Not sure what else to say really, I think heart is a fantastic keeper and they clearly have the best team in the league but if you gave any team that amount of money and brought those players they would now be champions so even though they are the champions to me it doesn't feel quite right..
its like sticking a ford badge on a lambo and then winning a race where only fords can enter.. yes you won but really.. what did you expect?
if i was them i would be dissapointed it took this long.. 4 years lol
edit:
And before any city fans or other fans come on and have a go and say teams like united spend just as much well no team has spent 1 billlion in 4 years, Yes man utd have brought expensive players in the past and we still do.. but we are buying them with money earnt, from years of hard work and success, to me theres a difference
Well the point was there was really no need to say anything, a simple congratulation is all thats needed.
I dont see how you can whine about people employing a culture the league has helped to foster. If they were worried about it theyd have stopped it. Otherwise saying that stuff just sounds bitter. I dont like this way of winning either but im not going to say things like "plaything of the Sheikh". But I guess people cant help how they feel and they need to express it.
As for buying players you can afford. The debt situation says otherwise, but what do I know.
Its my honest thoughts, i think they are the best team, i am not bitter i just am looking at the entire picture, they should be the best team.. If anything they should have done better in europe! I personally am more impressed by swansea and wigan who have stayed up and played amazingly
Man utds debt is a discussion for another day, Your owner took over a club and spent 1000 million.. our owners took over a club and saddled it with 700 million (now 500)of debt and we are working it off
my tops of the season Wigan Swansea Norwich
Flops Blackburn Liverpool Villa.
On May 15 2012 02:09 Rebs wrote:
Apparantly buying beyond your means is ok as long as "you dont do it more than us". Thats what it sounds like to me.
Frankly the only one who can put his money where his mouth is on these issues is Wenger.
Oh and Id put Newcastle, Swansea and Norwich over Wigan, although Im a huge Martinez fan(he used to work Sky analysis in Spain for a while post retirement.)
On May 15 2012 02:04 La1 wrote: And before any city fans or other fans come on and have a go and say teams like united spend just as much well no team has spent 1 billlion in 4 years, Yes man utd have brought expensive players in the past and we still do.. but we are buying them with money earnt, from years of hard work and success, to me theres a difference
All that really matters is that people who supported City when they were shit have finally got a reward. In my life, which is framed by the premier league seeing as I was 4 when it started, Man U has never been below 3rd when a season finished. Yes City got lucky to have sheik mansour be interested in them. But really Utd fans got lucky to have such godly managers in their history and such good luck with young players as they have had all throughout the club's life. It's still really the same concept of luck- getting money or having a great history, even if technically it took a lot more honest hard graft from the people involved on Man U's side. The fans did no specific or technical work- they are just as lucky as Man City's fans to have such a prestigious and wonderful team (and let's not talk about the MILLIONS of glory hunters). Man Utd could have been any team, imagine if Busby went to Leeds or something lol or Ferguson went to Tottenham. I wonder how many Man Utd fans there would be had they had a crash in fortune like Newcastle or perish the thought Leeds.
On May 15 2012 02:30 Kotreb wrote: About the debt situationDebt... Not making excuses or anything, just giving another view on the picture.
Yep this really makes me sad, as much as I might dislike Man U, their presence at the top of the league is something I am used to like Stockhold syndrome. If the Glazers continue to behave this way and basically play Man U like they are one of their other shitty, fucking shitty fucked up sports clubs, Man U fans will have a lot to cry about in the coming decade.
On May 15 2012 02:24 Rebs wrote: Frankly the only one who can put his money where his mouth is on these issues is Wenger.
Yeah this is spot on. As a fan of the art of football management, the two most impressive managers for me in terms of insane economy are Wenger (aside from this year lol) and the unbelievably solid David Moyes. Running Everton on a shoe string budget, always being competitive AND somehow managing to have the club running at a profit over his time (I think it was something like +24 mil) is just fucking mindblowing. Also credit has to be given to Spurs, for their amazing capacity to compete even though they can only pay their players half of what Arsenal and Chelsea pay them.
