Reaction, where's your head at?

It's just I'm totally with Booker on the idea of, you know, feeling bad for the players and, you know, having their achievements kind of sort of tainted, basically, by this.

Because kind of as I was saying before, before the housekeeping, it's like no matter whether or not the appeal goes through or even if the appeal is successful when that comes, like... we're guilty to everyone now.

Like, this is it.

And maybe players and coaches, maybe the players and managers ultimately don't care because they know that what they did on the pitch, you know, was real.

And they know that actually they did win the Premier League and they did win those trophies.

But to the wider footballing world, if this wasn't already largely the case anyway, just because of the charges, like, to the wider footballing world, we're guilty now because a guilty verdict has... been put on the club at this point and so to everybody else nobody it's like if we'd have it's like if we'd have beat these charges but been found guilty of the non-cooperation ones i still think everybody would have gone well city were found guilty they wouldn't have they wouldn't have cared which ones it was that they were or weren't found guilty of it would have been a case of they are guilty no matter what because they were found guilty of some of these charges and that's it and now Everybody has this to point at.

Just one season, please.

scored it was someone

yeah and they hit it just wide yeah exactly they hit it just wide and you know that's an easy on another day that's a situation where we could be 1-0 down within the first couple of minutes because we just completely switched off defensively and I think for me that isn't This game isn't a one-off in the defensive side of things.

It is in the sense that we've conceded three goals and we haven't done that this season so far.

But it's been a case of, I think we can all agree, and I think you'd be very sort of...

If you don't agree, then I'd love to know what games you've been watching recently.

But I think that every single game that we've played so far, we've had a couple of those instances where the defence has just made...

some kind of clangor that's let the opposition in through on goal and given them a very good goal scoring opportunity.

Is that fair on Maresca? And the reason I'm saying that is because I think Maresca has been a large part of why we've won seven out of seven, because his decisions, in my opinion, have made a direct impact on many games, you know, so I think you can definitely see his fingerprints on some of these successes so far.

Here's a clip of the latest one.

Yellow has been used for City very, very, very sparingly.

Richards, he's not high on my ranking of favourite City players of all time, but you can't deny... that the equaliser against Villa was iconic, and the shirt was just phenomenal.

Something a little bit different, not going to be a super popular choice, but I like how different it is.

17-year-old Micah Richards scoring a last-minute equaliser and being told off for swearing by Garth Crooks aside stands on its own two feet as one of the greatest of the past sort of 20 years, I think.

The second one was a last-minute equaliser against Everton at Goodison Park.

So Richard ought to really be wheeling himself out wearing this quite often considering it seems the vast majority of his career has

The red card maybe helped the city quite a lot, in fact.

Yeah, it certainly allowed us to play in that sort of transitional way, like you said, that United thrive on.

It felt like we did go a bit more defence first, which is something that maybe, to Joe's point earlier about would Pep have done it, I don't think Pep would have done that.

I think he probably would have.

We'd have probably still found ourselves playing... pretty similarly.

Like, just with the fact that...

We've seen it in the past, haven't we, when Pep's gone down to 10 men? Yeah, when we've gone down to 10 men in the past under Pep, we have just kind of seen that it kind of just looks the same, except we just have one less player on the pitch.

He's just an absolute joy to watch, and I thought he didn't put a foot wrong.

the real business world works in football.

football.Yeah. Yeah, absolutely.

So I'm, I'm-- So yeah, just from, as I, as I kind of say, from our point of view, and we don't have those names to cling to.

Like, even when it was Pedro Neto, like, I like Pedro Neto, and I think he's fine.

Not for the money that Chelsea were asking for, obviously, but I think he's fine.

But at least that was a name for us to sort of go, "At least it was a name for us to go like, oh, well, at least we are, like, interested.

At least we're interested." But, but when there's, when there's not even that link, that name, it feels like the club isn't doing anything.

... that you're gonna get some kid who's scrappy and wants to push Haaland and it co- And no, it's like, it's like-

Yeah

... ideally, [chuckles] that, that ideally that doesn't happen.

