Im happy. Happy New year.
Manchester City 17/18 discussion | "If you're here for the Champions clap your hands" (#6505)
- Thread starter simonhch
- Start date
tell me, where have I criticised how Southampton played? I've no problem with teams parking the bus when they come to City, we should have scored a few but didn't take our chances. Last 10-15 mins there were numerous occasions where Forster was time wasting
You didn't deserve to win last night let's be honest.
probably not, but we did miss 3 or 4 really good chances although Soton had a couple of decent chances too, mostly from set pieces.
They're clear favourites for the title and all credit to them. Playing great stuff too so if they maintain it they're very worthy winners. But sterlings hoal and guardiola turning and hoisting his arms at each stand littered with blue seats encapsulates the club perfectly.
Disagree entirely that they will somehow become the future of football. They won the title 5 years ago and presently lead the league with some great football and are regulars in the champions league but still can't sell out a stadium. It's because there is no foundation to build on.
They will never ever be looked at in remotely the same light as Real Madrid, Barcelona, Bayern Munich, ac Milan, inter Milan, and even some other English teams. They are a project of a billionaire and presently a project of a short term manager. They will keep producing good teams and intermittently win titles similar to Chelsea, who also are nowhere remotely close to the level some predicted when they got taken over despite several titles and a champions league win.
Man City may be the forefront of this new instagram generation of football, and are on a par with psg in terms of credibility. But they will always, always be the team that was lucky enough for a billionaire to buy them. That's it. And the fans they buy now at an early age will have no real attachment other than the current team and staff which will change as often as pairs of socks. There's no history, no credibility and no legacy to build.
They'll buy and buy and buy as needed, might as well
Well saying that Saints time wasted for the whole of the 2nd half is criticising us how we played. The manager did as well. City forums are. Presume twitter is as well. But noted that you are realistic that people will park the bus. I have no problem with the result, and think you should have won more than us (obviously), although it is "annoying" to concede in the last minute. But when your manager comes out, assaults one of the opposition (well that might be an embellishment) and then criticises the opposition for not coming to play, that is just an arrogance and detachment from the reality of football.
I dont know What that proves. They didn't continue their dominance because another team had better players, a better manager and a more solid structure. Oh and supposedly less bad luck with refs. The unarguable fact is that while abramovich has been very successful they did not dominate or become the eminent force in British football. The level of success they have had, which is considerable, is as good as it can get for project clubs like this. There just is not the structure or ethos in place required for anything else.
I agree that that Chelsea team was very good.
Not bad but you could do better. You forgot to add in your little game of "Citeh bingo" that one day the sheikh will get bored and walk away. Tut tut
I don't see the point in getting heavily involved in a discussion with you as you have every right to defend your team and I'd expect you to. Removing emotion, there is something deeply comical about a great footballing moment like last night being played out in front of so many empty seats. I think the Chelsea template is as good as it can get for a club being invested heavily in and its great success. My personal opinion is that in spite of it, Chelsea have still failed to be added to what many would regard as the upper echelon of the game. I think city will have the same limitations, I don't mean to be derogatory and I don't think it's an especially controversial opinion. Equally, I respect your right to hope that some day they will be regarding in the same breath as historically gigantic clubs, but it would take decades of success and iconic players associated almost exclusively with the club with some sort of longevity.Not bad but you could do better. You forgot to add in your little game of "Citeh bingo" that one day the sheikh will get bored and walk away. Tut tut
I’m surprised people who believe in all that “mind games” nonsense haven’t speculated that he’s trying to goad Mourinho into trying to play football in the derby.
Should introduce youth players instead of throwing money at the problem at every opportunity.
dunno about that, 20 or 30 years of sustained success and they probably will be, i.e.Bayern never really started to be a successful team until the late 60's early 70's and it's just years of sustained success that people now call them a 'historic' club. Also wrt 'history' City have a long history, maybe not winning things but some fans nowadays only seem to correlate winning with history which imo is bollocks.
I didn't watch the match, but why did the game last 96 minutes. I mean, wtf!
And Southampton holding out for so long then capitulating in the last few seconds.
And Southampton holding out for so long then capitulating in the last few seconds.
The key difference to Chelsea is that Chelsea owner had limited money, while the Man City owners family are trillionaires themselves and are backed by the state of Abu Dhabi as well. So City have unlimited supply of money pouring in. That will ensure their dominance and growth of fan base globally. Children don't care where the money comes from, they care about winning.
