Manchester City made their purchases quick and early during this transfer window. With a week behind us, now people can properly examine what exists after the dust has settled. The biggest two departures for City are the loans of Micah Richards and Alvaro Negredo.
Manchester Madness: Mass Exodus From Manchester City
It is a sad sight to see a former Manchester City youth academy player loaned away from the club especially one who is as talented as Micah Richards. This is benefit though for City to loan out the fullback to Italian side Fiorentina. When City won their first Premier League title, in the 2011-12 season, he looked like a rock for the fullback position. Sadly, the player could not stay fit and with the rise Pablo Zabaleta he was always going to be second fiddle at City. It seemed the writing has been on the wall the entire transfer window; particularly after the acquisition of Bacary Sagna on a free transfer from Arsenal. While Sagna failed to look impressive in the 1-0 loss to Stoke City at the Etihad, he is a proven commodity in both the Premier League and UEFA Champions League.
The biggest shocker for City fans had to be Negredo leaving the sky blues after only one season. For most of the window rumors filled the air on whether Negredo or Edin Dzeko were going to stay. When Dzeko signed a contract extension with City for four years, it seemed manager Manuel Pellegrini had made his choice. Negredo was coming off a season where he bagged 23 goals in all competitions, but he wilted in form during the second half of the season. Still, the Premier League is a tough league to become acclimated to in your first season, especially if a player is used to having a winter break. It was not until City seemed to be making moves for Radamel Falcao that people began to actually question if Negredo was going to leave.
With Negredo on loan, and having two injury prone strikers in Sergio Aguero and Stevan Jovetic, the time is now for Dzeko to truly make his mark on the squad. It seems that this might be the last season for him to really prove his worth to City. Dzeko does know how to find the back of the net, but he is rather wasteful with chances. With John Guidetti out on loan again to Scottish champions Celtic, forcing City to wait until January if they are going to add another striker.
The other transfers City made this window are all crucial role players. The brightest spot seems to be the now injured Fernando, who seems to be actually making moves into the first team. Fernando replacing Fernandinho now gives City manager Pellegrini options to play around in the midfield in the dying embers of a game. He will now have more options than Milner or Navas and can bring on a more defensive side. Sagna as mentioned before did not look too special during City’s loss and Eliaquim Mangala has yet to debut, and Willy Caballero has taken a spot on the bench.
City looks poised to make a great defense of the title. They have strengthened the midfield and defense particular areas that are going to need a lot of reinforcement not from sheer number of games, but the league’s prominence of using physical strikers such as Chelsea’s Diego Costa. The goals scored by Chelsea are not only scored because of poor positioning but failure for conditioning forcing City to have heavy rotations if they want to make a run at all four titles.
Manchester United and Arsenal have both upped their strikers as well, with United youngster Danny Welbeck moving to the London side. United played big this window acquiring former Real Madrid star Angel Di Maria, getting Falcao on loan, snagging Daley Blind from Ajax, and throwing cash at Luke Shaw from Southampton. The most important signing will probably be the young Argentinean Marcus Rojo to try and fill a back four that is right now in shambles. This could potentially mean that Louis Van Gaal will try to move away from his convoluted 3-5-2 into a a more traditional 4-3-3.
The season is just beginning and these squads have made large signings. Time will tell whether United will try to go big and fail like Tottenham last year, or if they can once again get into Champions League football. Liverpool picked up nutcase Mario Balotelli and will try to make him their new Luis Suarez, while Chelsea and Arsenal desperately needed strikers who know how to score. City is in for a long season and injuries will pop up along the way but the supporting cast will need to rise to the occasion.
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