And yes this year the lower clubs have been fantastic. Swansea, Norwich, West Brom and of course the late charge from Wigan. As I have said many times I am also very very impressed by Fulham's team they have put together. Now they need to sign Marek Hamsik, it's what I did for them in career mode in Fifa like 2 years ago and that definitely worked out >:-)
One final thing, how hilariously photoshopped does this picture look LOL:
On May 15 2012 00:49 La1 wrote: as a united fan i have to say Congratulations to city..
It was bound to happen.. £1Billion pounds in 4 years should win you a title.. its sad to see your now a plaything for a sheik but well done on your title..
Lets see if you keep it up and lets hope your owner doesnt get bored otherwise thats the end of your club. (Ref portsmouth)
edit:
Also juve going unbeaten is an amazing feat.
edit#2
I wonder if anybody will impliment FFP rules eventually..
united and all top clubs "bought" all their titles so don't play the money card, look at Real, 80 mil on one player, doesn't mean shit though, that is the way football is and you just have to accept it
Man City are investing for the future also, they have some amazing facilities being built now and all that arab money is going back into manchester, you need to face it dude, the united/fergie era is over
I wouldn't call it that the era is over, because honestly there never was one. More accurate thing to say, imho, is that competition got a bit more stiff at the top, especially if Arsenal manages to get few more quality players and Abramovic calms down.
Not sure what else to say really, I think heart is a fantastic keeper and they clearly have the best team in the league but if you gave any team that amount of money and brought those players they would now be champions so even though they are the champions to me it doesn't feel quite right..
its like sticking a ford badge on a lambo and then winning a race where only fords can enter.. yes you won but really.. what did you expect?
if i was them i would be dissapointed it took this long.. 4 years lol
edit:
And before any city fans or other fans come on and have a go and say teams like united spend just as much well no team has spent 1 billlion in 4 years, Yes man utd have brought expensive players in the past and we still do.. but we are buying them with money earnt, from years of hard work and success, to me theres a difference
Well the point was there was really no need to say anything, a simple congratulation is all thats needed.
I dont see how you can whine about people employing a culture the league has helped to foster. If they were worried about it theyd have stopped it. Otherwise saying that stuff just sounds bitter. I dont like this way of winning either but im not going to say things like "plaything of the Sheikh". But I guess people cant help how they feel and they need to express it.
As for buying players you can afford. The debt situation says otherwise, but what do I know.
Its my honest thoughts, i think they are the best team, i am not bitter i just am looking at the entire picture, they should be the best team.. If anything they should have done better in europe! I personally am more impressed by swansea and wigan who have stayed up and played amazingly
Man utds debt is a discussion for another day, Your owner took over a club and spent 1000 million.. our owners took over a club and saddled it with 700 million (now 500)of debt and we are working it off
Apparantly buying beyond your means is ok as long as "you dont do it more than us". Thats what it sounds like to me.
Frankly the only one who can put his money where his mouth is on these issues is Wenger.
Oh and Id put Newcastle, Swansea and Norwich over Wigan, although Im a huge Martinez fan(he used to work Sky analysis in Spain for a while post retirement.)
Yeah
i agree actually, i forgot about newcastle! They have been the biggest tops ill replace them with norwich
edit
@sc4k - Yeah i agree, i am happy for their fans, (the true fans) they deserve some happiness and it really is a good thing
and city have actually played within the rules, you are allowed to loose 200million in a season as there are currently no rules relating to this so they have done what they need to do to win the title, props to them. I personally think i would spent 1000 million a lot more wisely but nevermind I also think man utd and real / barca (maybe not so much real and barca) have previously spent within their means, (not sure how true this is) but if you look at how much each of those clubs earn then i am not surpised they can spend x on players.. i personally am worried and have been for a few years about united as a club simply because of the glazers, the team i love could die because of random americans
@ mememolly the united era has been over since the glazers took over.. we are slowly falling apart
how have manchester city put money back into manchester? can you give me any proof? I think if they put half the money they paid tevez to play golf into manchester it would be a good thing..
