Not entirely true. The false positive rate is low doesn't mean getting a false positive is an unlikely event (Bayes theorem etc)
Pep - Doping (?) | Are PEDs being used by footballers
- Thread starter JoaquinJoaquin
- Start date
Interesting last paragraph. Does anyone else get the impression that the football authorities see players taking recreational drugs (cocaine for example) as far more of a taboo than the possibility of players/teams blood doping?
For example, didn’t Mutu get sacked and sued by Chelsea for doing coke?
The important thing is what the court thinks, after that you can speculate all you want, however, that would be a waste of time since nothing will come out of it.
In my experience football supporters in the UK (by this I mean those that actually support a club by attending games) have a high regard of Manchester City. Virtually every club in England does not win trophies and spends most of its time 'achieving the square root of sod all'. When City were dismal their fans supported the club with fabulous loyalty despite the lack of success, in exactly the same way that supporters of the likes of say, Plymouth, Sunderland or Derby County do. As has been said a million times on here, City fans know they won the lottery with the investment from Sheikh Mansour. I l live in London and meet many supporters of rival clubs, they all love the football City play and match going fans remember the support City had when they were in the lower divisions. I find that most football fans give City great credit.
I'm extremely proud of my club and of being a supporter.
So it should too.
If it wasn't for investors, you'd be kidding yourself to say city would even be in the PL. Instead you've got one of the best teams in the World. Why wouldn't you enjoy the situation? I'd expect you to.
City will win a great deal, PLs, CLs, World Club Cups.. It just won't matter when they do.
To be fair, and this kind of negates your last point, oddly there seems to be a lot more fawning over City on here from some United fans these days, and it’s often the regular City fans that try and dampen things down a bit.
Last edited:
Yep. I think they like the idea that football is so pure that testing isn't needed. Even though there are incidents going back to the 50s that say players and even whole teams have doped. Why doping would be less common now, with more money involved isn't obvious to me.
Personally my suspicions have always been aimed at so called big game teams/players who have a mediocre season only to suddenly become unstoppable at a World Cup etc. I actually trust the consistently good teams more.
The other groups that seem like high risk to me are young players chasing that first big contract, hearing they need to toughen up/go faster etc. When you hear that the richest match in football is the Championship playoff, you've got to wonder what pressure is on them to get that last percent out of the players.
All i'm trying to say with my last point is that, for me, there's something romantic about big teams winning big trophies.
Liverpool winning the CL, United winning the CL, Barcelona.. It's a big deal. Huge clubs steeped with histories of some of the best players the world has seen. It's movie worthy.
City or Chelsea winning it is not. People will look and say "wow brilliant bunch" but it's not romantic, it doesn't do football any good. Ask people around the World about the most memorable CL campaign and very few will say Chelsea winning it. It's forgettable, a skip year. Like city winning it would be after all was set and done.
Good balanced post. As for mediocre teams, the 5000-1 winners of the 2015/16 Premier League perhaps? There seems to be a fair bit of, albeit, circumstantial evidence surrounding them. Things like being one of the least fittest teams in terms of distance covered to one of the most and that was over the space of a couple of weekends at the back end of the season before.
Fair enough and you’re entitled to your opinion. I do think there was a lot of romance attached - amongst neutrals - to the way we won it in 2012.
I could not disagree more. The odd upset makes for an incredible story that is long remembered. Leicester winning the Premier League, Wimbledon winning the FA Cup, Chelsea winning the Champions League against a European giant at their own ground. The same old teams winning the same trophies year after year is boring as feck for everyone apart from supporters of those sides.
Ask someone (who is a football fan but not a United or Barca fan) what happened in the 2011 final and they'd draw a blank. Ask the same person about the 2012 final and the'd know exactly what happened.
2012?
I said ask someone who is not a United or Barca fan. Everyone knows you're Barca though and through.
I think speaking more broadly it is generational. Kids born in 2000 are going to see Chelsea on a similar level to United whereas as folks born in 1970 see Liverpool differently to someone who was born in 1990 and so on.
Same with injured players as well. There's no way they don't take anything to keep their strength/muscle, and accelerate their recovery. It's no surprise they jump back in so quick after major injuries
Like Zlatan
That’s why I find Thiago Alcantara ducking a dope test whilst he was injured at Bayern suspicious, of course he is highly linked to the Guardiola family too.
Well that's a different point. You said Chelsea winning it in 2012 was seen as "forgettable" and a "skip year", because we were not a historically big club.
I'd argue the people remember finals because of the actual games and moments in those games, regardless of the historical stature of the clubs invloved. That's why the '99 win for you lot is so special, because of the dramatic ending. If you'd been 3-0 up at half-time and the game had ended 3-0, I'd probably not be able to remember who scored. As it is I can even remember exactly where I was when I watched it. I can't say the same about too many other finals.
If Man City beat Barcelona 5-4 in this years final, nobody is going to think "meh, who cares about Man City, they were shit in the 90s".
I mean worldwide.
They run a lot and never look tired.
I think its due to emotional doping coming from the charismatic manager.
I think its due to emotional doping coming from the charismatic manager.
No United fan on this forum is ‘fawning’ over City. What you may be trying to describe is a certain type of fan (perhaps younger, perhaps over entitled), venting about City to highlight disatisfaction at their lives and United.
‘Fawning’ better describes most City fans attitudes toward Mansour, a year round Father Christmas figure that like little kids they can’t quite believe, and are certainly ready to completely and utterly overlook, or remain purposefully unaware, of his record of extreme human rights abuses (we are moving away from Father Xmas here btw), the fact that to compound this this you chose to sell part of the club to CHINA!!! One of the very few countries to have an equally appalling track record.