Um, so I'm, I'm, I'm fine with this being, like, the alternative option.

But I think if you do that, we need to find a way to make the buildup less down one side of the pitch.

We need to find a way to make it actually sort of spread out a lot more and use both of the wings a bit.

Um, we did see a little bit more of it on the right-hand side when Foden got into possession.

I think he actually looked quite lively on the sort of the more right-hand side of the pitch, but it felt like any time that we had a breakaway it was just, "Where is Doku?" And obviously that's, you know, that's partly because of the skill set Doku's got in terms of his pace and his sort of dribbling ability and stuff like that.

Then I will be saying, "Yeah, let's go call up James Trafford."

But I wanted to talk about the sort of the mood around Manchester City, because obviously there's the Rodri stuff, and that's countered by the Anderson stuff.

stuff.Which is countered by-- it's also sort of supplemented by the Bouadi stuff, and it looks like, it looks like Bouadi's gonna happen, doesn't it? Um- Yeah ...

I, I think that's gonna happen.

Um, but it's also deadly quiet around that.

Um, where is your head at ahead of this season? I know that's a very nuanced, uh, well it's not, it's not a nuanced question, it's a very, uh, it's actually a very, um, open question.

Where, well how are you feeling ahead of the season? Um, what's your current state of mind? And I guess if you want to lead into your expectations for the campaign because, yeah, the, the vibe online's interesting right now, I'd say.

There's definitely, there's definitely things to be concerned about.

Yeah.

They finished 17th

... yeah, if you think, if you think that Fernandes has just been relegated in two back-to-back seasons and is, and is, and is, and has cost clubs 125 million in transfer fees in that time.

Like he's just cost Spurs 85 million, went to West Ham for 40 million the season before that.

Like, uh, uh, d- that suddenly makes...

For, for me, Bouadi suddenly sounds like an all right deal at 85 million if somebody like that is, is moving to Spurs for that kind of money as well.

Now, obviously Spurs are in a different situation 'cause they've borderline got relegated two years in a row, and are probably, like, shopping in a very different bin to Manchester City at this point.

But I think that, I, I still think that when you look around at some of the other deals that have been done and are going to, probably going to be done later in this window, I think we could get to the end of the summer and just think like, "Oh, well, actually Bouadi wasn't actually that crazy at all." Like I think-

Just names we've never heard of.

Yeah.

I'm kind of just beyond it.

I'm kind of just treating it like FIFA money.

Like it's not real.

Like it doesn't exist.

Like does, do- is there, is there any evidence that football money exists? Like what...

Like it just goes between clubs and between like, you know, it, it's just, it's just insane numbers that will never, ever be, that mean nothing to, to, to mere mortals like us who don't earn anywhere near the amount of money that footballers earn.

Yeah.

Mm

... we only had, like, what felt like 48 hours to kind of process it.

And I, I know the writing was on the wall, we knew it was gonna happen, but it was one of them where, you know, f- in my head, I thought it would be a lot easier if we knew...

Say, say you said at the start of the season, "This is my last season, I'm gonna go off on a high at the end of it." I don't think that would've made it any easier.

I think every home game would've been like that for, like, maybe the last five or six.

Um, so the fact that we only had to do that once made it, made it easier.

'Cause I was a blubbery mess, to be honest with you.

... season performance has been increased.

So maybe he was right to try and, you know, keep it under wraps, right?

Yeah, well, that's, that's the thing is it.

I've, I, I've, I always thought... 'Cause I mean, we, uh, the, the, the sort of the noise around him potentially leaving has sort of been there for a, for a long time, and I think I'd, even I'd heard from people who I, have, have, know someone who's, like, tangentially linked to the club and stuff like that.

That, the, the, the feeling that Pep is gonna go at the end of the season has been here for months.

I mean, if you go back now and look at the reports of when Maresca left Chelsea-A lot of them contain it's believed that he's got one eye on the City job when that becomes available in the summer and stuff like that.

