Went to Paris instead of Welcome to Messi Manchester

[zuricity]

Genuine question... is anyone actually arsed it's not gone through? I for one think it would have been great commercially but couldn't really care less.

Focus on what we actually need and I've no doubt we will tear it up next season on all fronts

So adding the arguably the greatest player of all time, even at 33, who is also a better goal scorer than our greatest, and would get to see them both as mates play together, alongside with the insane passes of KDB and all of our talent when we have had massive issues with missed chances undermining us constantly means it's for commercial reasons mostly?

He'd transform us into an insane attacking side that could even mask defensive problems due to its potency.

If he doesn't come we'll be fine, but look at his statistics here from just last season in La Liga you can see he's above average in every attacking area:

https://understat.com/player/2097

Click the box for 2019-20 to see this;

It's like having De Bruyne and Aguero (I compared their stats as well) at slightly watered down levels for some of their key strengths, but then even better in other areas.

In terms of assists his xA is almost identical to Kev's so that will create more chances for other players. He had 20 assists this season plus 25 goals.

None of our players are like that.

That won't help us?

Great points well made, but just said I wasn't arsed which is still the case.

No doubt he would have been a fantastic addition and given us extra creativity to an already fantastic midfield / attack, but he's not what we desperately needed imo. Focus now on further suring up at the back and we are onto a winner

We are Europe's top scorers and our problems are ONLY in defense, so yes, your right , we don't need Messi at all..it was for marketing purposes more than anything.

Lets get back to getting rid of that cunt Mendy and then Stones and Otto......once we have a decent defender we will be fine. Ake was a great buy BTW.

D'accord

[City64]

Thank fuck that is over .
Let’s get the show back on the road .
Oh wait we can’t attend games yet.
World has gone to shit !

Night !

[carl_feedthegoat]

Thank fuck that is over .
Let’s get the show back on the road .
Oh wait we can’t attend games yet.
World has gone to shit !

Night !

Corbyn's brother should have been PM.....He gets my vote.

[City64]

Thank fuck that is over .
Let’s get the show back on the road .
Oh wait we can’t attend games yet.
World has gone to shit !

Night !

Corbyn's brother should have been PM.....He gets my vote.

Lolly pop lady on our road could do a better job than the idiot we have now to be fair .
Yepp world has gone to shit alright !
Fucking shambles .

[zuricity]

Thank fuck that is over .
Let’s get the show back on the road .
Oh wait we can’t attend games yet.
World has gone to shit !

Night !

Corbyn's brother should have been PM.....He gets my vote.

Lolly pop lady on our road could do a better job than the idiot we have now to be fair .
Yepp world has gone to shit alright !
Fucking shambles .

You mean broken Britain surely ?

[Dunnylad]

What fucks me off the most is that we’ve been distracted by this from signing those other players, most of whom are going to Chelsea. Fucking had enough of Pep and the Barca love fest. Go back, they are finished. Messi and fuck off and rot too, 3 times he’s used us, I don’t want someone here who disrespects is so many times the thinks he can come here at 34 and we drop everything again.

Move on, buy a fucking striker and centre back and put Foden in. He can be as good anyway.

There is no evidence to suggest he this has derailed our other transfer plans, 2 of which are over the line, we are not willing to deal with Napoli directly but I do think kk will be ours before the season starts - for reasons only known to pep and the board, we have not been linked with a striker even before the messi nonsense - so I don’t think this is a position that would have been filled this summer regardless

Indeed there’s no evidence we’ve been up to anything. Nothing official from the club, Jorge said he hadn’t been in touch with City or Pep so if that’s true this is all press speculation. The reason we haven’t signed Koulibaly is likely to do with Napoli being a pain in the arse to deal with as we saw with Jorginho - I wouldn’t be surprised if we ended up going for someone else. Personally I’d rather it was Upamecano

[Mase]

Pep literally flew to Barca the other day

[Plain Speaking]

Pep literally flew to Barca the other day

With respect, that's where his family lives, didn't his wife move back there, last year, because of her business? His Dad lives there, his Mum recently died from Covid.

[Plain Speaking]

And City would have forked out 100 million for an amicable outcome this year. That’s gone now. If he doesn’t extend which looks very unlikely it’s a bad deal for Barca. I don’t blame Messi. After all he’s achieved at Barca he didn’t want to get involved in a Court case against the Club. His vigorous attack on Bartomeu means the President doesn’t come out of this well. If we get Koulibaly and Aouar it’s a bloody good window imo.

I am not sure, we could have complied with FFP even at £100m transfer feee with his astronomic wages unless we sold other players? Almost all clubs are struggling with covid and the reduction of PL TV fees from China will make matters worse.
I agree with Aouar but not sure we are even in for him? I wonder prefer Upamecano to Koulibaly, KK is overpriced for me.

