Do City leave you cold?

Rooney in Paris

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I wonder if them going for 40-80 million pound players is down to Pep's football communism were stars are a problem or if its down to City being aware of the fact that most transfers over £100 million don't actually work.
Karl Marx turning in his grave
Lecister were the worst champions.
What do you mean?
 

Vaultech

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It was just much more fun all round. Proper wingers, full backs who could defend, centre backs whose main job was defending. Centre mid who could do some of everything, and a proper 2 up front.

Just seemed to be a tonne of depth of both strikers and defenders.
Compare the English strikers now to then for instance, it's outrageous what a drop off in quality there is.
And this Man City team and Liverpool will ripe those teams apart for being so tactially open.

Like it or not, there's a reason why top teams aren't playing like they used to in the 90s and early 2000s.

And the Utd fanbase needs to stop being so nostalgic with the past. Being nostalgic is.why Ole got hired and it was so hard to sack him.
 

That_Bloke

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And back then people were probably pining for whatever the trend was in the 80s.

I remember over lockdown watching the Arsenal/Chelsea UCL quarter final in 2004 and what really stuck out was how simplistic the transitional plays were compared to today and that was the two best teams in the country at that point.

As annoying as Pep's domination has been from the perspective of someone who's hoping their team can challenge his presence has vastly upped the standards of the PL as a whole. The improvement of English teams in Europe goes without saying but back then the gegenpress/pressing managers were being branded as a hipsters trend (even Pep was supposedly going to get found out in this league) while we were enabling the likes of Pardew and Bruce while genuinely trying to pass them off as quality managers at PL level. Even the managers of that ilk who do have some use like Allardyce and Pulis have been struggling to compete in this division, even the one below in the latter's case. Moyes and to an extent Roy are the only one's who's managed to adapt and navigate this new age.

I have no doubt the standard not just at the top but below in this country has improved 100x over since the 00s.
First sensible post in this thread in a long, long time.
 

totaalvoetbal

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This current iteration of Manchester City reminds me of Ajax back in the 90s when Louis van Gaal was our manager. A lot of Ajax fans even back then said that we played boring football even while we dominated teams and a lot of older ajacid said that Louis van Gaal put a shackle on our wingers from going one vs one.

The thing is Pep has, either through necessity or by his own intended design, made this current Manchester City team about absolute control. His fear of the counter attacking transitions as well as the lack of rapid players has basically forced him to become even more control oriented. It's no surprise as Pep Guardiola praised Ajax heavily and liked our football from back then.

Both teams use positional play from back to front.
 

Dansk

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They are completely and utterly soulless. Football is a game of passion, it’s not all about technique. I don’t even think Man City fans enjoy their success if they are being honest.

Its almost impossible to enjoy any success when you haven’t been on a journey to earn it. This is a bad comparison but a job promotion means a million times more to someone who worked hard and deserved it than someone getting a job because their dad is CEO.
Yeah, it's like buying a full stamp collection and then calling yourself a stamp collector because you have a full collection.
 

Dansk

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You don't get credit for buying £60-80m players instead of £100m+ players if you're buying several of the former every season. They have also tried to sign top-shelf players but weren't able, it's not as if they elect not to do it. Besides, they just bought Grealish for £100m, didn't they?

And it has always been a highly credible rumor that they pay additionally under the table in order to circumvent FFP (before that became a complete joke) so I wouldn't be surprised if they've spent like 25% more than what's reported. Under no conceivable circumstances can City or Pep be commended for restraint in spending.

They are literally the highest-spending team in the world. Nobody else spends that much. Bizarre for anybody to praise them for frugality when they spend the most out of anybody in the history of sports altogether, isn't it?
 

PolkaPig

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Amazing analogy.
Amazing? Not really. There are collections and collectors. One lucky guy bought a great collection, another spent the same amount ending up with a crap collection. I can understand that the collector with the crap wants to question the lucky guy, but in the end, it's most likely more about bitterness and jealousy than anything else.
 

Cutiepatootie

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Amazing? Not really. There are collections and collectors. One lucky guy bought a great collection, another spent the same amount ending up with a crap collection. I can understand that the collector with the crap wants to question the lucky guy, but in the end, it's most likely more about bitterness and jealousy than anything else.
Ha ha, pipe down with such romantic dribble, This deluded fantasy that the trophies that the UAE's billions have bought, (at outrageously inflated record cost), is just plucky little City getting lucky, is utter state propaganda and the persons who ignorantly spout such rubbish are what's referred to as 'useful idiots'.

