Man City bench

[Vegas Claret]

Strongest bench in the history of the PL ?

[Vino blanco]

And their “second” team is still outplaying and beating Chelsea.

[Taffy on the wing]

The "headless chicken" is having a good game.

[Duffer_]

An atmosphere that befits a pre-season friendly, not a title winning party. They sound as bored as I am by it.

[Ampth7]

An atmosphere that befits a pre-season friendly, not a title winning party. They sound as bored as I am by it.

Agree………the most boring game of football I have stopped watching in a long time!!
Well done City, your £1 billion pound squad wins again!!

[ClaretTony]

An atmosphere that befits a pre-season friendly, not a title winning party. They sound as bored as I am by it.

That sums it up

[Ampth7]

I’ve said it before and I genuinely believe that the Premier League is at a tipping point right now with the top of the table slowly becoming uncompetitive.
I do not know what the answer is, but it cannot be heathy for the game when clubs are backed by oil rich nations who are happy and able to spend billions as though it’s pocket change!

[CoolClaret]

I’ve said it before and I genuinely believe that the Premier League is at a tipping point right now with the top of the table slowly becoming uncompetitive.
I do not know what the answer is, but it cannot be heathy for the game when clubs are backed by oil rich nations who are happy and able to spend billions as though it’s pocket change!

Yup

& the bottom sort of 5 or 6 isn’t to far removed from the top 5/6 of the champ, which is turning into PL2 a bit

[bfcjg]

Screenshot_20230521_182951_Samsung Internet.jpg (508.49 KiB) Viewed 2819 times

When you look st our bench for our last Premier league home game it shows just what having the backing of one of the richest organisations in the world funding you and the minor inconvenience of 115 alleged breaches of FFP
can achieve.

[equinox]

Some absolutely embarrassing comments, can people not accept and appreciate greatness?

This City team is outstanding and should be applauded.

[Ampth7]

Some absolutely embarrassing comments, can people not accept and appreciate greatness?

This City team is outstanding and should be applauded.

No doubt about it, the best team by an absolute country mile…….. which is precisely my point!

[claret2018]

If City don’t win the treble this season then they will have underperformed

[equinox]

I presume nobody had a issue with our domination of the Championship with a budget far, far greater than the rest of the division?

[mybloodisclaret]

We sold a couple of players to be fair, and had to get a new squad.

[Ampth7]

I presume nobody had a issue with our domination of the Championship with a budget far, far greater than the rest of the division?

I simply do not see the comparison whatsoever! All things considered, we sold way more than we spent, replacing proven premier league players with complete unknowns, many of whom had zero experience of playing in this country!
City on the other hand, buy wingers for £100 million quid who still took a year to adapt to their new surroundings and despite winning the league again, will no doubt spend another £100-200 million quid this summer with zero need to sell for monetary reasons.
I for one, do not believe opposing managers in the Championship when they say, ‘I wish we had the parachute money’. The reason being because as nice as that safety net is, you do generally need to sell players upon relegation along with downgrading others salaries as per their contracts which is hardly motivational. It’s just a lazy excuse for poor managers to use to absolve themselves of responsibility for the outcome if they lose.
Furthermore, teams like Luton have once again proven that it can be done in the Championship much like when we first won promotion to the prem. However, I think we all know what will happen to them next year if they go up. The point being, the gap now is becoming unsustainable and unhealthy for the game in my opinion and appears to be getting worse each season and that’s just for avoiding relegation, let alone winning the league!

[IPAclaret]

Ok equinox I'll bite ...

We had a budget far, far greater than anyone else ?

Well it was funded by £70M player sales which is sound business sense and not a bottomless pit of money from some oil rich state.

But I think you already know this.

Bizarre comment TBH.

[scouseclaret]

An atmosphere that befits a pre-season friendly, not a title winning party. They sound as bored as I am by it.

TBF I think the atmosphere at the Turf was pretty flat for a title winning party last week. I think it’s different when you’ve a) won it before the game kicked off, and b) known you were going to win it for weeks. Also, in City’s case, they probably are getting a bit bored with it now.

