City v Barca

[Swiss]

I remember quite a lot of "fucks" on here that were quite disappointed he was allowed to leave.

Yes - I can remember muttering darkly on here about if they let De Jong go they'd better have a bloody good replacement lined up!

...and of course, they didn't...

I still maintain that our failure to significantly strengthen our central midfield that summer cost us the defence of our Championship to a very ordinary rag side. The situation was not adequately recovered until we signed Fernandinho.

the version of de jong we had was not that good a player really...compared to his ajax days anyway but he could stop better players than him from playing. fernando is like a fucking turnstile
some fucks given  http://smf.citymancs.com/forum/index.php?topic=26351.0

And I still stand by what I said then. Our central midfield has looked so disjointed since De Jong left. No, he was never going to be a messi or CRonaldo, but he shielded our defence, put in the tough tackles, rallied the troops, got stuck in when the chips were down. Ok he miss timed a few tackles... But he had that fear factor in the attacking players. He was also well liked at the club (player / Chappie level) and was such a character in the dressing room. I heart De Jong.

[Hesperus]

I was never a fan of De Jong as a player. Slow, passed sideways and backwards, however I loved his attitude and the crunching tackles he put in, but as a player he was limited. If you take the combined transfer fees of Garcia, Rodwell, Fernando and Fernandinho we could have bid for one hell of a player.

The transfer policy has been awful since we first won the title. I've said it previously, none of the players signed since then, with the possible exception of Demichelis have made any impact in the first team. Our big game players are Aguero, Ya Ya, Kompany, Zab, Silva and they are the same players who first won us the title and we do have an ageing squad with minimal homegrown players.  Chelsea have reinvigorated their squad with younger quality players who are looking great in the first team.  Hazard, Costa, Matic etc and they've managed to fund it without breaking FFP. I've no idea who runs our transfer policy, I assume it's Tixki, but who ever it is is failing the club.

[Rowley Birkin QC]

I liked De Jong. From a defensive point of view he was very effective and he allowed Yaya the freedom to push forward and do some damage. I thought this was one of the keys to out Championship success under Manchini.

However, De Jong was less effective going forward (as goat and Hesperus point out). Not positive enough and too many lateral passes. I always thought we could do better - and with that prospect I was content to let him go. But as we all know, City failed to find better. Garcia turned out to be his hardly adequate stand in, and the result was catastrophic to our Championship defence. Without De Jong our entire central midfield duties fell on Yaya's shoulders and in my opinion effectively neutralised him as an attcking force for most of that season.

Fernandinho's introduction last season balanced things up again in the middle (I think Hesperus is a little harsh not to give him some credit along with Demichelis) and allowed Yaya to be more expressive again.

[Swiss]

I liked De Jong. From a defensive point of view he was very effective and he allowed Yaya the freedom to push forward and do some damage. I thought this was one of the keys to out Championship success under Manchini.

However, De Jong was less effective going forward (as goat and Hesperus point out). Not positive enough and too many lateral passes. I always thought we could do better - and with that prospect I was content to let him go. But as we all know, City failed to find better. Garcia turned out to be his hardly adequate stand in, and the result was catastrophic to our Championship defence. Without De Jong our entire central midfield duties fell on Yaya's shoulders and in my opinion effectively neutralised him as an attcking force for most of that season.

Fernandinho's introduction last season balanced things up again in the middle (I think Hesperus is a little harsh not to give him some credit along with Demichelis) and allowed Yaya to be more expressive again.

Yep, spot on, you wouldn't use him when you know a team would sit back against you (unless you were worried about counter attack strength) but where you needed to dominate the midfield in a 451 then his passing wouldn't matter too much as he could lay it off to the more attacking players easily.
He was also pretty good at linking the defence to attack... Could have done with him today!

If we're going to go 451 then we need to get rid of Dzeko and Bony and go for wide forwards with pace. 

[goat]

the thing is he was not a limited player, he was a quality box to box midfielder and could even do a quality job at rightback. might have been to do with him in a midfield with sneijder and van der vaart in holland  but the player we got from hamburg went backwards ( except his passing, that went sideways)