The Man City Thread*******

33 goals in all competitions for Aguero this season, his most every in a season for City. Some going given all the talk of his future, and being in and out of the team after Jesus arrived.

The club confirm that both Clichy and Navas will leave the club in the summer

Kyle Walker, Mendy from Monaco, Alex Sandro from Juve, a young Brazilian from Benfica, Fabinho

Clichy has been horrible for City for a couple of seasons minimum now. I thought years ago when they signed him he would turn into an outstanding full back and be the French top choice for years. 

Every season for the past 3 or 4 years I've been scratching my head trying to work out how a club who have spent the amount City have on players, still have Clichy and Kolarov as their left back options

Kelechi has been linked with Newcastle

Sagna away now too
Some clear out today

Hans Moleman wrote: Amazing for supposed top clubs how the likes of Man City left their squads age and basically crumble to bits without constant renewal and signings of quality younger players.

It's a consequence of two things.
1. Changing their manager even after they've been reasonably successful. Therefore no new manager is going to embark upon a long-term plan by completely re-building the squad he has inherited, since the chances are he will only be benefitting his successor;
2. If you give a manager bundles of money, he's going to sign players at/around their peak i.e. 26 or 28, so as to chase instant success. And those players are only going to sign on a long term contract on a huge salary, which means they'll be hard to shift even once they're long past their sell-by date.

The fact that Pep is being allowed to clear out the deadwood, plus his end-of-season comments, means that he is confident that he will be given time to build for the long term.

And the fact that most (all?) of the people behind the scenes, at all levels, are so immersed in "the Barca way" will have reassured him further.

I expect serious progress from City next season - even if they can't quite reach the dizzying heights of winning the League Cup or Europa League

Hans Moleman wrote: I think people still underestimate the importance of full backs in football.