06 Jul 2024 07:57:36
With Liverpool being the people's champions and the only top club to not try to cheat with their finances. It is a reminder that good does defeat evil every now and then, so maybe this is the season that others get their comeuppance and leave the path clear for the righteous. One can only hope.
06 Jul 2024 08:27:02
You’re delusional NicolBecker. City will win the league at a cantor again. Unfortunately unlimited resources will always win out.
06 Jul 2024 08:32:25
Well said, NBG but you forgot to add that we don't buy refs either.
06 Jul 2024 08:42:45
So City are going to win the League at a synagogue, Vik?
06 Jul 2024 09:40:32
At a canter? We took them to the final day twice and Arsenal did it last season. This notion that City walk to the title each year is bizarre.
06 Jul 2024 09:01:48
When did Arsenal try to cheat with their finances?
{Ed002's Note - They didm't, it is simply trolling.}
06 Jul 2024 09:48:51
You are delude @Nicol. I can see all the top 5 spending lavishly. Arsenal are about to splash £50 mill on a center back in spite of having 4 already ?.
06 Jul 2024 10:02:21
I’d imagine the teams outside the big 6 also suspect the rules are bent in our favour. We’re allowed to
Spend more than them because we make more money than them, but we play in the CL most seasons and have bigger worldwide fan base (through success and history) which thus brings more sponsorship etc.
But if the lesser teams aren’t allowed to spend then how can they compete.
Prime example being Villa. Just qualified for CL and had to sell one of their better players to balance the books.
Imaging the big 6 having to do that.
06 Jul 2024 11:00:14
I think liverpools many fines from the FA for tapping up players would signal we don't follow the rules. I dunno where the people's champion remark comes from every club has 'people' following it. You're also conveniently forgetting the super league stuff and the fact the club were trying to put low paid staff on furlough.
It's important not to view things as good and evil it's extremely rare it's as black and white as that.
06 Jul 2024 11:05:38
Comparing any other team to City is going to make them seem that much more virtuous lol, the truth is that we're not the best behaved of teams either as far as promises being made to young player we sign, Klopp tapping players up and the like.
What galls me about City is not simply that they break the rules and get away with it, but it's also the fact that they have actually created a near foolproof formula for winning the title ever year, fuelled by their bottomless finances of course, but Guardiola's style of football, premised upon crafting a watertight system for keeping the ball forever with hyper technical players and carefully wearing away at teams without leaving yourself exposed on the counterattack, whether through meticulous rest defense positioning or tactical fouling, is just irritating to watch despite how people go on about how it's the best team in the world.
Okay, they may very well be the best team in the world, and individually they have some truly fabulous players with marvelous skillsets, Rodri is probably pound for pound the most crucial and influential midfielder on the planet, Ake is a superb defender, KDB etc., but what's the point of watching this team that is *supposed* to win every game, because they have a machine that is calibrated in such a way that it eliminates risk, a high-tech, high-end steamroller that, if it simply operates according to instructions on the label, slowly bludgeons every opposition to submission? Statistically City almost never loses the xG battle, a lot of games they lose or draw because of unforeseen individual mistakes or singular lapses of judgment. They might lose the ball for these reasons, not because they make a risky pass in traffic because they back themselves to get out of a sticky situation, which is what separates Pep from Klopp, and which is what makes the game fun to watch, like the Spain and Germany game last night, especially in the opening salvos of the first half. The opposite spectrum of that game, of course, would be similarly risk-allergic styles like that of Deschamps and Southgate, who I would argue begin from the same premise as Pep, which is you put fear of losing the ball first before all else.
This wouldn't be so bad if Guardiola ball wasn't seen as 'the' proper or 'best' way to play football in Europe, the smart way to safeguard results and avoid risk. Thankfully we are starting to see weird deviations from this, such as Xabi Alonso's somewhat more freewheeling style, Thiago Motta's or the somewhat bizarre hyper possession style of the guy who coached Las Palmas and has now gone to Sevilla (I believe? ) .
Sorry for the long rant. I'm hoping Slot makes us refreshing to watch, in an analogous (but far from identical) way as Klopp did. Whatever the case, even if City win, nobody really cares anyway, and they might deny it but the year that we won it will stick in people's minds more vividly than all the years City took it, not simply because they have money, but because in Pep's mind and everybody else's, they are expected to win before a ball is even kicked.
06 Jul 2024 11:24:13
@NBG, you need the friendship and companionship of people. Don’t be sitting up all night thinking daft 5hings, get out in the sunshine a bit more.
06 Jul 2024 12:29:07
City have won the league “at a canter” twice in 12 years.
06 Jul 2024 12:51:30
Agree City don’t always win it at a canter but they’ve still won the league 6 times in the last 7 seasons.
It doesn’t get much more dominating than that whether they win it by 1 point or 30 points.
We won ours at a canter and got the same trophy.
06 Jul 2024 13:45:18
They have had to earn it. There is some revisionist history that they’ve just walked to all those trophies.
Good teams aren’t good by fluke.
06 Jul 2024 16:26:27
JK, you mean like Liverpool having to sell Coutinho to buy Alisson and VVD? Clubs have always had to sell players to buy other players, this is nothing new it has a fancy label now.
06 Jul 2024 17:58:21
I would love to know what “people” we are referring to in “people’s” champions.
Most other fan bases absolutely hate us.
06 Jul 2024 18:01:28
Thunderbird yes we did mate.
But we didn’t have to sell Coutinho to avoid a points deduction. We sold him because he more or less forced a move through and then we replaced him with 2 world class players.
06 Jul 2024 20:17:13
Can I just give a shout out to patrik for using the word analogous - in my 10 odd years reading this site (before everyone jumps on me I don’t read every single post) - I’m not sure I’ve seen anyone say that. Well done. Good post too by the way.
06 Jul 2024 21:28:21
@JK23 Liverpool did the same in the late 70s early 80s and Utd in the 90s early 00s. It happens. It will be interesting to see what happens to City when Pep leaves.