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They were lucky, Klopp was dealt a really bad hand this year. If we had a full strength squad we could have been much closer. Well done Pep, again showing why you'll go down in history as a world great. Probably, will extend his contract now, there is no reason for him to go anywhere else.
Easy when you have a bottomless pit of money.. City shannigans alongside PSG and Chelsea before them over the last decade is why football is dying as a 'competitive' sport
They get no appreciation from me..
Plastic club.. with bitter plastic fans, buying their way to success..
They get no appreciation from me..
Plastic club.. with bitter plastic fans, buying their way to success..
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We should definetly give them more credit. Its not easy to get the results they’ve achieved by: having 2-3 great teams in 1 squad, rotating 7-8 players from game to game, 300 mill £ of talent on the bench, bottomless oilpit of money in a pandemic and spending millions on lawyers to keep them out of court and getting caught.
Its such a massive achievement to win something this year. God knows how they pulled it off.
Its such a massive achievement to win something this year. God knows how they pulled it off.
I hate how good Foden is.
I also find it strange nobody is talking about the fact he’s a 20 year old called Phil.
I also find it strange nobody is talking about the fact he’s a 20 year old called Phil.
They've finally reached a CL final. Even Spurs managed that before them. Spurs!
The top 4 teams in the CL this year:
Real Madrid - Worlds richest club.
PSG - Oil
City - Oil
Chelsea - Oil
These teams are only achieving the bare minimum of what they should be. It demonstrates how fucked the modern game has become.
The top 4 teams in the CL this year:
Real Madrid - Worlds richest club.
PSG - Oil
City - Oil
Chelsea - Oil
These teams are only achieving the bare minimum of what they should be. It demonstrates how fucked the modern game has become.
I hope Dreamy loves this post.
People showering Pep with all this love - he'll have to win the next 3 leagues and 3 of the next 4 CLs to be in Bob's bracket.
He goes to clubs which allow him to think he's God's gift to football. His next challenge? I'm sure Juventus, or maybe PSG if they're struggling in 2nd place, will need a manager who can resurrect clubs that are struggling financially etc.
The team, in all seriousness, is good but they should have been flogged out of the tourney last year - it's why the SL almost came to be, it why it likely will be as they are cheaters. Perfectly exemplified by Fernandinho - a great player but one who should be getting yellows every single fucking game, if not half.
Shit club, shit history and it makes me cringe that I'm hoping that Real or Chelsea embarrass them.
And @Dreambeliever - fuck Foden. Go gush about him at Blue Moon.
People showering Pep with all this love - he'll have to win the next 3 leagues and 3 of the next 4 CLs to be in Bob's bracket.
He goes to clubs which allow him to think he's God's gift to football. His next challenge? I'm sure Juventus, or maybe PSG if they're struggling in 2nd place, will need a manager who can resurrect clubs that are struggling financially etc.
The team, in all seriousness, is good but they should have been flogged out of the tourney last year - it's why the SL almost came to be, it why it likely will be as they are cheaters. Perfectly exemplified by Fernandinho - a great player but one who should be getting yellows every single fucking game, if not half.
Shit club, shit history and it makes me cringe that I'm hoping that Real or Chelsea embarrass them.
And @Dreambeliever - fuck Foden. Go gush about him at Blue Moon.
Whatever, I've long suspected City will win the CL this year. They're one of the most expensively assembled collections of technically brilliant footballers, so it's no surprise they're good. If they've had one weakness, it's that they can wilt under pressure or yield to a physical battle.
Without crowds, it's basically training ground football. And on the training ground, the technically superior team will win 9 times out of 10.
They'd have shat their pants as usual with full stadiums.
Without crowds, it's basically training ground football. And on the training ground, the technically superior team will win 9 times out of 10.
They'd have shat their pants as usual with full stadiums.
Maybe this’ll cheer you up.
The Man City supporters go to my old pub in Melbourne to watch games.
This morning, the manager slept in and they all had to stand outside in the lonely, cold darkness of Melbourne at 5am in the morning.