We really don't know how many £billions the barbaric UAE have paid to sportswash their most brutal regime with their human rights abuses of immigrants and minorities at home and their continuing murder of innocent people in neighbouring Yemen.

Not only do they cheat our FFP rules and threaten our autoritues with law suits but they also invent companies from the UAE for fake sponsorships. It's well known that they cook their books big time, even paying former managers into two bank accounts. How many others are fattening their wallets in backhand payment ?

Who knows what they really pay Guardiola, Txisi and the whole backroom staff they were allowed lift out of Barcelona. Pep's brother was even bought a football team. They buy defenders for £50m + who they don't like. No matter, just buy another one Pep, who doesn't work out. No worries here's another £59m plus to buy another and yet another and so on until one eventually works.
Then it's "wow we were so lucky that worked out. Our Pep really must be a genius" :)

The truth is Pep is the wallet stuffing front of an horrific blank cheque, sportswashing propaganda machine whose only reason to pump in unknown and unprecedented £billions, is to tap into football's global audience, to pretend that their barbaric oligarch nation is a legitimate modern liberal progressive state, thereby pumping £billions to cover up the reality of their barbaric treatment of immigrants and minorities, their imprisoning and disappearing of lgbt and prodemocracy and human rights advocates as well as their ongoing brutal slaughter of vulnerable innocent Yemeni population.

We've rightfully, thankfully got rid of the butcher Abramovic and his oligarchic blood money now we really need to pressure the authorities to likewise get rid of the barbaric Mansour and the UAE out of City and eject the murderous Saudi regime from Newcastle.
 
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PolkaPig

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Ha ha, pipe down with such romantic dribble, This deluded fantasy that the trophies that the UAE's billions have bought, at outrageously inflated record cost, is just plucky little City getting lucky is utter state propaganda and the persons ignorantly spouting it are what's referred to as useful idiots.

We really don't know how many £billions the barbaric UAE have paid to sportswash their most brutal regime with their human rights abuses of immigrants and minorities at home and their continuing murder of innocent people in neighbouring Yemeni.

Not only do they cheat our FFP rules but they also invent companies from the UAE for fake sponsorships. It's well known that they cook their books big time, even paying former managers into two bank accounts. How many others are fattening their wallets in backhand payment ?.

Who knows what they really pay Guardiola, Txisi and the whole backroom staff they were allowed lift out of Barcelona. Pep's brother was even bought a football team. They buy defenders for £50m + who they don't like. No matter, just buy another, who doesn't work out. No worries buy another and yet another until one works.
Then "wow we were so lucky that worked out. Our Pep really must be a genius" :)

The truth is Pep is the front of an horrific sportswashing propaganda machine whose only reason to pump in unknown and unprecedented £billions, is to tap into football's global audience, to pretend that their barbaric oligarch nation is a legitimate modern liberal progressive state, thereby pumping £billions to cover up the reality of their barbaric treatment of immigrants and minorities, their imprisoning and disappearing of lgbt and prodemocracy and human rights advocates as well as their ongoing brutal slaughter of vulnerable innocent population.

We've rightfully, thankfully got rid of Abramovic's oligarchic blood money now we really need to put pressure on the likewise get Mansour out of City and Saudi from Newcastle.
Human rights is always important to you Cutiepatootie? You wouldn't buy a product from China? You want Bush and Blair in jail for the Iraq war?
 

Cutiepatootie

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Human rights is always important to you Cutiepatootie? You wouldn't buy a product from China? You want Bush and Blair in jail for the Iraq war?
Please...!

You really do need to come up with something a lot better than this shameless, propaganda-parroted, infantile 'whataboutery', if you seriously want to have any level of persuasion at all in your argument that attempts to defend the barbaric UAE's sportswashing programme at City, thus in your 'useful idiot' complicity and your proactive effort to cover up their barbaric treatment of vulnerable minorities at home and their butchery of innocents in Yemen.

In my opinion Blair and Bush are indeed war criminals but just like China they do not own City and Newcastle. The murdering and barbaric UAE and Saudi do own City and Newcastle.
 

Jed I. Knight

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Amazing? Not really. There are collections and collectors. One lucky guy bought a great collection, another spent the same amount ending up with a crap collection. I can understand that the collector with the crap wants to question the lucky guy, but in the end, it's most likely more about bitterness and jealousy than anything else.
I don’t know if you’re being deliberately obtuse or not, but I’ll humour you.

The analogy obviously went above your head. To a passionate collector, it is more about the community, the lifestyle, and “the journey”. Someone with a “complete collection” but none of the buy in into the lifestyle and community will be more of a curiosity than anything else.

