Antoni Sarcevic

Oh god, do not like that word compete. Competitive budget, competitive squad. Every team bloody competes we need to be the best or at least one of. I do think we've got one of the best squads in the league this time around, probably more because of how weak this league looks. Playoffs has to be the minimum because there are not 7 better squads in this league

 

Where have you been for the last 6 years?

 

Following City. I think that's why I instinctively read "competitive" in Sparks' voice.

 

Compete **

 

That's a bad blow. Another player on very good contract who will probably barely play for us.

 

It happens year after year, Pattison for one last year.

We seem to sign a lot of sick-notes at some cost to our playing budget.

 

Injuries are part of the parcel in football, we could have brought in 22 players who'd never had an injury and eventually it would still bite you. That said Stockport fans told us that Sarcevic was out with injuries last season and had become more susceptible as he got older, so not really a surprise. The club don't help themselves.

 

*Marquee signing* though.

Up by Christmas or summat.

 

Yeah it's looking like another window with some questionable scouting going on. The only one of our 3 promotion winners from last season who we will see between now and Christmas will be Neil Byrne, who managed just over 900 minutes of league football last season........ his minutes so far this season is already about half of the tally he played in the entirety of last season. Safe to say our recruiting winners policy has been tested!

 

Anyone know how medicals work and who conducts them?

I'm sure our key physios and fitness team left under a bit of a cloud at the end of the season, and new head of performance and head physio werent announced until July 23rd so I'm just wondering who would have conducted the medicals and signed off on those signed early summer like sarcevic and johnson

 

Maybe our wonderful C.E.O could see his way to having a policy created that investigates previous injuries and uses that information to either pursue a signing or run for the hills.

 

Don’t worry, it’ll be spun like having a “new signing” when he returns to fitness in the January transfer window.

 

Depends if they are done in house or at an external facility. I know from a Sky podcast thing before that Neville has said that Salford have their medicals done at a private hospital. Have no idea what the norm is on medicals? If most do their own and only a few go outside their setup? Or if most go outside to hospitals any only the clubs with some sort of on-sight medical facilities do their own? Would have thought most try do it in-house to keep deals closely known? Otherwise if a fan worked at like Yorkshire Clinic for example and watched the halls all July he might get a leak or two.

I know there was a thing before with Brentford and I think it was Brighton or Bournemouth too where some journo was breaking news stories on both clubs way before anyone knew and had a 100% track record for a while. People on a board were tracing how he was getting the info and the timings of the tweets. Someone from Brentford actually reached out to a guy on their message board who was trying to figure out the leak and compared where players were roughly when the tweets were coming out and it turned out a London journalist was paying certain club doctors for transfer deal info and leaked it out.

 

Man Utd sacked their physios and even they are still having as much luck as us with injuries signing multi million pound players!

 

Medicals are only a risk assessment to grade the risk of a player and how thorough a medical is depends on the commitment of the club i.e. a 6 month loan will have a quick medical whereas a player signing on a 3 year deal for 200k will be a lot more thorough.

The new head of performance was in the club from the start of pre-season as he was seen in the videos.

Injuries are part of football, Sarcevic has played over 500 career games so it is ridiculous for anyone to call him a sick note. Last season he played 37 games including 28 starts in the league.

 

I said last week I thought he was going to be out long term. You can always tell when the club don’t say much about an injured player it’s a bad one. Fingers crossed we get him back before the end me of the season or it’s another wasted wage.

 

Wasn't calling him a sick note per se, mine was more a general question due to our three new early signings all being ruled out before the end of the first month of the season

 

Very disappointing news, but less concerning than Pattison last year.

Sarcevic looked neat and tidy and a good addition, but hadn't looked like some elite level player or anything. Last season Pattison's early goals had me thinking he was going to easily score 10-15.

 

I still think the hype about Pattison was way over board last season off the back of a couple of 7/10 performances. If you want to raise your profile at city, then be in the physio room while the team under perform. You're stock will go through the roof in the eyes of city fans.

 

That's true, but he did look like literally the only player not named Cook who might score.

And when he was out, that's how it went. Only Cook could score.