They bought Guardiola's brother a club to ensure Guardiola stays with city long term. Guardiola won't leave when he knows he has a chance of becoming a billionaire at City. Chelsea now is a self sustaining club and that is why they blow hot and cold. City are a state funded club with infinite resources and will continue to spend. There is not that much comparison.
When you have a blank cheque book...why not buy Sanchez?
Just because we don't have the support base of a United or a Liverpool or an Arsenal at this stage, doesn't mean we never sell out our ground. It's been full plenty of times this season but a midweek night match against Southampton at the arse end of November was always going to have a fair few no-shows (Also, what many people fail to recognise is that a lot of clubs don't take up the full away allocation at our place so those tickets go back on sale to home fans and we invariably sell them as we did last night and have done for the Bournemouth game on 23rd December), not to mention early leavers. Personally, it's the latter that annoys me more as you wouldn't go to the cinema and leave before the end so unless they have a legitimate reason for it, why people do it at a football match is puzzling. Either way, the celebrations in the stands from those still there at that point were manic enough and there's nowhere else I'd have rather been.
I don't hope that some day we will be "regarded in the same breath as historically gigantic clubs". That said, City are actually getting a decent press for a change of late. But that's irrelevant to me in the grand scheme of things - I'm just enjoying the ride mate, and if it all went tits up tomorrow then so be it. I was there when we were shit and will be there if we ever go back to being shit. That's the whole point of being a football fan IMO.
there was a minimum of 5 mins of stoppage time, the goal was scored on 95:04, most refs don't blow when an attack is on the go or when the ball looks like it will be played into the box, if Sterlings shot had been saved the ref would have blown the whistle then in all likelihood
I agree history other than trophies should well regarded, but going from a team that Robinho hadn't heard of when signing just 8 years ago to be mentioned in the same breath as Barcelona or Real Madrid won't happen quickly and won't happen without a huge amount of other clubs challenging
It's easy to say this while they are winning, this 8 months ago people were wondering if he was about to jump ship. I'd be stunned if he was still at city in three years. I agree without doubt that city will continue to use money from Abu Dhabi to try win the league. But you're simplifying what it takes to build a fan base of any real depth. Take a ten year old now. He becomes a 'fan' and hypothetically in six years there's no more pep, and city are where united are now in a bit of transition. I just don't see how a team can buy a strength of connection and if they could then there wouldn't be so many empty seats last night, pause the build up to sterlings goal at 94:55 for an idea of just how far away they are from even getting people to fill the stadium now let alone become a global iconic sports team
City has got certain people vexed. Football, eh?
Maybe at the moment you're not considered 'a big historic club' because of your lack of fan base alongside lack of success. In time you'll attract plenty of young fans so in 20-30 years your fanbase is going to be bigger. Ultimately Mansoor would of got more of a fanbase faster if he bought Leeds or Newcastle or Villa because they're the big club in their region and don't have the country's most successful ever club on their doorstep hoovering up all the local fanbase
Can't disagree with much of what you're saying and don't blame you for enjoying some great stuff this season.
In a broader context, I see myself as pretty rational and fair minded any my years of blind venom towards opposition are gone, but I just never see city being one of the great teams and I think there's an expiry date on clubs run in such a way, football is changing so much that maybe even the very best will end up losing credibility as years go on, but I highly doubt city will ever reach a level higher than they are now. This is as good as it gets for them
I love this, for years we was called bitter and this is the kind of tripe spewed constantly. Every step of the way we was told we can't do this or do that. Got told the owner would get bored, got told we might have money but can't attract anyone, got told we might attract players but they will be mercenaries and would never gel, got told we would never win anything. Of course it will take time to get to the heights of Utd, when you dominate for nearly two decades it is a mountain to climb, just like how you climbed it to overtake Liverpool in honours. Don't worry about us, I would worry about yourselves. You had that massive head start on us and now we are better on/off the pitch. You have a bigger stadium though and more twitter followers so that's the real quiz I suppose. I can't see you found last night comical, I imagine you was too busy strangling the cat and googling empty seats at the Etihad.
Back to last night and Southampton got what they deserved, you can't time waste from the off then moan about added time. Don't mind teams parking the bus and trying to stop us playing but then you get the lengths of last night. Sterling shot at 95:02, everyone needs to stop complaining about us scoring in the 96th minute of 5 added minutes. It was 2 seconds over and we was on the edge of their box the ref cannot blow up there.
Chelsea are self sustained? What are City then? You miss the recent figures of how much money we make. I pity you lot.
