Risk for most players at city is pep rotation. No fear of that with us. I just think we are still only at the tip of the iceberg for drastic failings at the club. We can't undo selling so many academy players and breaking the PL transfer record twice in one window as quickly as we managed to make those decisions.
For players looking at our club now, they know we are only 6 months away from having to transition away from Salah & Virgil (and soon Ali), meaning we lose 3 world class players in a very short amount of time. The transition period is going to be more drawn out than it needed it to be I fear.
For players like Guehi he probably looks at Konate and VvD a couple of seasons away from moving on and thinks "there's a big opportunity there to become a fixture in the starting lineup". At City that's less likely. At Madrid not a chance.
It's also likely that both Pep and Slot will be gone at season's end so I feel the manager is less relevant to the long term equation.
With regard to players leaving (Mo., this Summer), VvD (2 years?), Ali (3 years)? That needs to be balanced with those coming in. It's certainly the opinion of a vocal few on SCM that Wirtz and Isak were a waste of money but that most certainly
isn't the view of professionals, both ex (in the media everywhere) and current, where both are seen as top/world class.
You can add to those two (disregard current form): Szobo, Macca, Mama (who's looked great so GK seems to be covered) and Ekitike and that's a very high quality core of 7 starters (for the next 2 seasons), inc. VvD and Ali. A confident player will believe he can add to that and become the 8th and then believe we'll be in the market for more depth come the Summer.
So if players see us investing in (what in their opinion are) top class players they will have confidence that, regardless of our current woes, it will turn around and we'll be challenging for both PL & CL much sooner rather than later.
