A lot of our fans on this board have a grass is always greener mentality. Some of our rivals' squads get massively overrated. City for example when the entire squad is fit and available this is their B team :
Bravo
Zabaleta
Kolarov
Kompany
Fernando
Gundogan
Toure
Delph
Navas
Nolito
Aguero
You can notice that all of Zabaleta, Kompany, Gundogan and Toure are either finished or permanent crocks. Then you have Bravo, Kolarov, Fernando, Delph, Navas and Nolito who are all utter, utter gash.
They're gonna a need a lot of bodies to complete their squad according to Pep's needs but if he performs in the market the way he did last summer it's not gonna be plain sailing for them and it might as well be another transitional year while they build their new squad.
Yes I totally agree with you. The point of my post wasn't to praise their squad, it was simply to identify where there immediate positions of need are.
They undoubtedly have a big generational shift to do in that squad over the next couple of years to essentially phase out Zabaleta, Kolarov, Clichy, Kompany, Toure, Fernando, etc, but as they've already effectively got their long-term attack sorted, now it's about sorting out their midfield and defense.
Another thing to bear in mind is the Uefa squad quotas, which gave Guardiola some thinking to do last summer as he
left out Yaya from his CL squad.
Their 21-man squad this season was as follows, with Stones, Sterling, Clichy, and Delph as the only homegrown players.
Claudio Bravo
Willy Caballero;
Bacary Sagna,
Vincent Kompany,
Pablo Zabaleta,
Aleksandar Kolarov,
Gael Clichy,
John Stones,
Nicolas Otamendi;
Fernando,
Raheem Sterling,
Ilkay Gundogan,
Jesus Navas,
Kevin De Bruyne,
Fabian Delph,
Leroy Sane,
David Silva,
Fernandinho;
Nolito,
Sergio Aguero,
Kelechi Iheanacho
Given that Clichy's contract expires this summer
City at the very least need to sign one English player this summer - two if they want to upgrade on Delph.
Here are some options that they'll surely be considering:
Ryan Bertrand
Luke Shaw (12 months on contract, doubtful if United would sell though)
Danny Rose
Kyle Walker
Ryan Sessegnon (as backup for Kolarov)
Michael Keane
Ross Barkley
Oxlade-Chamberlain (replacing Navas)
It's easy to see why players like Shaw, Lallana, Sterling, Stones, etc have had such a high premium, because if you don't sign players like that you end up in a position like City where you have to include players like Delph in your European squad and leave out players like Yaya Toure (not that he's had a big role under Pep anyways, but still).
This also highlights just how shrewd it would be for us to sign Sessegnon and/or Oxlade-Chamberlain, as rumours suggest we will be looking to do, given that signings like that further weakens the pool of English talent for other clubs to fill their quotas with, forcing them to make expensive purchases (eg. Stones/Sterling), or just fill their squad with squad filler (eg. Delph).
For instance, if City signed Ox as a replacement for Clichy, that means that they could look at some top alternatives beyond English players to replace Clichy with for example... instead of potentially having to settle for someone like Bertrand.