ps.. i am not sure you know about teams finances etc so please don't say stuff without proof as there is a difference between spending on what you can afford and getting a new record loss for a single club in a season (cough 200 million loss for city this year )
On May 15 2012 03:00 Kotreb wrote: I wouldn't call it that the era is over, because honestly there never was one. More accurate thing to say, imho, is that competition got a bit more stiff at the top, especially if Arsenal manages to get few more quality players and Abramovic calms down.
To be honest if it wasnt for City there would be no competition this year lol. Everyone else fell out of it a while ago. They all need to start hot stay hot and pull points of each other (and not drop them when they shouldnt really) to make the race competitive across the board.
Looking forward as of now..
Arsenal and Chelsea both have huge question marks going into next season. Liverpool is a while away from being anything and Spurs dont have the depth and are still pretty naive, and Harry for all his good work putting it together isnt particularly tactically astute.
As is usual I wouldnt be surprised if there were at the most only 2 or 3 teams with realistic chances at Christmas. Ofc anything else would be a pleasnt bonus but that hasnt been happening. United have been the epitome of what a great league team should be with or at the moment without money while City has money so they are safe bets for contendors. Although giving up 8 points with 6 to go was where the money if spent well would more than likely have made the difference and comfortable for United, And Fergie with a few exceptions which all managers are prone to doesnt make bad signings.
Everyone else is just a big question mark at the moment. As it stands the top 2 have no competition. How the summer turns out and the indicitators in the first few weeks will be a good place to start making those bets.
Yeah there was the Chelsea fiasco a couple of seasons back but that doesnt happen often, and honestly I dont even know why. They were absolute monsters under Ancelotti and played at a nice pace. Players aging is the most you can point to but it was a number of things I cant put my finger on and dont remember very well.
If you start strong your in the running and should remain so. Bad starts will get you into good spots but they wont win you titles unless ofcourse other teams implode which is just bad for people who enjoy watching the top class teams play well.
On May 15 2012 03:02 La1 wrote: ps.. i am not sure you know about teams finances etc so please don't say stuff without proof as there is a difference between spending on what you can afford and getting a new record loss for a single club in a season (cough 200 million loss for city this year )
To me, the difference is between spending money you've earned through ticket sales, TV viewership, winnings for doing well in the league or cups, etc versus having some billionaire give your club all the money it needs -- in City's case, it's also frustrating that the outside financier basically represents a foreign government.
Now that said, there is logic in running up debt buying a super-team for a few years, then using that success to boost the fan base and eventually pay the investors back. If that's what MCFC does now then that's just sound business and seems more legitimate. But if they continue to receive hundreds of millions of extra injections through the Shiek's oil holdings, that doesn't seem right.
It would suck if, in order to compete for the EPL title in the future, you need to have access to unlimited outside funding.
On May 15 2012 03:00 Kotreb wrote: I wouldn't call it that the era is over, because honestly there never was one. More accurate thing to say, imho, is that competition got a bit more stiff at the top, especially if Arsenal manages to get few more quality players and Abramovic calms down.
To be honest if it wasnt for City there would be no competition this year lol. Everyone else fell out of it a while ago. They all need to start hot stay hot and pull points of each other (and not drop them when they shouldnt really) to make the race competitive across the board.
Looking forward as of now..
Arsenal and Chelsea both have huge question marks going into next season. Liverpool is a while away from being anything and Spurs dont have the depth and are still pretty naive, and Harry for all his good work putting it together isnt particularly tactically astute.
As is usual I wouldnt be surprised if there were at the most only 2 or 3 teams with realistic chances at Christmas. Ofc anything else would be a pleasnt bonus but that hasnt been happening. United have been the epitome of what a great league team should be with or at the moment without money while City has money so they are safe bets for contendors. Although giving up 8 points with 6 to go was where the money if spent well would more than likely have made the difference and comfortable for United, And Fergie with a few exceptions which all managers are prone to doesnt make bad signings.