So that, the, the, you know, when you look, when you look back now, the, the breadcrumbs have been there for a lot of the season.

It's a bit daunting.

Yeah.

That doesn't come out of nowhere, does it?

Sam Lee, Sam Lee and Jack Gaughan aren't sat there thinking, "God, do you know what'd be really fun? If we pretended that Pep's leaving at the end of this season," and then, and then absolutely catapulted our reputations with the fan base when he doesn't leave.

Like, no- no- no one's doing that.

They're only saying this, and, uh, like obviously over the weekend after the, after the game as well, after the, um, cup final, like Sam Lee came out the next day and said that, a- as Joe mentioned just then, that you know, that obviously there's, there's, the, the feeling is that he does go, but there's a chance that he doesn't.

Whereas Jack Gaughan was, I thought, much more firm on it.

He was like, "No, no, like an announcement is expected in a few days." That's the level that people-near, near or/slash around the club are up with it.

But ultimately, yeah, at the end of the day, literally nobody knows because Pep is that kind of guy who can just...

That's the biggest thing for me

Is it safe to say that you weren't necessarily impressed with him, uh, the weekend against Southampton?

Southampton?Uh, yeah.

It's just, I mean, to be, to be fair, I think his, his game at the weekend was, um, an es- especially a stinker.

Like, not to the, not necessarily to the extent that I think ...

I don't necessarily think he plays like that all the time, but I think that at the weekend, given, you know, the position that he was in and, you know, this being his game to sort of rotate in with Haaland.

'Cause this is ultimately, no matter, no matter what we do, whether it's we keep Marmoush or we sell him and sign somebody else, whoever it is that comes in that, that is the backup to Erling Haaland, this is gonna be their job.

They're gonna have to get dropped into the odd game here and there, and unfortunately for them, they're gonna have to be people who can just turn up and turn it on when they need to.

True

Yeah.

Yeah, and it's felt like that's because we're almost trying to get away from this very sort of controlling...

I know Pep hates the phrase ticky-tacker, but I'm just going to use it for ease.

It's that kind of team where it's death by a million passes.

And it felt like we've sort of gone, you know what, actually? We're a long ball transition team now.

Because Arsenal have somehow... made everyone think that this is what the Premier League is now and we have to do it.

And I don't think we do.

bye Leverkusen oh he did play against Leverkusen to be

Also

true.

And likewise, City will probably know that Rodri has an eye on that being a move in the future.

So, it...

It does kind of beg the question, what is the benefit to going public with this? Where is the upside to taking this to the media? And the only real answer can be that it is just to put pressure on both clubs.

You're putting pressure on Madrid to actually then follow up with the interest and actually get something done.

You're putting pressure on City to maybe accept a deal that... might be a little bit lower than what they're expecting because this kind of, I mean, you've already seen it on Twitter now.

I genuinely can't remember I think it was one

That's concerning, whatever way you look at it.

Well, this is normally the time of the year that we all sort of know.

No matter how a season starts, you know that Pep's going to have things worked out by, like... mid to late January, maybe February, every season, we sort of come to a point where we...

Even last year, with how shocking that was, our second half of the season was actually quite good, considering how the first half started.

We still managed to come up...

Pep managed to come up with something that might not have been pretty classic Pep Guardiola football, but it was something that was effective enough to get us...

I actually did some maths on this before, so...

Absolutely, yeah.

um you know i think what really showed for me against leeds was that he is still quite raw in a lot of ways and because of the other you know the the other kind of high high risk but like it was more direct i guess uh forwards that we have on the field i guess that showed up a lot more because the interplay just you know turkey was pulling the strings but the interplay that we're used to seeing just wasn't there and it felt like marmouche was is going to be the one to drop out just because he weirdly made me miss how much Haaland seems to contribute, not only off the ball, but also when he does get the ball, his interplay seems to be a lot more superior to Marmouch's, which I wouldn't have necessarily said when Marmouch arrived.

Yeah, I think you're right.

