FA CUP FINAL ... Manchester City v Watford ... Saturday 18th May *** Spoilers ***
- Thread starter Cosimo
- Start date
Surely it’s only interesting if your team is playing in it?
If your team is in it or two teams who don't regularly win something, if one of Manu/arsenal/Chelsea/Liverpool(yes we don't regularly win but I would find it uninteresting story as a neutral if we did) are in it, I'd struggle to care
The Watford vs Wolves semi final was really fantastic, if we got a final between teams like that it'd be class
Newcastle Spurs would be an unreal final
The Watford vs Wolves semi final was really fantastic, if we got a final between teams like that it'd be class
Newcastle Spurs would be an unreal final
Soldato
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The FFP rules are strange. City can be kicked out of next seasons Champions League but can compete in everything else? 
The FFP rules are strange. City can be kicked out of next seasons Champions League but can compete in everything else?
And a team like Birmingham who spent a fraction over the odds compared to City, get deducted 9 points.
Money is obviously changing hands via suitcases, somewhere.
Looool. What a stupid arguement. "Earnt" their wealth??? In what way? Arsenal, Liverpool and Man Utd haven't won anything meaningful in 5-10 years....
Do you mean that some historical achievements allow them to inject capital at will?
Equality of opportunity in football will come from a salary cap rigidly enforced. It's a global commodity, so impossible to achieve unless regional bodies apply it
Caporegime
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Both Man Utd and Chelsea have still won the most in the past ten years in terms of trophies won. Even though City will change that in the next 5 years.
Man Utd's/Liverpool's money comes from the club. Cities comes from oil. It isn't hard to see.
Caporegime
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Some are safe and fine like Arsenal, liverpool and united. Money comes from what they generate through football, not oil
Hear Hear!
Lets get back to the good old days, only Utd and Liverpool can ever spend money, they will forever rule the domestic game with no challenge.
It is impossible to grow 'organically' as some seem to think everyone should do. The old 'Sky 4' got over the bridge and then sealed up the doors behind them for years, then spent the next decades hoovering up talent they liked from the clubs who couldn't stop them. Along came Chelsea and flipped the game on its head, since then they have paved the way to prove what you need to do to have any kind of success. When City were first taken over we had years of people saying it will never work, now its come to fruition, people don't like it.
I suggest you should do some reading on where the 'initial' money came from that allowed utd and liverpool to succeed. Note, I am not suggesting anything untoward but just that the owners were the some of the wealthiest around. They were breaking records seemingly each year with money straight out of the owners pocket on the very best players and facilities. Which then created success which has cemented their position today.
It happened decades ago though so I guess its fine
FFP is a joke, has been from the start. It hasn't helped the multitude of clubs go under, go into administration or have a fire sale to keep the lights on all its done is stop more challenge to the old guard across Europe.
I am sure RedBull would love to pump money into Lepizig to challenge Bayern or perhaps there is a billionaire in Spain who fancies a crack with Valencia at the league again. Too late unfortunately lads, the door is shut in those leagues. The Premier League at least has some kind of competition that isn't going to go away, its unlikely utd and chelsea will stay as they are for the next 5 years and so it will become a top 4 race again, any chance of that in any other major league?
Money has always talked and always will.
Back on topic, I had a great day out at Wembley minus the moment with Peryera. Roll on the summer and then next season for another good prem season.
I find the complaints about money from our fans a bit daft really.
Competition is good, and it's not like we've been blown out of the water financially by City, it's just their football operation is far superior at the moment. We have to fix that.
Competition is good, and it's not like we've been blown out of the water financially by City, it's just their football operation is far superior at the moment. We have to fix that.
I agree. Although, don't be too quick in fixing it
All football clubs are brands now - footballing success is secondary to brand success. Football success is also not mandatory for brand success or value
The difference is that previously successful clubs play on past success to generate commercial deals and make money whereas PSG and Man City's brand value is as an image cleaner for middle Eastern states. Both generate funds for player salaries and purchases.
It's a bit unfair to say that one is purer than another - in neither case is current performance linked with financing power.
All the big clubs have had disproportionate advantageous cash flows at some point in their history some more recently than others (e.g. Fenway paid off stadium debt when they took over). It's inconsistent to point to some arbitrary point in history when this is forgotten but football success legitimises massive spending.
Actually we have been blown out of the water financially
City have relatively recently pumped in over £1 billion pounds into the club at the same time as the Glazers have paid out £1 billion in loan repayments etc in the same time frame - a £2 billion pound difference is definitely being blown out of the water financially imo
This is still to be proven - but it wouldn't take much right now for Utd to drop out of the top four running for a few years in a row.....and it would be ******* difficult to get back in.
CL is everything for the big clubs, without that it gets much harder to chase / get into the top 4 and a few years out of the CL and any brand will suffer
Caporegime
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It is all false though. We saved so much money under Ferguson in the latter years by spending very little. We cannot continue to compete with City financially for much longer as sponsors will walk when results don't go their way and we will end up like Liverpool financially.
But it's not had an impact on our level of spending vs City so that's not really an arguement. It shows the financial might of United that they can be £2bn worse off and yet still compete in the transfer market vs City.
That's highly debatable - admittedly not helped by the clubs insistence about going after the wrong targets (ADM , Sanchez and numerous others)
The fact is the team is a good 3 - 4 years behind City at this point - we don't know yet the lasting effects of how far Utd have actually fallen from the top . The sports science team need a good shake up too (given Utd had far more injuries last season, and far more days of unavailabaility than anyone else in the EPL