Ashley Cole to Manchester City?

Another City dream bid? Or after Michael Ball's shortcomings, does this one have substance? 20 millions pounds are on the hypothetical table here. Believable or not?

No, Ball is a good player in my opinion, the entire City back line has been awful this year, so if they see the ideal fixer for this problem as Ashley Cole, not the most defensive minded left back of all time, they are entirely wrong. They need to solidify their central back line rather than the flanks.

If they're going to buy Ashley Cole this means they want to employ more attacking wide defenders and give Zabaleta more allowances to go forward etc. At the moment I can't think of any extremely good defensive central mid in their squad except Edwards favourite player Dietmar Hamann, and Vincent Kompany could probably play there, but honestly two players is not enough depth in a position requiring and immense physical presence.

Zabaleta is awful. If they were buying Cole it would be as a replacement for Zabaleta, rather than an aid.

Honestly I think the only members of their squad worthy of a top four challenge are Robinho, Richards and Ireland with the possible inclusion of Elano if Mark Hughes lets him play ever

Really, you cant leave out SWP, Jo, Joe Hart, to name a few. City are going the right way to becoming a decent threat to the English game. However if they can function as a team remains to be seen. Look at Aston Vila, they have few absolute world class players, with the exception of Barry, Young and maybe Agbondlahor, but they do function very well as a team.

In all fairness you can leave out SWP because he is very inconsistent, and you can leave out Jo because he hasn't adapted to the english game, and you can leave out Joe Hart because when was the last time you saw a good english goalkeeper. The last was David Seaman

You have a big grudge against SWP for some reason, yes he wasn't wonderful for Chelsea, he just didn't play! But you must be able to see that he is a decent player, good enough to play in a top 4 teams.

yeah well if he was good enough why didn't he play for Chelsea as they are clearly a top four team. He can't last a season and is not creative enough, which didn't suit Chelseas style of play, and certainly wouldn't now.

Key point, he doesnt suit Chelsea, it does not mean he is a bad player. The style doesnt suit the player and that does not mean that the player is poor for every team.

Or, considering he played under three different Chelsea managers who all had (slightly) different styles and if he can't fit in to any of those then he is clearly not a top quality player

managerial changes do not alter the make up of the team to a massive extent. He may well not have been able to play well with the Chelsea players, Lampard and Gerrard are an example of this, both good players however they cannot play together. Also, is this not supposed to be about Cashley Cole?

you can't seriously be saying that LFS and Mourinho have identical styles of play that both suit the same players