Question: City - better or worse than the sum of the parts? If so why?

[Morph 19]

Puzzled by this whole question and want some opinions from the other readers of the forum.

I''ve seen several posts over the weekend about how we have a piss-poor squad compared the rest of the Premiership, yet we spent over £25M before the season start to improve that squad.

Surely the squad has improved just in financial terms, if not in playing terms. So it begs the question if the squad has not improved in playing terms is it because they are worse than the sum of the parts?

If they are playing worse than the sum of the parts, what has to happen to make them play better than the sum of the parts?

Martin Keown made some interesting comments in the lead up to the Arsenal game on radio yesterday about how Wenger always allowed his players to go out and express themselves even in the context or restrictions of his tactical setup. Get the impression that that is not happening here at City, and perhaps on a simply level is the reason we are currently worse than the sum of the parts. Do we have too many square pegs in round holes?

[Molly Windley 76]

Looking at the teams put out by clubs in the bottom 10 this weekend I would possibly only swap one or two players from each for one or two of ours.

All the teams are about the same level and an odd goal in a couple of games for any of the teams would turn the table (bottom half) upside down.

I cannot find the 2013 figures but I believe our wage bill was 37 million p/a compared to Man City whose bill was 202 million.

In terms of actual squad valuation we sit at 15th, with the bottom 10 teams in squad valuation terms sitting in the bottom ten places of the table.

To answer Martin Keown`s point, Arsenals squad value is 325 million ours is 77 million. Simply put, they have better players who keep and use the ball better, If we had Ozil, Carzola Wiltshire, Walcott etc I would ask them to express themselves too.

Steve Bruce said that your team are only as good as your strikers, the 10 lowest goal scoring teams are in the bottom 10 places.

I cannot find the quote but Sam Allardyce was asked how much he would improve his team by if given 30 million pound to spend. He said that he would expect around a 0.5% improvement for every 10 million spent.

In terms of squad and wages we are about where you should expect us to be.

[basil brush 0]

Michael Bailey was spot on earlier on the Q&A where he said that two years ago Norwich were better than the some of their parts - now the reverse is true.''

That essentially means that it is a failure in management by Chris Hughton. He underachieves with what he has bought and has no clue how to reverse the situation.

[peateabee 0]

I agree, for the majority of this season, if not the entirety, we have been worse than the sum of our parts. Often much worse. I honestly believe that this squad, if playing well is good enough to stay up, but It''s looking like it''s going to be awfully tight at the minute, unless something finally clicks into place.

[Scooby 0]

I agree too. Hughton does not know what to do with the squad he has assembled. He has bought 2 quality strikers but does not know how to coach a team, with some quality midfielders, to get the ball to the strikers.

The quality that our squad possesses SHOULD be able to score goals, but it doesn''t. Wherein lies the blame? I think even the most ardent Hughton fans will see the answer to that.

Give this same squad to a different manager? Who knows, but I would suggest that an attack minded coach would be able to get RvW, Elmander, Hooper, Fer, Snodgrass, Becchio, Redmond and Howson to put the ball in the back of the net. Is it not a concern that the likes of Rvw, Hooper and Becchio have alway been known for banging them in for fun? Until they came here that is and played ''our way''. The parts are all good (bar one), the sum, a disaster.