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What team(s) would you like to see City take inspiration from?

Wade Wilson

By Wade Wilson
in Football Chat

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Wade Wilson

Wade Wilson

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For me, this season, it’s Ajax, Frankfurt and RB Salzburg. All three have punched hugely above their weight by mixing quality playstyles with youth and some great scouting and signings. 

All three have mixed youth with experience and gotten by on relatively modest budgets (despite Ajax and Salzburg both being fairly minted). Looking at some of the signings they’ve made in recent years, Salzburg and Frankfurt in particular, it’s astonishing what  you can get for very little these days. I’d love to see City push the boat out and go abroad a bit more, there’s so many leagues and players out there yet we’re once again linked with a £4m bloke from League 1. Buying from England is, by and large, so expensive these days. For comparison here’s some of the fees Frankfurt and Salzburg have paid in recent years:

Salzburg: 

£4m- Munas Dabbur (turned into a £15m sale) 

£1.9m- Dayot Upamecano (turned into £9m sale)

Their current starting CB pairing of Pongracic and Onguene cost less than £3m combined. 

Frankfurt:

£1.8m-Ante Rebic (Now worth £31m)

£8m- Sebastian Haller (Now worth £36m)

£900k- Danny Da Costa (Now worth £10m)

£6m- Luka Jovic (Now worth £60m)

 

These guys also all play lovely football, Salzburg especially, and even if it meant sacrificing Eliasson I’d love to see us set up like they do. 

 

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Lrrr

Lrrr

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Not in terms of playing but management selection I'd say Southampton (or at least up to a few years ago). They recruited their manager based on how well the manager fit the club philosophies, squad playing style etc rather than the club changing to fit the manager.

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chinapig

chinapig

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Atalanta. They go under the radar here but are heading for the Champions League. Have one of the best academies in Europe, play nice football and are the highest scorers in Serie A.

The Italian Ajax.

https://www.theguardian.com/football/blog/2019/may/06/atalanta-champions-league-playing-ajax-way-serie-a

The next club for LJ to visit?

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Wanderingred

Wanderingred

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Swansea City 2011-2015. They had a very clear philosophy of how they wanted to play football, and recruited managers and players to fit into that system, rather than chopping and changing when things weren't quite working. They had an excellent scouting system and made shrewd signings from the continent. The result was a team which was not only fantastic to watch but won a major trophy and played in Europe.

They seem to be dropping back to their natural level now, but if we could have the 7-8 year period they had, I'd be beyond happy.

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Mr Popodopolous

Mr Popodopolous

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Would suggest the last gasps of the Swansea success were summer 2014...when Laudrup left and then summer 2014, most of the Spanish players left it changed IMO.

A tweaked style did some good stuff for a season, but eventually did more harm than good. Once they lost their identity things slipped back and slipped back at an increasing pace!

@chinapig Agreed- think I remember mentioning them as an interesting one to look at back in November time for some reason. One interesting aspect of them is though they have a great academy, they have tweaked this a bit- seem excellent at selling to invest and reinvest- their academy basically they sell from, expenditure on which doesn't count towards FFP...anything they sell pure profit and they reinvest with increasing success, often making profits on some of them too.

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Mr Popodopolous

Mr Popodopolous

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Thinking about it, may sound odd given they are below us in the table but Brentford.

Or to be more precise, said it before too- a Brentford Plus type model. We can do the Brentford thing but on a bigger scale- we can also more readily hold onto players due to the turnover, the solid way SL runs the club- the combination of this. Not saying Benham doesn't run Brentford well but their budget means that player trading isn't just a choice, it's vital for them. We can trade but with bigger expenditures- though Maupay for £1.6m what a bargain for example- and with less pressure to sell players. They hit the buffers for a few months when Smith went but provided they don't make too many big sales this summer, suspect they can, will progress again. Think Watkins cost somewhere between £1.5-2m too.

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Wade Wilson

Wade Wilson

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2 hours ago, Mr Popodopolous said:

Thinking about it, may sound odd given they are below us in the table but Brentford.

Or to be more precise, said it before too- a Brentford Plus type model. We can do the Brentford thing but on a bigger scale- we can also more readily hold onto players due to the turnover, the solid way SL runs the club- the combination of this. Not saying Benham doesn't run Brentford well but their budget means that player trading isn't just a choice, it's vital for them. We can trade but with bigger expenditures- though Maupay for £1.6m what a bargain for example- and with less pressure to sell players. They hit the buffers for a few months when Smith went but provided they don't make too many big sales this summer, suspect they can, will progress again. Think Watkins cost somewhere between £1.5-2m too.

Definitely agree with Brentford, their scouting has been brilliant. Even Benrhama only cost them £1.5m, what we were doing in France when Brentford was finding these guys? 

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cidered abroad

cidered abroad

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Norwich City.

An odd choice? Yes because many would not consider them at all. They live about a million miles away from the rest of the country, except for their cousins, the Tractor Boys. I used to travel from Bristol to Norfolk at least once a month by car for my work. This was mostly before the M25 was completed and after battling around the old roads and on to the M11, I thought I was nearly there. No at least another two hours. And have you ever been in a country post office in that county? Slow service is not the wayto describe it.

Back to football. Why Norwich? They came into the League in 1921 some two decades after us. The Norwich poulation is now around 150,000.

They have been League Three champions twice and promoted runners up once - same championships as us but we've had more promotions from this league.

They got to FA Cup semi in 1959 while a Third Division side and promoted for first time the next season.

Since then this club has won Second League championship four times, promoted as runners up once and play off winners once. Six promotions to top league!  We have done it once.

They have also won the League Cup twice and losing finalists twice. And European football.

This last season, they won the title and promotion to the Prem with a new team because many of their  players were sold off as parachute paymentabout to run out. They didn't break the bank doing this, in fact their leading scorer cost a zero transfer fee. They also did it with several Academy graduates. They have always produced good quality from their Youth system. Good example is the lad from Easton in Gordano who we paid £30,000 for in 1973. They don't normally make expensive purchases with so many sensibly priced recruits over the years.

SO WHY THE HELL CAN THEY KEEP DOING WHAT WE HAVE FAILED TO DO SINCE 1976?

Perhaps SL, MA & LJ  should visit Delia to get her recipe instead of trips to Red Bull Leipzig and Florida.  

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