Honestly think you're painting me with the wrong brush, read my last few posts - while you might disagree and have every right to, I'm not spewing venom or anger and don't think I'm pushing the boat out much with my assertions.
You're underestimating glory supporting, which has seen United being England's biggest club. What connection does a bloke from London or Yorkshire or Birmingham have to United? He doesn't but you still get plenty flooding into Old Trafford because they bought into the entertaining winning brand of football and have supported the club since.
If City are the most successful side playing the best football, they're going to get all the glory supporting 7-10 year olds who simply support the best team. In 10-15 years time many of these kids will be match goers.
Provided their current success has longevity and legs, which is not as foregone a conclusion as many make. Again I think Chelsea are a good example.
United didn’t deserve to win against Brighton, it’s all about just doing enough to get the 3 points as the games are really starting to stack up for both teams. Fergie was the master of not playing well but getting results.
January could be another heavy month with the top four potentially facing off against each other in the league cup semis. A lead can evaporate pretty quickly.
At the time it looked crazy to part company with Mou the first time but in hindsight i think it was correct. We were utterly dreadful at the start of 07/08, we could still defend for the most part but in attack we were toothless, utterly deviod of ideas and didn't look like scoring (something which only got better when Ten Cate came in to coach attacking drills). I think everyone just assumed he would have turned it around because he's Mourinho, but in hindsight especially with how he has dealt with bad moments since then im not too sure he would have.
Chelsea probably have a bigger global support these days than all English clubs bar United going off some of the figures I've seen with regards to shirt sales, etc.
I'm not in the least bit arsed about how many fans we have across the globe though - if the day ever came that there were more City fans in Ulan Bator than United fans and I started bragging about it, you'd have permission to shoot me. That said, I do recognise that it's important to the club to build up a global following.
United aren't the self proclaimed best footballing team in the world though are they? The dominating performances have dipped. That's evident.
Going on about winning when you don't deserve to being the haulmark of champions is correct but not as early as fecking November!
It was a weird game last night because while I never felt that we were at our best, we had more goal attempts and shots on target than in any other game recently. We created plenty of good goalscoring opportunities but many of the shots that we got on target weren't clinical enough and their keeper, while he did well and was kept busy, made a lot of relatively routine saves.
The whole reason United can somewhat match your financial might is our global fanbase/recognition. That is literally the only reason big clubs are always top. Obviously for City and PSG number of fans doesn't matter as much considering you have other sources of investment but for everyone else it is very important.
People aren't bragging about it just recognising its importance.
Give over mate. I've seen people on here openly bragging that United have way more fans in some remote town or city than City, or any other club for that matter. I think you were missing my point anyway - despite what you say, it is important to City that they build up that global fanbase. It's just that it's not something I'm ever going to cream my pants about.
Just a small heads up, we're experiencing a lot of City fans sign up. If you want to be like this poster:
Be like @M18CTID or @robinamicrowave.
then you'll be banned without a warning.
Be like @M18CTID or @robinamicrowave.
I'm honoured
That said, I can't deny that I can be an insufferable twat on here at times!Best of the worst or something like thatI'm honoured
120th min?
Guessing this how everyone felt when Stevie Bruce got those two goals against Sheffield Wednesday. seriously though, how much injury time have City been given this season?
Any objective person would not assert that City didn't deserve to win last night. It's fallacious at best.
Ok, City won very late, but one look at the stats confirms that Southampton were very lucky to not be behind by further in that match. You make your own luck in football, so to speak; when you play aggressive and offensive football you stack the odds in these things happening in your favour. I'd expect fellow United fans, more than anyone, to grasp this, since it was such a factor during SAF's reign.
City yesterday had 74% possession, 26 shots, 21 key passes. Comparatively, Southampton had 6 shots (2 on target).
Ok, City won very late, but one look at the stats confirms that Southampton were very lucky to not be behind by further in that match. You make your own luck in football, so to speak; when you play aggressive and offensive football you stack the odds in these things happening in your favour. I'd expect fellow United fans, more than anyone, to grasp this, since it was such a factor during SAF's reign.
City yesterday had 74% possession, 26 shots, 21 key passes. Comparatively, Southampton had 6 shots (2 on target).
Yes. They are relentless and keep on attacking the opposition which makes them buckle under the pressure. It's not a surprise, exact same thing happened under Fergie.
I'm clutching at straws, but their overall level of performance seems to be going down which is pleasing.