Everyone else is just a big question mark at the moment. As it stands the top 2 have no competition. How the summer turns out and the indicitators in the first few weeks will be a good place to start making those bets.
Yeah there was the Chelsea fiasco a couple of seasons back but that doesnt happen often, and honestly I dont even know why. They were absolute monsters under Ancelotti and played at a nice pace. Players aging is the most you can point to but it was a number of things I cant put my finger on and dont remember very well.
If you start strong your in the running and should remain so. Bad starts will get you into good spots but they wont win you titles unless ofcourse other teams implode which is just bad for people who enjoy watching the top class teams play well.
I think this is the first time we completely agree
I'm not really fan of Arsenal and Chelsea, and especially City (just because i have a feeling that they bought the title...they obviously didn't but you get what I mean, you explained it few posts earlier) but it would be nice if the competition gets stronger for the aforementioned two clubs, maybe with the addition of Tottenham and Newcastle. On the other note, would love to see some more investment into Everton, they've always seemed as super solid side with potential for more.
In some respects the gamble of throwing money into a workman like outfit can be very damaging. Any manager would like to get ambitious and Moyes is no different. But just because you do well on a shoestring (and there is no better at that then Moyes) doesnt mean that when you have money you will use it effectively, and being good with ALOT of money is equally as hard if not more, unless ofcourse you have alot to waste ala City, which Everton as it is now can never realistically have. Its a tricky situation clubs have run themselves into the ground getting ambitious and Everton have resisted that temptation quite well.
Being a feeder club obviously doesnt help and thats why they always meander along mid low table for the early mid season and somehow quietly climb up when their unit starts to come together better. Peinaar and Jelavic were the difference this season, Osman played well beyond his ability during the final run in aswell and everyone else was just the usual solid Baines, Rodwell, Fellaini, Howard, Coleman and ofc Hibbert.
Saha wasnt working with them well and Im sure if Peinaar had been around he wouldve been alot more influential aswell. But there in lies the problem, mid season adjustments have the surprise factor that helps you elevate your level. Once people know you its a whole different ball game. Going into the new season Everton are always figured out and then slowly make their adjustments up the ladder, thats a pretty consistent feature under Moyes
Getting over that hump is a somewhat complex and risky matter. As the culture stands right now Everton with a few exceptional seasons here or there will remain a 5/6-9 club for the forseeable future.
edit: As for the money thing Neither Real nor Barca make the money they have spent in recent years. What theyre financial positions are in relation depends on who has the final say and stakes set in the club. Barca's is not good, real has Perez to worry about that stuff and is the darling of the establishment anyway.
I dont see where this idea that United spends only the money they have came from but they stopped doing that post the fledgling era and before the Glazers came in, the Glazers would never have come into the picture if Fergie hadnt gotten into his ruckus with his horse racing buddies among other things. They were already refinancing half a million of the takeover debt a year into the Glazer regime from a takeover that really kinda got pushed in because Fergie had a problem with his boys and the club would rather lose the boys rather than Fergie.
Thats like saying Obama caused Iraq and Afghanistan. The mismanagement was there with public floats and random takeover bid blocks a situation theyre board was apparantly incapable of managing. Then the situation got ripened for the Glazers to come in and make it a mega mess and it will continue to be so because I dont see them making any of the money they owe back at all. The explosion of the EPL and Uniteds popularity worldwide helped to paper the cracks a bit but its not looking good. People seem to think the Glazers have tons of Money to give, they really dont. Unless theres something Im missing. Better start calling some Shiekhs or start praying the kids grow up really really fast cuz theyll have to.