They missed half the game before he turned up to let them in.
The Man City supporters go to my old pub in Melbourne to watch games.
This morning, the manager slept in and they all had to stand outside in the lonely, cold darkness of Melbourne at 5am in the morning.
They missed half the game before he turned up to let them in.
I hope a plane crashes into the stadium instantly killing everyone involved with the club and whatever scummy club they are playing.
Elliott will be better.
They been amazing but that’s with begruding respect if you can call it that.
Also, they give me hope we can rebuild with a 3 signings and tinkering. They are effectively in terms of team make up and manager, nearest thing to us in the league.
Next season:
- sign 3 first teamers
- keep and trust Klopp
- get the fans back in stadium
- build some of the lost confidence. Mane and Robbo especially. Give them a mental break and some love, whatever is needed.
See you in Aug...
Also, they give me hope we can rebuild with a 3 signings and tinkering. They are effectively in terms of team make up and manager, nearest thing to us in the league.
Next season:
- sign 3 first teamers
- keep and trust Klopp
- get the fans back in stadium
- build some of the lost confidence. Mane and Robbo especially. Give them a mental break and some love, whatever is needed.
See you in Aug...
By any reasonable metric City should win the league every season given the financial advantages they have. Objectively they have some superb players and one of the greatest managers in the modern era, when you combine that with unlimited resources then it's not exactly a level playing field.
At some point Guardiola will move on and the squad will need a rebuild but as long as they can spend £200m a year on reserve fullbacks then they are going to win the title more often than not. The ship has sailed on enforcing FFP which was the most realistic barrier to them establishing a Juve/PSG long term stranglehold.
One of the things that surprised me in all the Super League noise was how few people commented on the fact that most of Europe's top league are boring as fuck now anyway as the same teams win every year.
At some point Guardiola will move on and the squad will need a rebuild but as long as they can spend £200m a year on reserve fullbacks then they are going to win the title more often than not. The ship has sailed on enforcing FFP which was the most realistic barrier to them establishing a Juve/PSG long term stranglehold.
One of the things that surprised me in all the Super League noise was how few people commented on the fact that most of Europe's top league are boring as fuck now anyway as the same teams win every year.
I'd say they feel better this season than last.
This is the latest ongoing case, which isnt talked about at all. This time with the Premier League.
Manchester City and Premier League Wage Secret Fight Over Cost Controls
City, the Gulf-backed soccer team on the cusp of a fourth English Premier League title, is fighting an investigation over financial control rules.
Manchester City has spent millions of dollars defending itself since the allegations first emerged.Credit...Scott Heppell/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images
By Tariq Panja
May 4, 2021
LONDON — Manchester City, the English soccer team that is on the cusp of winning the Premier League for the third time in four seasons, is involved in a secret legal battle with the league over whether it complied with financial rules as it surged to become one of the sport’s dominant forces.
The Premier League has been tight lipped since confirming in 2019 that it was looking into City’s finances a few months after the German news weekly Der Spiegel, citing internal club information, said the club had disguised direct investment by its owner, Sheikh Mansour, as sponsorship income. City has always insisted it has not broken any regulations and on Tuesday it again denounced the stolen documents as “out-of-context materials purported to have been criminally obtained” and then published as part of an “organized and clear attempt to damage the club’s reputation.”
City has spent millions of dollars defending itself since the allegations first emerged. Its lawyers are fighting against the league’s arbitration process, arguing that the club will not get a fair hearing, according to documents. The Premier League did not reply to a request for comment.
City is challenging the Premier League in Britain’s civil courts, where hearings have been held behind closed doors, and where publication of material related to the case has been kept confidential despite intense public interest in the case. It is not known what action the Premier League would take if it found City to have breached its rules. Penalties in its rule book include points deductions and fines.
