The pace picked up this week. Two friendlies, an insightful interview with assistant coach Glen Riddersholm, an incoming, an outgoing, and another twist in the Adam Idah saga.
And at the end of all that, pre-season is over and Johannes Hoff Thorup is about to be introduced to the delights of a Championship season.
Perhaps the biggest but least surprising piece of news is the departure of Gabiel Sara to Galatasaray. Most people felt that he was the most likely of City’s prize assets to leave and has proven thus.
The fee is variously reported as between £15m and £20m but City fans expecting an immediate boost to the transfer kitty may well be disappointed. After all, the object of the sale was to boost City’s ailing balance sheet. Ben Knapper himself has made it clear that player sales are still very much part of the City model despite the involvement of the Attanasio-led Norfolk Holdings.
More surprising was the news that Idah somehow missed the flight to the Austrian training camp last week. The Irishman has made no secret of his desire to join Celtic on a permanent deal but a clumsy move like that, presumably as a protest against the City management for not releasing him, seems ill-advised at best.
City have made no secret of the fact they not only see him as a key part of their plans for the season ahead, but also that they will not allow the Scottish champions to lowball them into accepting a derisory offer.
The transformation that Thorup is attempting has drawn inevitable parallels with the first season under Daniel Farke. If so, then this is Thorup’s Oliveira moment and a test of his mettle as a man manager.
The subsequent appearance of Idah in this weekend’s fixture against St Pauli, following his omission against Hoffenheim, may indicate that, at least on some level, Idah has been rehabilitated into the team. However, it feels more like just another move in a chess game that will almost certainly end with him heading north of the border.
There was better news though in the permanent signing of Ben Chrisene and confirmation that Callum Doyle will put pen to paper on a season-long loan when he returns from Man City’s tour of the USA.
Chrisene looks a decent signing. The forthcoming acquisition of Doyle, albeit on a temporary basis, makes it look to me like the coaching team has been given a year to develop Chrisene into the first-choice left-back. Certainly, his performance against St Pauli showed a lot of promise.
Which leads nicely to that interview with Glen Riddersholm. If you haven’t listened to it, seek out the Pinkun podcast – it’s a fascinating insight into the man City hand-picked to assist Thorup, despite the pair having had no previous professional relationship.
One thing that emerged was the time the Riddersholm had spent coaching and developing individuals and very small groups of players, with the specific aim of improving their skills and thus their sell-on value. His ability to develop and improve players, such as Chrisene, could be crucial.
Why crucial? Riddersholm himself said that for City to be promoted this season would be unexpected. While they may hold on to Borja Sainz, Josh Sargent and JonRowe for this season, the prospect of these three being at the club in 12 months for another Championship campaign seems remote.
City will need a succession plan and that will surely come from the likes of Chrisene, Abu Kamara, Ken Aboh, Elliot Myles et al and rely on the ability of the coaching team to improve them into first-team starters.
So with less than seven days to go to the first game against Oxford, where does that leave City? After a 3-1 humbling in the last pre-season game, has the bubble of optimism bought by the new coaching team burst?
Well yes and no.
There is a body of fans who opine that sacking Wagner after finishing sixth means that any finish lower than sixth this season will be seen as a failure and that the club expect to finish higher. These fans are extremely likely to be disappointed.
The pre-season fixtures have suffered from disrupted team selections caused by both injuries and late returns from the Euros and Copa America. After Saturday’s performance, City seem to be a million miles from a settled starting XI and yet to grasp the demands of the new coach and his system.
However, among the chaos, there have been glimmers of light.
The first 15 minutes against St Pauli showed a lot of promise. The ball was moved more quickly than in previous games. City created credible threats on the St Pauli goal. The second half also showed an improvement in the performance and a nicely worked and well-taken goal for Rowe.
But this was punctuated by three awful concessions. The first, an NFL-style corner – players blocked City defenders leaving a free header for Jackson Irvine to open the scoring. The second was a soft dispossession of Stacey. The third was a poor giveaway by Chrisene.
And these weren’t the only errors. The game was littered with unpressured concessions of the ball and misplaced passes. The problem with the way that Thorup wants to play out from deep is that when you make these errors, an opponent is much closer to goal and thus more likely to score.
Make no mistake. It’s going to be a tough season. In Rowe, Sargent and Sainz, City have a front three to worry any Championship defence. However, in the absence of Sara, the trick is going to be getting the ball to them without ceding cheap possession and goals at the back.
While the team that started on Saturday was hardly packed with youngsters in the manner of his FC Nordsjaelland, there is little doubt that Thorup won’t hesitate to use the entirety of his squad if performances don’t come up to standard.
These players will already be familiar with the system and methodology he wants to employ, which will hopefully enhance their chances of making an impact.
With such a potentially rocky road ahead, it is more important than ever that the Club keep the fans on board – no return to the disconnect of the Dean Smith era. With this in mind, my music for the week is an absolute belter from the 80’s. Appropriately enough given the task ahead for Thorup, it’s from the album ‘A Kind of Magic’.
For the season ahead, I give you ‘One Vision’:
Hi Jamie.
Like the music Queen always a good listen to on a long drive.
A question for you and others ?
Did Knapper get his coaching appointment wrong, WHEN most coaches leave or join a club they usually take their backroom staff with them.
Familiar with the head coaches demands and how they like training to be set up makes life easier for a head coach but Thorup has come in too an unfamiliar club, city and players with no trusted personal.
His first task was to recruit an assistant head coach with a similar background as his own then convincing his inherited backroom team how things will be from now on.
So the question is should Knapper have recruited JHT’s first team coach at Nordsjælland to come to City ?
We are all creatures of habit and Narcis Pelach was recruited as he suited Wagners style of play so not only is he coaching players a new style that he has to adapt to himself and maynot be completely comfortable incoaching at this present time.
