Topic: UEFA Champions League 2023/24 Season - page 1224. (Read 141744 times)

With the status of the defending champion and the influence of Pep Guardiola, it will make it easier for Man City to recruit their target players. It seems that Pep will rejuvenate his squad by slowly releasing players who are approaching 30 years or more, maybe also the tactical differences that Pep will apply next season will be different from before. So the option of releasing old players and recruiting players according to their tactics is a step that must be taken, City's game will automatically be different and not easy for other teams to guess.

Yangel Herrera, Ilkay Gundogan, Nahuel Bustos, Benjamin Mendy are players who have been officially released in the current trade market, it is possible that Walker, Mahrez and Bernardo Silva will follow them. Whatever happens to their transfer market, many say that Man City is at the top of the list of favorites to win, either the EPL or the Champions League.

Losing Gundogan, Walker, Mahrez and the potential to be left behind by Bernardo Silva has not made Pep Guardiola dizzy with the current condition of the squad he has. The arrival of Mateo Kovacic can provide a solution in midfield and may be projected as a replacement for Gundogan. The calm demeanor appointed by Guardiola indicates that the squad currently owned can still be relied upon, it does not rule out that Guardiola will look for other quality players to add to Manchester City's strength.
Manchester City which has the status as the defending champion, must be able to give its best in the Champions League because the demands this season are heavier after achieving success last season.

Arsenal is of my interest in this season champions league features, I'll love to see how they would pay in the champions leagueas it has been a very long time since they played in this competition. I don't expect them to be much of a threat but they would definitely not be going out of the competition very early. Last season in the premier league they put up a very strong fight against Manchester city and they would had won if not for the fact that they didn't have squad depth but they have been very busy in the transfer market singing players. They now have Declan rice in the midfield which will add value to their squad.

They also have signed Kai Havertz form Chelsea, although he isn't a week in and out player but he's a big game player and arsenal will enjoy his service for big games like that of the champions league. Arsenal drawing their preseason friendly shouldn't cause any alarm because it's just a preseason game. Players arent playing with all their potential as they're avoiding injuries What we should be looking at for is how correspondingly the teams are playing, and from the highlight I saw, I think arsenal is building a team and Arteta has some improvement to the squad and it'll keep getting better from here.

How can Manchester City maintain and defend their treble trophy next season given that they have now let some of their best players to leave the club? Because the success of the team in winning the unprecedented treble trophy last season was greatly attributed to the contributions of these players (Glodogan, Walker, Mahrez, and Bernardo Silva). Although Pep Guardiola has done well in his previous seasons as Manchester City's head coach in signing quality players, I'm not sure how he would find players who would be a better substitute for the four excellent players who have departed the club. As of right now, Mateo Kovacic is the only player Manchester City has signed.

I thought the new format was going to take place by this season but it looks like it is as of the 2024/25 season. I agree with people who think this format is very unnecessary and bad. There is no need to make such change in the first place. The format that we have been used to watch is already good enough and I haven't seen people being complaining about it.

But now we will have a format which looks like a league system but with some changes. There will technically be groups divided among clubs again and every club will play only 8 matches despite having so many clubs in the league. After that there will even be an extra phase to determine the last 8 clubs of last 16 stage.

I wonder why UEFA decided to make a change in the format like this.

At least some key players were also staying at manchester city too. You forgot that if city has also good secondary squad in the club that has same level as those who have left from the club. Manchester city gonna get pavard from bayern. SIlva's contract is still quite long with manchester city at this moment. It will not surprise me to see hime stay even longer in city till his contract gonna be running out. Silva already received a huge offer from saudi club but he has not taken a decision regarding his future at this moment. At least not till silva's contract running out.
Silva has been rumored rejecting PSG, and he is now linked to the barcelona. I remember that if some news said that if de jong will be sacrificed by barcelona to get bernardo silva from manchester city.
There's no update regarding the development from the future of silva. Everything is still remain uncertain at this moment. I think that we shall wait till the window of transfer season gonna be closed.

Moving to the saudi club was not a bad decision too. He gonna receive a huge salary and he will never be able to get it in barcelona. I prefer him to take saudi's offer rather than joining in barcelona.

The fact that Inter Milan did gave Manchester City a very good run for their money  in the UEFA Champions League final does not in any way make Manchester City less of themselves.
City was by a clear margin the best club in Europe last season and from the looks of things, it'll be difficult to find their match now despite the significant signings from their European rivals.

Pep is aware that his squad is still good enough that he doesn't need much for next season as their current players are in a good enough range for a club.
Gundogan is gone but they are also potentially losing bernardo Silva and have already lost Kyle Walker in defence.
I think Pep will look for someone suitable again to fill the position Kyle Walker left behind.
But he's not in too much of a hurry on this because he's also aware that rushing things could lead to missteps. There are some rumours about Pavard as Kyle Walker's replacement now but these too are still just rumours.

But indeed talking about their performance, they still have a pretty solid squad on each line for their reserves, they also have some good players so this is clearly still in Manchester City's favour despite losing several players and for the Champions League they are still one of the candidates especially with their current condition as defending champions.

Interesting fact.
This will be the final Champions League as we know it.

It will be dead if the superleague wins or completely different if superleague will lose.


From the next year, we will have 2 big groups, where the team will play 8 games, with 16 teams going to the playoff.


It will be such a bad show...

Of course all fans will monitor the team they support playing in this pre-season match. We have already seen Manchester United win a friendly match against Leeds United where Manchester United were able to secure their first win in this pre-season game. And the goals created by Manchester United came from second layer players, namely Joe Hugill and Noam Emeran, where these two players were able to bring the Red Devils to win the match against Leeds United. I think their names are still quite foreign to our ears because they haven't been able to break into the main red devil squad.

