound by certain players pretending to be injured - absolutely infuriating.

But, we’ll be back and we’ll be okay. Best team in the land and all the world.

[Harry Dowd scored]

I think everything has been said & more. However the recurring points are - ageing squad, injuries, players not wanting to play/demotivated, ineffectual use of subs, poor team selection.
A quick analysis clearly indicates they are all in the first instance management issues. To put it into sentence, we do not want a - ageing, demotivated, injury prone squad, we want a blend of experience & youth totally focused on winning football matches. Clearly we need to have a planned moving on of ageing demotivated players, Stones, Walker, KDB, Gundo need to be replaced. But by who, is Pep at the end of his career? He has been the best in the world, but as all the pressure of that then it’s toll? Only Pep knows that.
The conclusion is we need planned major surgery on the squad & the squad needs to be larger to cope with all contingencies, clearly the managers position needs clarifying, until this happens I fear a very poor season lies ahead. The irony is the challengers for the title are hardly world beaters, I know dippers keep winning but I do not see great depth of squad there too. In football anything is possible. After the international break we could return all guns firing & put this bad time behind us. Who knows City being City nothing can be ruled out.

[sheblue]

The first thing we need is a decision on peps future to give certainty one way or the other.
This uncertainty is not beneficial. I don't believe the players and other staff know, it would 100% be leaked by now.
We badly need reinforcements I would argue 4 players are needed. A right back, two midfielders and a back up for Haaland. Getting the 4 we need won't happen in Jan but if we could get 1 or 2 it would help.
I can't understand why there's no back up or competition for Haaland. Crazy nothing was done to replace Alvarez.
The squad planning wasn't the best was it.