JHT, Riddersholm and Pelach seems a small coaching team with so much work to do in changing the mind set of players use to a completely different style of play and possibly so might not adapt to it but do the club have the finances to recruit replacements that can simply NO they don’t.
City has a nucleus of a promising young team let’s hope that the upper management don’t decide to loan out players for a small fee just to get money in when they should be developed at the club to take it forward and a possible play-off place.
Idah let himself down, so a small section booed him the simply reply would have been join the other players in going to the supporters and clapping them for turning up, going straight down the tunnel just gives those booing the knowledge that you are bothered it might hurt doing it but winning small battle shows character.
Like many I’m a sports fan and Cricket is mourning the loss today of Graham Thorpe at the age of 55 after a long illness, he was an England Star and Batting Coach.
My condolences to all those that knew him.
Listening to the interview, it seems City specifically targeted Riddersholm and he had been their main target for some time. I think the suggestion is that he has a particular skill set that the club were interested in.
As for Pelach, I think his philosophies will be complementary to what Thorup wants to achieve.
Those 3 are by no means the only ones involved in the first team – the training videos that the club post regularly give a good insight into how they conduct the sessions.
Well I hope idah kept goin and got in a taxi celtic were he can score against Sunday league partimers that what he’s good and oh is there room for hanley in that taxi hope so .
So it’s bye to Gabriel Sara, and Leeds have / are about to pop a bid for Jonny Rowe on the table. It’s only £7 m and is probably not enough.
£7m sounds like a cheeky bid to me………add a 1 to it as far as I’m concerned…..
Leeds dont have money. They also have to sell Gnonto and Gnonto absolutely wants to leave because all his close mates have left. I would not be surprised if also Rutter leaves. Firpo surely is looking for a chance to leave too. They were an international players team and are becoming a very typical championship team.
Leeds sold
Players Club Transfer sum
Archie GrayTottenham €41.25m
Crysencio Summerville West Ham €29.30m
Luis Sinisterra Bournemouth €23.40m
Glen Kamara Stade Rennais €10.00m
Charlie Cresswell Toulouse €4.50m
Marc Roca Real Betis €4.50m
Diego Llorente Real Betis €3.25m
That’s a total of €120m incoming so how no money
The Gray transfer fee included Rodon to Leeds. Spurs didnt need him. Rodon seems to be 11,8 and Bogle 5,95 so 17,75 minus 116,2 = 98,45 income so far. I suppose its not enough, there was an article that they have massive transfer fee debts + for sure the overall economical situation does not favor them either. Their last season squad was surely expensive to the Championship and they had/have players who does/did not want to play 2 seasons in the row at that level. They now look to be also having Aaronson and Wober in their squad which they can sell if there is interest towards them. They obviously try to cover holes with much cheaper options or dont cover at all.
I don’t think Idah has any problem with the management, evidently he forgot his phone and caught a later flight. The loan gas done him a lot of good, he seems in better shape, defenders have difficulty dealing with him and he is very quick for someone of his size. It should have been good news for us but there is a section of the fans that don’t want him to do well at this club. If not for them we would probably be able to sort things out I refer you to the case of Wesley Hoolahan, club legend who called said club a sh##hole.
We’re also presuming that Sargent is going to get fit and regain his form when he hasn’t been at his best for a long time,since early last season after he’d been a long spell out the previous season, looking at him on Saturday he seems to have lost his instinct, Over five hours without a goal at the end of last season is very concerning, especially now we have no Sara. I think Rowe is going to attract attention now, he’s quick and can score with either foot or his head, it’s going to be difficult to hold onto someone getting back to the form when he was scoring for fun, including on his England U21 debut. I see Leeds are looking to bid £7M, but considering the bid €5M for Sara it seems like our old manager is trying to wreck our preseason,I thought he had yellow blood. It was much better whe the transfer deadline was before the start of the season, were going to have to be patient
To be fair to Idah, there was one of those videos posted in lockdown , I think with Oli Skipp where Idah was described as most likely to forget his phone, or something similar!
I’ll have a hunt on canaries tv and see if I can find it.
I would far rather a motivated Idah staying for the season than sell him and bring someone else in
Let them have him he’s had plenty of chances here and not taken them part time opposition suits him fine .
The trouble is that the way Wagner wanted to play was fundamentally unsuited to the way Idah plays – in the same way that Pukki didn’t fit. I mentioned in my reports at the time that Wagner needed to find a system to suit Idah whilst the other strikers were injured.
From what I can see, Thorup’s style will suit Idah……….
If he did go, how much would a replacement that would guarantee 10+ goals cost….?
But he was our second highest scorer with most goals per minute when he went on loan and actually improved. Wagner kept on alternating with Hwang.
Pukki was a failure at Celtic.
Based on turkish sources Saras transfer fee seems to be about 15 million pounds, 18 million euros just like was written in the article. That is a huge transfer fee for Galatasaray to pay and I would not expect a paying schedule to be something Norwich have used to. turkish league should fit well to Sara, its slow tempo league and full of all kinds of drama which is difficult to even imagine to be possible.
Overall the Championship seems to be in decline. The transfers are mainly free transfers or loans and some clubs have sold or are having a must to sell their best players. Its going to be a difficult season to predict which of course is a great thing to fans and overall.
James, Wagner’s not the only manager he’s played under at Norwich – had plenty of chances and not hit the heights with any of them how long do you give him? He’s five years older now then Sutton when he hit the ground running and never looked back. We tend to overhype players here get a good fee and most of them do nothing when they leave. Would say 80pc have done that in last ten years – two or three exceptions but doubt if Idah would cut it in Premier League. Scotland’s his pinnacle.