Why not?

The ref in the Scotland v Australia game made the wrong decision at a crucial time in the game and the ref in the Chelsea game should have awarded Chelsea a penalty.

Not too dissimilar are they?

Errors made. Doesn't matter if the sport is different.

Actually he is not.

He said the ref was very very good but made one mistake.

But he was not talking about in the context of the sport.

He is comparing it because the ref in both games did a very good job for most of the game but made one mistake.

Exactly. It helps if you actually read what he said instead of assuming.....

I think if any club or fan was asked "Do you want to win playing attacking football or win playing defensive football" then the answer is obvious and doesn't even need to be asked.

The question is do you sacrifice winning for playing like Barca?

The answer is no.

Of course this wasn't trotted out last season when Mourinho was winning but its a very easy stick to drag out after a couple of bad results.

Also the question asked is not mentioned in any report I have seen.

If the question which was asked was along the lines of asking what did you think of the ref not awarding a possible penalty then the answer and the comparison makes sense.

Dont mention KDB, was it Mouro that let him go?

Unless whoever it was had access to a TARDIS it was the right decision

I also understand it was the right decision at the time, but it sickens me to see such a brilliant player (and he is) playing for city.

Then again, they threw 110million at two players - i guess they are going to improve the team.

But that's the nature of the game.

He was not a brilliant player for us. Average at the very best (and I being generous).

Who is to say he would have developed in the same way if he had stayed? As in any profession you improve though life/work experiences etc and those experiences would have been very different at Chelsea. The KDB that played for Chelsea shares nothing with today's KDB apart from the name.

KDB is a fantastic player who was never given a proper chance with us. We made a mistake selling him, and it's okay to admit that.

it was a mistake, i agree.

yes we could not predict he was going to be this good, but the signs were there.

why not have a buy back clause?

He wouldn't have wanted to come back with Mourinho here, but not including a sell-on fee clause was a big mistake. His next move way always going to include a large fee.

We are seriously shit at judging talent. It's ridiculous.

a percentage of that 55 million would have softened the blow a little

Is now but was not at the time.

It's very easy to make business decision's with hindsight

No, it was a mistake then, and a bigger mistake now. He was clearly a special talent with huge potential and exactly what we needed, but he wasn't given a chance because Mourinho didn't 'trust' him. Instead, we've gone through 5-6 inferior players while de Bruyne has gone on to become one of the best players in the world, and is now playing for our main league rivals.

We have let many players go over the years. The numbers who have made it since then at the big clubs (Barca,Munich,Real,Utd and City) are a very low number. Yes a few have gone on to OK careers at decent clubs.


But I agree we should have sell on clause's on any young player we sell. Even if they go for low fees it makes sense to get something back on our investment

Well you must have seen something that every big club missed. If he had that much potential he would not have gone to such a minor club from us.



£18M for potential is very hard to turn down no matter how big it could have been

A sell on clause would have been useful though

No question about that.

As I said since we have invested money into their education we should include a sell on clause for any of our young players. That's just basic business sense but we was not known for sensible business choices

Did you spot it the time ? I certainly didn't. The few games I saw him play, he looked very average. The talk at the time was about him wanting more first team football when his performances didn't justify it. I don't know if that's true or not, but Mourinho didn't appear to like his attitude in training either, and the feeling was apparently mutual.
I can't remember any massive outcry from fans when we let him go ? Most seemed to think that £18m was a good price for the KDB we'd seen up until then. I guess we just have to accept that he's one that got away if he continues to live up to all the hype that currently surrounds him. He wasn't the first and won't be the last, it happens.
Good luck to him, and to Wolfsburg..they were both winners in the deal. I still think Man City have paid over the odds, it even makes Pogba look a bargain at £70m.

I cannot agree with you there, KDB looks excellent and better than pogba at the moment

To be honest. I haven't seen Pogba recently. But we haven't seen a lot of KDB either to make any firm judgement, have we ?

Until we have the new ground we need have a very small number of revenue streams. We have not got the years and years of success that Utd have to attract insane sponsorship deals like they do. There is a limit (which I think we have reached) in what we can charge people to come to games and going on far flung pre and post season tours although very good from a income POV sometimes can not be a help from a on the pitch POV (plus there are only so many you can do)

Our access to young players gives us one that only the very top teams have access to (even with the new ground we should still be using it to bring extra money into the club). Most of our young players will not be good enough to play for Chelsea but they will be good enough to play for 90% of other football clubs.

We can buy cheap and invest in them (investing in youth helps with FFP as well) and sell them on to invest into the first team.

We cannot keep going to Roman for money (more so now he is paying for the new ground out of his pocket). If someone comes along with a excellent deal at the time it's insanity not to look at the deal.

Look at the excellent deals for key players who are ready to play in title winning team today for around £18M? Potential is fine but if we can get someone ready now plus have cash in the bank I don't think its that bad of a decision

are we accepting that we cannot with the PL again then?