FFP is dead, Long live FFP.

We would like FFP to be history but the club isn't going to give our enemies the chance to bring us down a third time by ignoring it.

[Mase]

Pep literally flew to Barca the other day

With respect, that's where his family lives, didn't his wife move back there, last year, because of her business? His Dad lives there, his Mum recently died from Covid.

She didn’t move back there, no. She stayed there a couple of days a week for her business.

His mum died of COVID so he went back to smash some food in at a restaurant and take pics with people? Explain please.

[Dameerto]

Genuine question... is anyone actually arsed it's not gone through? I for one think it would have been great commercially but couldn't really care less.

Focus on what we actually need and I've no doubt we will tear it up next season on all fronts

I don't particularly like Messi as a person and don't think he would fit in at City even if it was for a season or two, so not arsed in the slightest that he's staying in Spain. Would have been 'good for business' if he came though.

[Nickyboy]

Pep literally flew to Barca the other day

With respect, that's where his family lives, didn't his wife move back there, last year, because of her business? His Dad lives there, his Mum recently died from Covid.

She didn’t move back there, no. She stayed there a couple of days a week for her business.

His mum died of COVID so he went back to smash some food in at a restaurant and take pics with people? Explain please.

It's not unlikely he was back home visiting family and went to a restaurant.

But it's also feasible he was having a chat to folks from Barca.

None of us know other than press speculation though and so calles ITKs on Twitter.

The club and officials have been very tight lipped during the whole saga (rightly so).

Shame we don't have Garry Cook around to just blurt it all out in an interview and to call Messi a bottling little soft arse gnome

[Hazy2]

Pep literally flew to Barca the other day

With respect, that's where his family lives, didn't his wife move back there, last year, because of her business? His Dad lives there, his Mum recently died from Covid.

She didn’t move back there, no. She stayed there a couple of days a week for her business.

His mum died of COVID so he went back to smash some food in at a restaurant and take pics with people? Explain please.

It's not unlikely he was back home visiting family and went to a restaurant.

But it's also feasible he was having a chat to folks from Barca.

None of us know other than press speculation though and so calles ITKs on Twitter.

The club and officials have been very tight lipped during the whole saga (rightly so).

Shame we don't have Garry Cook around to just blurt it all out in an interview and to call Messi a bottling little soft arse gnome

The Sheikh will bide his time no name calling, just class.

[Dunnylad]

So what if Pep flew to Barca? He almost certainly has friends and family there - it’s not as if his next stop is Naples. We’ve been dragged into the press hype but I see no evidence this story has held up any other signing we have been trying to make. Plus our silence is the best response - Messi hasn’t snubbed us, he’s just clarified his position as he wants to leave Barca and thought he could do so for free. Everything else is just speculation and rumour

[Outcast]

We've been snubbed twice in one week, Messi a d apparently Timo Werner.

Not sure how Messi snubbed us when he's been forced to stay.
As for Werner, WTF did that come from? Apparently he didn't fancy challenging Aguero and Jesus for top spot so took the easier route to chavs, tells me all I need to know about his character.
That's two snubs in one week, it's been years since we had snub fest, tells us how far we've come.
P.s we've been linked to striker Martinez of Inter Milan at start of window but this died down. I think we're more likely to go big for a striker next season.

As for Messi, it was now or never, not sure I'll fancy him playing for us at 34, not at the wages he's on.

[Mase]

Pep won’t be allowed to just fly out to Spain to see family and friends. He’d have to quarantine for 14 days unless the club can think of an excuse good enough for him to go over there and not have to quarantine when he came back. He was pictured at the training stadium the other day after he came back so there was obviously a business reason for him to go.

[dave watson's perm]

We've been snubbed twice in one week, Messi a d apparently Timo Werner.

Not sure how Messi snubbed us when he's been forced to stay.
As for Werner, WTF did that come from? Apparently he didn't fancy challenging Aguero and Jesus for top spot so took the easier route to chavs, tells me all I need to know about his character.
That's two snubs in one week, it's been years since we had snub fest, tells us how far we've come.
P.s we've been linked to striker Martinez of Inter Milan at start of window but this died down. I think we're more likely to go big for a striker next season.

As for Messi, it was now or never, not sure I'll fancy him playing for us at 34, not at the wages he's on.

yep, we get snubbed but the Rags "walk away from deals" - you say tomato, I say tomato, etc

[Mase]

Go get Sancho now. Stop fuckin about.

[PeterParker]

Go get Sancho now. Stop fuckin about.

Why are you spelling Kolarov like that?

[Mase]

Go get Sancho now. Stop fuckin about.

Why are you spelling Kolarov like that?

Takes the piss that we won’t bring him home.