[Sproggy]

I’ve said it before and I genuinely believe that the Premier League is at a tipping point right now with the top of the table slowly becoming uncompetitive.
I do not know what the answer is, but it cannot be heathy for the game when clubs are backed by oil rich nations who are happy and able to spend billions as though it’s pocket change!

Start by properly penalizing clubs that cheat?

[Sproggy]

I presume nobody had a issue with our domination of the Championship with a budget far, far greater than the rest of the division?

We had the 2nd lowest net spend in the Championship this year.

[jrgbfc]

I presume nobody had a issue with our domination of the Championship with a budget far, far greater than the rest of the division?

But we earned the money ourselves by getting promoted and then being sensible with it.

[StayingDown4Ever]

An atmosphere that befits a pre-season friendly, not a title winning party. They sound as bored as I am by it.

The Cardiff game being the first home one at the Turf after winning the league wasn’t exactly bouncing for the most part.

[RMutt]

It’s a gross exaggeration of what has always happened. Darwen paying players and pretending they worked in their factories. Rovers buying the Premier League with one man’s money.
The inevitable consequence of wealth, ego and poor governance.
Fair competition and ‘sport’ go out of the window.
A team can find an obscure talent from some lower league bring them on and still have them taken off them by a team that hoovers up young potential in their academies to begin with.
Although I was originally against it, think I’m coming round to the idea of the European super league and letting them off go to a money spinning circus and leaving the rest to get on with it.

[Ampth7]

Start by properly penalizing clubs that cheat?

Which as we all know won’t be happening to City by the time their extremely expensive lawyers have dragged it through the courts for the next 4 years!

[Cleveleys_claret]

I actually felt they have been pushed to the wire this season. If Arsenal hadn't bottled it, which they did then they would have won the title. If they had maybe just 2 or 3 more players, mainly cover for Saliba, City would not have won the league this season. The turnover at Arsenal the last 2 seasons has been massive so the gap in my opinion is closing.

I may be wrong but aren't a few of the more important City players leaving this summer, coupled which the age of a few including De Bruyne starting to catch up with them. Now I am not saying the older players can't play as well, but they won't be playing as much.

Plus for all that is said of City you only have to look at the amounts Chelsea have spent, even Southampton this last 12 months, Bournemouth, and it isn't about buying immediate success, it's investing and taking time with players to get used to a system and trusting the process a la what Pep has done with Grealish when everyone wrote him off in the first 12 months

[NottsClaret]

City are the best side in the world, have taken their (Pep's) style of football to a precision engineered art form and the whole thing leaves me entirely cold. Can't say I dislike them at all. The players seems nice enough chaps. Their fans are either once long-suffering types or harmless tourists.

I think everyone is ok with them dominating English football to this level simply because it means Liverpool and Man United aren't. Nobody really cares about the Man City 'project' at all. Guardiola was genuinely enthused in a press conference this week, but not about their title, or the impending treble, but about the Sheffield Wednesday v Peterborough League One play-off game he'd watched, and the atmosphere there that night. Maybe even he misses a bit of that magic only a genuine competition in front of old school football fans can bring.

[taio]

Possibly the best side ever. The only other team had the same manager.

[equinox]

We had the 2nd lowest net spend in the Championship this year.

Wages though, that's where the gap is.

Vincent Kompany is/was being paid an absolute fortune compared to other Championship managers.

Hey, I like it and laugh but let's not kid ourselves that we haven't had a financial advantage this year.

[boatshed bill]

Wages though, that's where the gap is.

Vincent Kompany is/was being paid an absolute fortune compared to other Championship managers.

Hey, I like it and laugh but let's not kid ourselves that we haven't had a financial advantage this year.

That's what parachute money is for. We earned by being a PL club, it wasn't some kind of gift.

[hoskinsgoalatswansea]

If City don’t win the treble this season then they will have underperformed

Very true, and doesn’t that emphasise what a sad state of affairs it has become?

[equinox]

That's what parachute money is for. We earned by being a PL club, it wasn't some kind of gift.

Describe to me in detail what you think parachute payments are meant for. Please.

[boatshed bill]

Describe to me in detail what you think parachute payments are meant for. Please.

I think it gives clubs a chance of holding on to some of their better players, in effect it behaves like a parachute by softening the fall.
Importantly it is there for the players, though I'm not sure how well that works.