I get to the end of a lot of games and I'm just kind of like... what did Marmoush do today? It sounds really bad, but I know that he puts himself about and he presses, and that's obviously a thing that Pep appreciates from any forward player that he's got.

But when you think that Semenyo does that and scores goals, and that's the biggest thing, because we can say what we want about Semenyo's overall game, which I think we would all be quite happy to admit hasn't been the best.

He's not been a...

Apart from maybe Newcastle, the Etihad in the League Cup, in the Carabao semi-final, where it felt like everything that he touched was just on point.

His first touch somehow became a Riyad Mahrez level first touch for that one game only.

Do you have any proposals for how you would change things up in particular situations? Because they're also bringing in new VAR rules as well in some circumstances, particularly at the World Cup.

James Trafford, what have you got for us?

I mean... be like it's hard to really like it's in terms of the cup competitions he's coming and he's and he's been really good i think like in terms of you know those that again that shot stopping has been has been great he's made some spectacular saves and the few opportunities that he's had in the carabao and and obviously the fa cup last week as well um Obviously, the season, as he has made very clear, has not gone the way that he wanted it to.

And at the start of the season, you could tell there were definitely some, like, oh, shit, I'm at Manchester City kind of jitters, as he was sort of, like, maybe trying to do a bit too much.

And I think, for my money as well, the fact that he...

Donnarumma rumours swirling around in his first couple of weeks at the club, probably not helping his lack of...

Donnarummas, you could say.

Yeah, Donnarumma.

He was scoring every week.

I'm scratching my head 'cause I don't have an answer, and I'm sure he possibly is doing the same.

I just think, I, I just personally think it's probably a...

There's definitely an element, I think, of the players just n- not necessarily getting themselves as G- either they're not getting themselves up for, for Pep in the way that they used to, and I take the idea that obviously they went on this un- unbeaten run earlier in the season, or they went on this winning streak earlier in the season.

I, I, and I totally, I totally get that, but I still think that we've seen throughout the season some pretty fucking shocking performances outside of, outside of that.

And yeah, they found a...

He, he, he found an 11 or near enough an 11, maybe a 12 or 13, that was, that was winning every single, every single game.

And then a couple of pieces come out of that team, and Pep's suddenly got no idea again.

Mm

I mean,

yeah, you'd hope that Saturday will be the time to start turning this around with the quality of opposition that we've actually got because it's really not a team that we should be thinking about more points dropped.

Now, obviously, some people will have thought that about Brighton.

Some people will have thought that about Sunderland as well.

But I think this is probably a different level to either of those two teams in terms of being poor.

But in terms of how we've performed, yeah, I think a lot of people would look at some of the runs of results that we've had this season, including the one that we've just come off the back of.

And you would expect that in a league title season that we've sort of had in the past, some of the good title races that we've had where it's been, say, Jurgen Klopp's Liverpool, for an example, like I feel like we're all still conditioned to believe, to some extent, that the league is at that standard now, and that if we don't win all of our games, then Jurgen Klopp's Liverpool is there to break away by 10, 20 points and stuff like that.

You can't bring Shirky off, but you could certainly bring him on.

it's a fixture that can be tricky for City and has been tricky and you know earlier this season away from home City lead in 1-0 I want to say with 20 odd minutes to go end up losing that game 2-1 Brighton are a team in my opinion it doesn't really make a difference where you look at the table because they sometimes can be 5th sometimes can be 14th as it turns out they actually are slap bang in the middle in 10th but yeah tricky customers and I imagine this will be another difficult game

They're a team where you know what you're going to get.

No matter who the manager is, no matter what the personnel is, you know that you're going to be playing against some kind of high-tempo, front-foot football, which in often cases can be a good thing for us because it means that there's space left in behind where we can punish them, perhaps.

But that also does mean that they are a team that is going to test our defence.

And in the first game, after losing Diaz and Guardiola, that's really not the kind of team that you want to be coming up against.

So, yeah, it's going to be a difficult one.

The fact that we are at the Etihad makes it slightly kinder to us, I think.

Joe, anything to add?