At the end of the day, nothing you say will convince yourself that in 10 years time any of your achievements will mean a shit to you or anyone else.
Your extreme financial (if not actual) doping will cause it’s own correction, and these years be seen as an aberration.
There is no other end point possible really if you apply a modicum if thought.
Fixed it for you.
Caring?
He is actually a United fan on a United forum, pal. What’s your excuse?Never mind Pep-Doping, Ciddy had Peter Doping who moved on to Stoke in the 60s/70s
Let's finish 2nd. If they got caught doping , we will be crowned champion
Errr, ok - thanks for clearing that up mate. Let’s revisit this post in 10 years time. You might have made another dozen posts by then, given that you’ve made a grand total of 4 since you joined up over 2 years ago.
He's been banned.Caring?
At times I feel we are becoming like those on Rawk and Bluemoon when it come to name calling and stuff and allegations. But I guess we will never ever go till their level of delusion, because they feel that every time they lose or draw it's someone else's fault and they deserve to win everytime, But on here we become overly pessimistic.
I'm sure it's just a complete coincidence that his players magically experience feats of physical endurance that are noticeably above other teams abilities..
I really can't wait until those Fuertes blood samples are finally checked. It's too late for bans or punishments, but at least it'll finally blow the lid off this whole thing.
I really can't wait until those Fuertes blood samples are finally checked. It's too late for bans or punishments, but at least it'll finally blow the lid off this whole thing.
Somewhat unfairly IMO. I know there’s been an influx of new City posters on here of late and not all are posting to what is deemed a requisite standard but he’d racked up 5 likes in 50-odd posts which surely indicates he was contributing to the forum in a positive manner (put it this way, it took me a lot more than 50+ posts to get to 5 likes!), but as soon as he responded to what was a withering attack on the club and fans it got him a ban. Meanwhile, the resident Spurs poster has been wumming United fans on here for years, often without any provocation from the United fans.
He's entertaining though, fantastic meltdowns and backfires on his smugness. Who can forget the
post when he was convinced Spurs would sign Sancho, he was at Dortmund within a few days.and we are talking about?He's entertaining though, fantastic meltdowns and backfires on his smugness. Who can forget the
Yeah, that’s true. It would be a sad day if he ever disappeared off this forum for that very reason, but he does wind a lot of reds up too and must be close to the top of the table of most ignored posterHe's entertaining though, fantastic meltdowns and backfires on his smugness. Who can forget the
We are guests on this forum & we shouldn't forget that. Didsbury Dan was insulting someone with over 7000 posts on here. What did he think was going to happen by calling LawCharltonBest out. We are top of the league & doing well. That doesn't mean we have carte blanche to say whatever we like on opposition fans forums.
Then why are City 8th in the league table for distance covered?
Not that I agree Pep is a doper, but because you box teams in and don't really need to cover much distance? A better indicator would be your speed in getting back into shape/cutting off avenues.
Look, we'll probably never know whether there's anything dodgy happening but I'm just always suspicious when a team suddenly start looking superhuman. I was suspicious when we were untouchable back in 2003 and there were lots of rumours about blood spinning, I was suspicious when Barca and Spain suddenly became unbeatable and Fuertes and his blood bags got covered up in court, and I'm starting to get a little suspicious about a City team that don't seem to lose at all. Maybe they've just had a great start and in the second half of the season they'll start looking more like a normal title winning team. What I don't buy into though is the idea that a team can suddenly be significantly physically better than their rivals. Tactically and skill wise if they've bought a great new manager or players sure, but physically? Nah, not in a world of high end sports science with billions of pounds at stake.
Seems high for a team that has so much possession. De Brunye doing 12km + whilst also doing the most high intensity sprints of any player against Spurs was suspicious. PEDS are used for many different aspects of sporting performance aside from CV capacity anyway.
You’re fooling no-one. The ghost of namco past reincarnated as a City fan
Who remembers posts from other posters? If so his word has quite value!He's entertaining though, fantastic meltdowns and backfires on his smugness. Who can forget the
But we are not looking physically better than our rivals. This is a Caf myth. We simply have more energy because we have so much ball. I've said this before but I'll say it again.
The average game the ball is in play for 54 minutes. City have an average possesion of 66%. That means we have the ball for 36 minutes and we have to defend for 18 minutes total in 115 minutes (including half time).
We probably spend more time in the locker room at half time than defending per match.
Example A is last season we topped the league (or at least were 2nd) for distance covered per game). We are now some comfortable on the ball that we are 8th in the league.
Example B is at Old Trafford this season we had 75% of the ball in the first half. So lets break it up. The ball spends an average of 27 minutes in play. United had the ball for about 6.5 minutes in that half. (3 of those in the last 5 minutes).
Second half was almost 55-45 and in the end we slowed the game down and abandoned the press, sat back and played on the counter.
So in reality we only have to put on our high press, high intensity for about 6 or 7 minutes per half with a 20 minute break in between. The difference for us this season is we are much better on the ball and don't have to press as much as opposed to last season where we gave away silly ball a lot of the time. Having so much patience on the ball is why we have so much intensity off it.
We also have no one in the top 10 number of sprints this season (in the league but I believe KDB is close and tops the CL in distance covered).
Last edited:
Regardless of whether or not Pep is dirty, and I could believe it, we've really got problems if Twitter is giving out blue ticks to the kinds of journalists who think a doctor allegedly doing work for Barcelona in 2003/2004 is somehow related to a guy who left Barcelona as a player in 2001 and rejoined as a coach in 2007. It's a bit like saying "I think Juan Cuadrado is on EPO because Didier Deschamps was in the 90s and who does Cuadrado play for? JUVE! Coincidence???".