[Winstonswhite]

Describe to me in detail what you think parachute payments are meant for. Please.

I thought parachute payments were originally brought in to enable clubs coming up from the championship, the ability to sign premier league quality players on the standard 3 year deals with some sort of security, should they get relegated the next season.

[bfcjg]

I presume nobody had a issue with our domination of the Championship with a budget far, far greater than the rest of the division?

I was rather hoping like the celestial ones, this poster would only pop up twice a year.

[equinox]

I thought parachute payments were originally brought in to enable clubs coming up from the championship, the ability to sign premier league quality players on the standard 3 year deals with some sort of security, should they get relegated the next season.

But we never did, so were we fraudulent?

[equinox]

I was rather hoping like the celestial ones, this poster would only pop up twice a year.

Good en

[chipbutty]

Apparently the Citeh bench was worth £475 million!!

[Vegas Claret]

Describe to me in detail what you think parachute payments are meant for. Please.

you are given a wedge of money to buy parachutes, I figured everyone knew that

[Grimsdale]

Apparently the Citeh bench was worth £475 million!!

City have certainly come a long way, I remember when they used to have Eddie Large on their bench

[jlup1980]

I don't buy the argument that they dominate simply because they have the most money. Look at the top transfer fees paid in the PL history and you'll note how many "flops" they've bought - not many! City seem to do their due diligence better than anyone.

Of the top 20 fees paid, City only appear 3 times; Jack Grealish, Kevin De Bruyne and Ruben Dias. Grealish took 12 months to get into the rhythm of things but is now looking like a key player. I don't need to say anything about the other two - they're both key components of the Pep machine.

On the flip side United appear in the top 20 seven times (Pogba, Antony, Maguire, Sancho, Lukaku, Di Maria, Casemiro) and Chelsea six times (Fernandez, Lukaku, Fofana, Havertz, Arrizabalaga, Mudryk). How many of these 13 signings have been genuinely successful? Time will tell on the ones signed this seasons but the likes of Pogba, Lukaku (x2), Sancho, Di Maria, Arrizabalaga have been total flops and proof that money isn't always the answer.

Money alone doesn't make the best team. It never has and it never will. Don't get me wrong it helps, but you can easily spend a lot and end up no better than you were at the start.

[Sproggy]

They still manage to get through about a quarter of a billion quid a season on new signings. They've already been fined by UEFA for failing to co-operate with an investigation into their finances and they are now facing an investigation by the Premier League which is accusing them of cheating on an industrial scale.

I'm with the poster further up - the Super League can't come soon enough.

[JTClaret]

I think the oil money is only really brought up because they spend big money very well, and are a huge success.
I totally understand the arguments, although I think I've just accepted that it is part of football.

Something that always makes me laugh is that oil money is considered worse than money from investment companies (eg. Chelsea/Liverpool), real estate (man U). Is it because they spend it well? As the others have all spent more with a fraction of the success if any.

People have also said you can't compare it to the championship and parachute payments because we sold players... so did City. They are actually in profit this year.

[Spijed]

I think the oil money is only really brought up because they spend big money very well, and are a huge success.
I totally understand the arguments, although I think I've just accepted that it is part of football.

Something that always makes me laugh is that oil money is considered worse than money from investment companies (eg. Chelsea/Liverpool), real estate (man U). Is it because they spend it well? As the others have all spent more with a fraction of the success if any.

People have also said you can't compare it to the championship and parachute payments because we sold players... so did City. They are actually in profit this year.

Isn't it because "Oil" money is from regimes that treat people no better than members of Islamic State and any people who question those regimes are immediately executed?

[Darnhill Claret]

The only trouble with a Super League is that all monies might go there ( tv) and we might become little old Burnley again.

[JTClaret]

Isn't it because "Oil" money is from regimes that treat people no better than members of Islamic State and any people who question those regimes are immediately executed?

Good point well made.

[bfcmik]

I presume nobody had a issue with our domination of the Championship with a budget far, far greater than the rest of the division?

Far, far greater? Even than Norwich and Watford, who both came down with EXACTLY the same parachute payments yet didn't even make the play-offs?

Several other clubs were also still getting parachute money too, will be interesting to see how West Brom do without the additional parachute money they have had until now.