Manchester City Gets One Step Closer to Its Ultimate Purpose
May 4, 2021
City, backed by the billionaire brother of the crown prince of Abu Dhabi, one of the richest men in the world, waged a successful battle in 2020 when it won an appeal against a two-year ban from the Champions League after being found to have breached separate cost control rules by the European soccer governing body, UEFA. City won its case at the Switzerland-based Court of Arbitration after convincing judges that a time limit had elapsed on the evidence against it. The Premier League’s rules do not have similar deadlines.
City needs only one more victory to wrap up its third Premier League championship in four years. It is also on a charge toward a bigger prize this season: its first Champions League crown. On Tuesday it eliminated Paris St.-Germain, another Gulf-controlled club, to seal its first trip to the final, on May 29 in Istanbul.
The case is taking place against the backdrop of major scrutiny of owners in English soccer. A protest by fans of City’s crosstown rival, Manchester United, led to its game against Liverpool being postponed on Sunday after the two clubs joined City and three other English teams in signing up to a planned breakaway European competition. The plans were abandoned within 48 hours after a torrent of criticism and the threat of government action.
Still, City won plaudits after becoming the first of the rebel English clubs to announce it had backed away from the project.
City’s battle against the Premier League bears the hallmarks of its approach in the UEFA case. Before finding salvation through a technicality in the rules that set a five-year time limit on the infractions eligible for punishment, the club tried to have the case thrown out at the CAS before UEFA had even ruled.
City’s stance in the Premier League case is a second major recent assault on the league’s governance structures. The owner of Newcastle United started legal action last fall against the league after it failed to clear a sale to Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund.
City’s relationship with UEFA has strengthened significantly since it successfully appealed the Champions League ban. UEFA resisted appealing the CAS judgment even after Der Spiegel published new revelations that appeared to cast doubt on some of the evidence a senior City official provided to the court.
UEFA told The New York Times in a statement that it had sought legal opinion on the chance of appealing the CAS decision after Der Spiegel published new emails. “The clear view was that such an appeal would stand little chance of success in forcing CAS to rehear the case and on the slim chance it did, the chance of success at a second hearing was also limited. A similar view was also taken on the possible success of a prosecution under the UEFA disciplinary framework,” said UEFA.
Its president, Aleksander Ceferin, praised City personally, issuing a statement minutes after the team last month became the first to withdraw from the proposed breakaway competition.
While the superleague proposals continue to attract widespread criticism, those involved in the negotiations insist part of the rationale behind them was to cool rampant spending that has imperiled the futures of some of the elite clubs as they seek to keep up with teams backed by wealthy benefactors, particularly those controlled by the Gulf nation states.
Documents reviewed by The Times showed each team would have had to submit detailed financial information to financial auditors, as well as agree to rules forbidding owners from artificially inflating teams’ balance sheets. Penalties for breaches included a suspension or ban from the competition, as well as millions of dollars in fines.
City’s backers say existing rules have been designed to keep historically dominant clubs from facing competition from up-and-coming teams. Sheikh Mansour has plowed more than $1 billion into turning City into the dominant force in English soccer over much of the past decade. His largess has been spent on acquiring top executives, players and Pep Guardiola, the pre-eminent manager of his generation.
City has also spent millions on rejuvenating the deprived Manchester neighborhood where it plays its home games, building new facilities and creating jobs in an area that had suffered from high unemployment.
Yeah but it's still shite from what I read.
Not sure if you're being sarcastic but not from me mate. They can buy all the success they want but they buy can't mine or a lot of fans respect. They may win a competition they knowingly broke the rules on and would have been banned from it save a few expensive lawyers and some time limitations bullshit. Curb their spending in the next few years (doubt they will) and they may get some. I get they needed to pay catch-up but they reached that level some time ago and they're just taking the piss now. They're as big a problem for football as any vaunted ESL. The reason club owners wanted the ESL is that they can't keep pace with the oligarch/oil state funded teams. Carries on it'll just be their own little cartel they're creating where it's near impossible for any teams to win top honours apart from the richest - it'll soon become tedious.
And the Polish Messi Mateusz Musialowski
And the Polish Messi Mateusz Musialowski
He can piss off. I can spell Elliott.
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