Apart from that, we also saw Arsenal make their friendly debut against Nurnberg, where the final result ended in a draw. I see that their new players haven't integrated enough into Arsenal game and for me, Arteta must be able to get his recruits to adapt quickly to their tactical pattern of play.

This is exactly what I don't agree with. The game against Real Madrid counts zero in the final against another team. Inter Milan was making lots of progress as a team in the defense and in the offense and those who thought that Manchester City will simply overrun them, realized that they wer totally wrong. Inter Milan had the chance to win the game in the final, that is a fact, and the game against Real was worth nothing at that point.

Nobody ever said their win was just luck. If somebody said it, please quote it here and we can discuss that further, but I don't remember anyone saying that Manchester City won "just because they were lucky"...

f course in football there are no guarantees, especially in the final match where the top two teams get to... Inter had a lot of good chances but failed to realise them.... But still no one had any doubts that Man City would be champions, especially after they managed to humiliate Real Madrid..... So their win in the final was not just luck.....

I think that Manchester City has not changed a lot of the squad and this thanks to Guardiola who knows how to make a really good team.He sure has enough budget to get new players but yet he seems happy with how the team performed and of course it is normal for him to think like that because after all he won everything with this team last season,first time in history that Manchester City made a triple trophy including the Champions League.

However I think this time will be different if they still go again in the Champions League final as they may not encounter a team like Inter who honestly did not let them play the football they wanted and if they encounter another team with much more experience than Inter in final they can very well lose it and it would not be a surprise for me.

Manchester City will not really lose the quality of their squad depth even though they will lose some important players. Ilkay Gundogan, Kyle Walker, Riyad Mahrez, Bernardo Silva are important players, but I think Manchester City are ready to part ways with them any time. Bernardo Silva might dampen Manchester City's strengths in attack a bit, but others won't especially as some of these players are old enough to play at the high level Manchester City demands.

Barcelona does have a good affinity with Manchester City so far, this also includes the problem of player transfers. Silva is another player who has been linked with a move to Barcelona, ​​but I believe Barcelona would not have had it so easy to sign him if Silva not come on a free transfer.

If Manchester City can perform quite well again next season in the Champions League, I don't think it will be a surprise because Manchester City still has enough strength to make itself strong in the Champions League with the players' abilities that are still good. As for Bayern Munich, almost every season the team always qualify for the Champions League, although they don't always win the Champions League.

We'll see, what City will do so far in the summer transfer window. the reason is, some rumors reported that several City players would leave. if, Bernardo Silva, Mahrez and Kyle Walker leave, it seems that it will slightly affect the City squad if Pep does not get a replacement soon. however, if it's just Gundohan and Kyle Walker, even Mahrez, I still believe Pep will find a replacement soon and City remain a contestant team to fear. so, let's see first. at least, until this summer's transfer window has closed. and we have to make sure Pep Guardiola's starting eleven first.

Regarding Osimhen, I'm not sure that any club will bring in even though PSG has abundant finances. in fact, actually PSG was able to sign him. it's just that both Osimhen and PSG are not interested in working together as a team.
As for the Mbappe transfer saga, it's not much different from Osimhen. the price that PSG wants to release him in the transfer market window this season, is very expensive. only Madrid the only team interested. The problem is, so far there have been no talks between the two clubs and not even the star.

Anyway, I just hope Arsenal can give their best performance in this competition. although there are many doubts about The Gunner's young squad, at least they have a team that has a very even depth of players.
One more thing, hopefully Barcelona will also give their best in this competition. At a minimum, they must qualify from the round of 16.

Maybe the Champions League group stage hasn't started yet but Manchester City are already favoured very highly for the title by bookmakers as usual. There is a significant level of gap between them and the others there but I don't get surprised with that of course. In the end Manchester City have the most qualified and complete squad among all the others.

But of course the squad by itself isn't enough to win titles. We have seen its example for Manchester City for many seasons. They hardly managed to get their first CL title finally after all these years. Now the important point is to maintain this success as much as possible.

Who knows maybe one day Manchester City might be the one to leave Real Madrid's record behind. But I'm not saying it by believing in it so much because the gap between the number of titles they achieved is huge. 

Actually, new players also certainly have experience and it will not be difficult for him to adapt. Also about Manchester City itself which is rumored to win the title again, of course it is a speculation that may be excessive. But even so, it certainly does not rule out the possibility for Manchester City to be able to repeat the same success as last season. But yes, of course it will never be easy to maintain it but at least, Manchester City will still have a chance and that means, Manchester City still cannot be fully confirmed to be able to win back the title next season only possibly, still have a chance.

No doubt with Manchester City is very strong teams right now, but current update many important player leaves Manchester City and I don't sure they will sign the same level players. İlkay Gündoğan and Kyle Walker have confirmed will leave Manchester City next season after accepting join with Barcelona and Bayern Munich, its still not stop for players leave Manchester City because Bernando Silva announced not extend contract with City and will follow İlkay Gündoğan for joining with Barcelona.

Inside Manchester City loss Mahrez after joining with Al Ahly as Saudi Pro League teams, many composition change with Manchester City next season and actually new players will need time for adapting with Guardiola games style.
 

I can understand why people would think that way, and yes if we are just talking about squad quality then yes Galatasaray is better. But also we need to remember that there are some new players, and there are some big vacation break that they just came back and played some unimportant very very low level friendly games, that's it. So, when it comes to playing a serious "win or go home" game, they may not be ready for something like that just yet.

This is why I believe that we need to make sure that they are doing all they can to win. If this game was in like October November period, I would give 1.01 to Galatasaray, much higher quality, but since it's close and one of first official games, it's not going to be that easy for sure.