Considering this is us in a period of turmoil, would you look at things differently with 2 titles in the last 10 years?
Without state cheating, we’d have 2 PL titles in the post-Ferguson era: Would you look upon the era as such a calamity via that lens?
- Thread starter Fortitude
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Not great, not terrible.
No, which ever way you look at it we were mostly shite in that period and retrospectively adding titles doesn't change that fact
We'd have been mostly underwhelming anyway, we'd have won the league by playing very basic football but throwing obscene amounts of money at players. We would still have the feel of a club in decline in my opinion.
If we just take the existence of the state cheating in a vacuum, then two titles but still a bit of a decline. If we consider the overall effects of the state cheating, then the situations could be very different; first of all we'd not have wasted or at least not had to spend as much as we have trying to compete with City; secondly we definitely could have gotten Pep any time after he left Bayern (realisticly were there any clubs he'd have gone to if there were no state clubs like PSG and City?); and then there are players we could've gotten if it weren't for the state clubs (just looking at the City players; we were seriously linked to De Bruyne, Bernardo Silve, Grealish)
This! Everything would have been different. The impact of City's cheating has been enormous and it is very difficult to unpack it after the fact. But, likely we would have won more than two titles over that period without it.
We've spent too much in that period to blame it on money alone.
2 x Moral League Titles 
2 titles in 10 years wouldnt be great, nor would it be a disaster. But winning titles could have created a confidence would have made us less bad in the years afterwards - we will never know
Not the point of this thread but Leicesters title win is even more amazing when you consider how much cheating they overcame
Too much hypotheticals
Liverpool would have won three so feck that.
The cheating didn't only takeaway 2 league titles, but also better players, and investment could be done differently for example Mourinho could have stayed as a manger for longer. A lot of things could have changed maybe Halaand could have moved to United rather than City, or Pogba got more motivated playing for us. City cheating really stopped the advancement of other teams. At least this is how I see it
Not as simple as that.
You have to factor in those players that City got, where do they end up otherwise? Does Pep end up at Arsenal (he talked about them a lot while at Barca), do they build multiple winning sides under him, do Chelsea and Arsenal win more. Things could go our way as well. There's so many dominoes to fall a different way without that huge financial doping at City, getting and keeping Pep for seven years and counting while his wife lives in Spain.
Those two seasons at second with 74 and 81 points might mean we're still second even third.
In 2014 4th place had 79 points
You have to factor in those players that City got, where do they end up otherwise? Does Pep end up at Arsenal (he talked about them a lot while at Barca), do they build multiple winning sides under him, do Chelsea and Arsenal win more. Things could go our way as well. There's so many dominoes to fall a different way without that huge financial doping at City, getting and keeping Pep for seven years and counting while his wife lives in Spain.
Those two seasons at second with 74 and 81 points might mean we're still second even third.
In 2014 4th place had 79 points
I somewhat agree with this but at the same time think it's impossible to tell whether we would've won a single PL title even in this City-less scenario, let alone to know how many.
However, Mourinho with a PL, EL and EFL cup under his belt sure as hell wouldn't have been sacked so early into his 3rd season. Same with Ole, winning the PL and EL in 2021 would've bought him a lot of credit in the bank, there was no way we'd sack him a few months later in November.
we could have more if we'd had scooped up the likes of Silva and Aguero
Yeah I agree, the landscape of the whole PL would have been different very hard to tell honesty. 2 extra titles would have been nice
You can't reward total mediocrity, boardering on utter shite, you really can't. Its not like we finished runners up to any of the titles city won. At least we have been consistent in our shitness.
But we did?
And have been lauded as one of the greatest EPL teams of all time.
Probably means that we didn't challenge. First of the losers rather than just being pipped.
Probably the most relevant point.
Villa and Newcastle said these things about United and Arsenal in the 90s and early 2000s.
amazing how the Scousers have had two "great" teams in that era... the Suarez / Gerrard side and the Salah/ Mane side... either one being better than anything we've had on the pitch.
But really, without all of the oil money in the game, would Gerrard still have slipped?
This is the kind of cope thread we spent years making fun of RAWK for
Accusation of Rawkishness. Tick. Cool word use. Tick. Crap post. Tick
We're Manchester United of course that's not good enough. We should never have allowed ourselves to tumble off of our perch, but the Glazers had no succession plan for Fergie and decided to hire David Moyes, one of the most idiotic appointments a big club has ever made.
Fellaini, Bailly, Rojo, Sanchez, Pogba, Mkhitaryan all Premier League winners. Sounds good to me
I think it's different when we've lost two titles to a team engaged in the biggest corruption scandal sports has ever seen.
Easily. How many titles did Klopp and Liverpool win in the last 7-8 years ? Just one. Aren't they considering last many years as one of the most successful period in their history?
No one remembers the points or how they played. Only title matters.
No one remembers the points or how they played. Only title matters.
A team who benefited from rich benefactors who violated FFP rules in championship and got away with it to end up in PL and then win it , not sure they are the best example for the point you are trying to make .
It's a flawed way to look at it to begin with as the effect of city's expungment could have a massive butterfly effect rippling through the game, hell Fergie may have retired a year early not to mention all the other changes that could have transpired.
As it stands we were badly mismanaged and I doubt terminating city from history would have changed much.
As it stands we were badly mismanaged and I doubt terminating city from history would have changed much.
Clutching at straws at best. Pool would get 3 titles too. How does that sit with you?
Things wouldn't have played out the same. It has a different mental affect if a team like city isn't there, and a different one if you're now expected to be top.
Glad to see many sensible heads in here.
Massive ripple effects if City is guilty in a court of law to have committed widespread conspiracy and fraud in under the table payments, false accounting and overstating revenue / spiking revenue artificially.
1. Financial harm to those clubs that finished 5th every season because they were not able to compete in the CL, losing out at minimum £60m-80m in revenue. If this started in 2012, we are looking at well over 600m in lost revenue to Premier league clubs! For us, we finished 5th once. We literally lost 60m in revenue.
2. 2 more titles, ostensibly.
3. The transfer market was inflated due to tainted City money driving up prices.
4. CL title of City vacated… how does that work in a knockout tournament? Also, the further you go in the CL, the more money you make… when that is built on dirty money, it gets ugly.
5. Same thing for all the FA Cups and Carabao cups where there is revenue and prize money attached to these competitions.
If there is true malfeasance, the penalty should be very harsh.
1. Financial harm to those clubs that finished 5th every season because they were not able to compete in the CL, losing out at minimum £60m-80m in revenue. If this started in 2012, we are looking at well over 600m in lost revenue to Premier league clubs! For us, we finished 5th once. We literally lost 60m in revenue.
2. 2 more titles, ostensibly.
3. The transfer market was inflated due to tainted City money driving up prices.
4. CL title of City vacated… how does that work in a knockout tournament? Also, the further you go in the CL, the more money you make… when that is built on dirty money, it gets ugly.
5. Same thing for all the FA Cups and Carabao cups where there is revenue and prize money attached to these competitions.
If there is true malfeasance, the penalty should be very harsh.
Take away City and Liverpool under Klopp would’ve been the dominant force in English football. One silver lining of city’s cheating I guess.
Difficult to think of a club that didn't benefit from wealthy benefactors in the past
It's a complete counter factual and we have no idea how things would be.