On May 15 2012 04:12 Rebs wrote: In some respects the gamble of throwing money into a workman like outfit can be very damaging. Any manager would like to get ambitious and Moyes is no different. But just because you do well on a shoestring (and there is no better at that then Moyes) doesnt mean that when you have money you will use it effectively, and being good with ALOT of money is equally as hard if not more, unless ofcourse you have alot to waste ala City, which Everton as it is now can never realistically have. Its a tricky situation clubs have run themselves into the ground getting ambitious and Everton have resisted that temptation quite well.
Being a feeder club obviously doesnt help and thats why they always meander along mid low table for the early mid season and somehow quietly climb up when their unit starts to come together better. Peinaar and Jelavic were the difference this season, Osman played well beyond his ability during the final run in aswell and everyone else was just the usual solid Baines, Rodwell, Fellaini, Howard, Coleman and ofc Hibbert.
Saha wasnt working with them well and Im sure if Peinaar had been around he wouldve been alot more influential aswell. But there in lies the problem, mid season adjustments have the surprise factor that helps you elevate your level. Once people know you its a whole different ball game. Going into the new season Everton are always figured out and then slowly make their adjustments up the ladder, thats a pretty consistent feature under Moyes
Getting over that hump is a somewhat complex and risky matter. As the culture stands right now Everton with a few exceptional seasons here or there will remain a 5/6-9 club for the forseeable future.
First bit is spot on here. Moyes has done a fantastic job, I think everyone agrees on that score. Keeping Everton a good team that can challenge anyone on their day whilst keeping them on a very tight budget makes him probably the second-best manager in the league over the past decade (as much as I like Wenger, he hasn't adapted well to the changes in the PL). Everyone I know who talks about football agrees that he will be the likely successor to Fergie at Utd, but we haven't seen Moyes with a decent budget, and he doesn't really have any experience with one. Will he spend wisely? or will he just go overboard and get a lot of expensive dross? That said, the Glazers have done their best to ruin Utd and it shows, with much restricted spending over the past few years. Anyone remember Rooney threatening to leave a couple of seasons ago? He could see where Utd is heading, basically, and he didn't want to be Gerrard at Liverpool, limited by a lousy budget and being the only real decent player on the team. That seemed to scare them into buying some solid players, but I wonder if Utd will spend to get Sneijder - it was telling that they have retained Giggs and had to coax Scholes out of retirement this year...
As for Arsenal I think this season was a real wake-up call. It was shocking to see how they didn't seem to have any plans in mind if they sold certain players, then panicked at the last moment and snatched up whoever they could. At least we got Benayoun and Arteta, but has Park actually played a league game this year? Or Chamakh? We need a clear out of useless players and early investment, and at least we can see that happening, with Podolski confirmed and M'Vila being touted. Wenger needs to spend some of that money he has if he wants to remain competitive, and I'll give him credit at least he has kept them up there despite being outspent strongly by the other 'top' teams. I just hope we can convince RvP to stay.
I'm optimistic about Arsenal next season if they can keep RVP. Podolski is a great addition, and the team won't be dealing with a massive upheaval as they were after losing Fabragas and Nasri.
It's just amazing to see the prices Moyes has brought some top top players in for. Pienaar for 2m are you kidding me? Baines for 6mil fuck yes. And...cahill for 1.5 mil. Taking the piss, really.
On May 15 2012 05:19 Signet wrote: I'm optimistic about Arsenal next season if they can keep RVP. Podolski is a great addition, and the team won't be dealing with a massive upheaval as they were after losing Fabragas and Nasri.
I had a really strong dream last night that RVP is going to Man City haha. Wonder if it will turn out right.
Holy shit in FM 12 my brighton team which is in the prem, which has been losing to reading, aston villa and blackpool somehow managed to win me the FA cup, without actually reloading any matches o.O. Beating Liverpool AND Man U along the way to face the mighty swansea in the final and win 1-0 :D. How epically random is that. Against Man U it was 1-1 and we won on pens, they had 65% possession and 20+ shots, we had 1 shot 1 goal. Trolololol.
EPT
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