That’s why it’s a great analogy, in my opinion. Because as far as I’m concerned, City is nothing more than a state funded curiosity :-)
 

JJ12

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I wonder what their games TV ratings are like compared to Liverpool and United (title challenging days)

Wonder if it impacts sky/BT at all.
 

RedorDead21

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That’s easy to say when they’re pelting so much cash about that wasting £50m on the likes of Mangala makes no difference whatsoever.

Never mind the fact that their ridiculous spending has made the transfer market inordinately more difficult for us and every other legitimate club.
that’s pretty much irrelevant as we were that club to everyone else for decades. Also we are terribly run, have a long list of not elite managers since SAF and have a really poor transfer record in that time. It’s embarrassing how poorly run we are on pretty much every level. Yet spending prob in the top 3 across Europe the past 7-8 years.
 

FlawlessThaw

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Laporte trolls United.
I sort of go along with the essence of the thread and feel like their success really doesn't bother me as much to the point where Laporte feels he needs to throw a dig in.
 

Buster15

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Yes. Very much so.
Despite all their undoubted footballing talent and performances, they are like watching a top quality orchestra play a piece of music you have heard hundreds of times before.
All very good. All in tune. But not really thrilling. And almost always the same.
 

MUW4Eva

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Yes, it is why I can take them winning the league over Liverpool.

There is nothing there to really connect to the past, ti before the takeover, it is like a shiny new club, with no soul, all just for the here and now.

How many of their current fans know who Rosler, Kinkladze, or Bernibia were for them??

They are just a club who run as a showpiece for the owner to use to justify themselves, nothing more than that.

I feel nothing when they win anything, whereas with Liverpool, it is very much painful to watch, see or even know that they have won something.

It is the same no matter the gender of the team.

City are just a meaningless, empty vessel.
 

LawCharltonBest

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If I were the owner of United, I would be banging on the forbidden door and making a pitch to Guardiola.

Only maybe 1% chance of it working but firstly I'd make him the highest paid manager in the World and tell him that he's won a lot at city but the next time he wins the Champions League, does he want it to have been with Barcelona and United, two clubs with soul and fire. Because if the next time he wins it, it's with city, well nobody will really give a shit.
 

iHicksy

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When you see how empty their stadium is it just drives home how they aren't a real football club anymore so them winning things the way they have doesn't annoy me in a football rival sense because it looks and feels so hollow. Where as I hate seeing Liverpool win.
 

Hammondo

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We definitely are the club they hate the most - it’s not even a question
Yea that's true, but we are not the club they pay attention to the most. Honestly they like mocking us, but they generally are not taking much notice.
 

Berbasbullet

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Yea that's true, but we are not the club they pay attention to the most. Honestly they like mocking us, but they generally are not taking much notice.
So yes you agree we are their biggest rival. Obviously in a sporting way were not, but actual fan rivalry of course we are.
 

Hammondo

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So yes you agree we are their biggest rival. Obviously in a sporting way were not, but actual fan rivalry of course we are.
I guess yea, I just don't think they put much effort into it. Looking at the City fans I know, they generally are just happy with the football, not too bothered by us. I think part of it is because they know they cannot catch us up, but Liverpool is about equal in achievements.
 

Prodigal7

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The key takeaway from this thread is that loads of our fans are a bunch of anarchists who appreciate simple adrenaline rushes more than good football…. Not saying that’s wrong, but that seems to be the take.
Success is born from being ruthless and good. You would never win the PL now playing the way SAF did in the 90s and it would be a struggle even playing like we did in 2008, that’s how much the game has moved on. Make no mistake we would be doing what city are doing if SAF didn’t feck up in letting Pep go to city. The moment pep leaves they will fall apart and I think city know that, it’s only a temporary phase for them.
 

Gentleman Jim

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We definitely are the club they hate the most - it’s not even a question
You're right, but the gap is narrowing.

Not just the current on field battles making City fans disliking Liverpool but the other stuff such as team bus wrecking, database hacking, media favouritism, "this means more" arrogance from them make them pretty detestable to the Average Bert.
 

Gentleman Jim

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The moment pep leaves they will fall apart and I think city know that, it’s only a temporary phase for them.
Do you really believe that or is it just blind optimism?
City won every domestic honour and reached CL SF before Pep arrived under second tier Managers and can now attract pretty much any Coach they want to succeed Pep.
When that person arrives they will find a well balanced, hard working squad, a good flow of youth prospects to tap into and a good set of executives to work with.
Nothing is certain in football but they are well set to not lose too much when he does leave.