There is also 1 game that a lot of people are overlooking.
Final day, Citeh have to play Gerrard’s Villa. And I bet he would love nothing more than to fuck up their season on the final day, cause deep down, he’s a cunt like the rest of us that would love to see their salty tears
Phil finally has a chance to contribute to a title win for us as well 
We win all our games and see what happens, Spurs went into their game on rubbish form and I didn’t give Palace much hope things can happen in games
To be fair, I don’t think the original point was about him not being a talent.
It’s almost consensus now that he’s one of the best players in the world already. We see it on here with people saying that the only players who can replace Salah are Mbappe and Haaland.
As good as he looks, he doesn’t deserve that level of hype yet. Is he better than Mane or Diaz? Son or Kane? I’d argue probably not. The way some people go on about him it’s as if we should give up if he ends up at City.
Personally, I’d be happy with United signing him. It won’t make a blind bit of difference to them and it keeps him out of the clutches of teams that will actually challenge us.
I have a feeling that Pep/Sheikh prioritizes the CL trophy and will preserve their best team for the CL games. Ironically, they have better chance of winning the PL than the CL.
I think there is a habit, after being spoilt with the talent of Ronaldo and Messi, that we expect the next “best” player in the world to of an equivalent level. So when people talk about Man City signing Haaland or Mbappe they are thinking about them signing someone who has the potential of Messi and Mbappe - at least in terms of their impact rather than their style.
However, it’s like expecting the next world number one tennis player to be the same level as Nadal, Federer or Djokovic - they probably aren’t going to be at that same level.
I’m not really scared of anyone they sign. We have our style, system and formula. It works. Don’t care what anyone else does.
Honestly, with teams operating at this level, it’s very very rare than a new addition is going to be all upside and no trade off. Will someone with Haaland’s ability be a net benefit? Likely, but it’s not certain. One of City’s most defining characteristics of the past 2 seasons, and arguably longer (since they found themselves having to phase out Aguero) has been the fluidity of the front 3 (front 5?). What they have lost in classic goal scoring ability they have earned back in control of the game and the creation of higher % chances you dont need an Aguero to be on the end of. The extension of that, is that because city have so many players they can use across these various roles they are largely immune to the effect of an absence or two. Adapt their style to accommodate a traditional CF like Haaland and maybe they become better, marginally. But maybe they dont. And how do they cope in those games where he is not available? Transitioning to the new approach and then having to lurch back to a strikerless side is not so straight forward.
So sure, generally better players make you better. Duh. But teams competing for 100 points in the league and going for multiple trophies maintain a very tight balance to keep that level up and can be fucked up with a couple of bad decisions. Maintaining that balance is a big part of the reason for Klopp not wanting ever to do too much in the market at one time
This Haaland signing makes me wonder if it is actually Pep behind it, or those above him giving him no choice
I kind of agree with you, but I think replacing Jesus with Haaland is a pretty big improvement for them.
He’s got a punchable face, but he’s a very good player who does a lot of very important things for city. Often in their big games. Let’s not forget that Tite often prefers him to Bobby. There is a lot about what Pep wants out of his front line that Jesus is a great fit to provide.
Aye, I think Jesus is very underrated at this point. If he was playing for Dortmund or Leipzig they’d be lining up in the ‘Who would you buy thread’ wanting him.
I wanted to continue this discussion on the correct thread.
I get that City have cheated. I get that both a fraction of their transfer spend and wages is actually fully reported and that their revenue streams are all as dodgy as fuck.
But when I look at our squad I see is being better and stronger pretty much across the board. For all their spending, they have wasted a lot of money on signings that didn’t pan out. So they haven’t really achieved the massive on-field advantage everyone is claiming when they talk about the unfairness of it all. An absolutely massive factor, and one that should never be downplayed, is our own success in the transfer market. For the comparatively little we put in, we have got far more successes than City. So in my eyes their money hasn’t given them the advantage.
Where I think they have got the advantage in the league is with Pep. He gets fairly criticised for overthinking, and over-instructing his players which has meant his team’s often lack the emotion and dynamism that is needed to win short length competitions against the very best like the CL. Where that over instruction is a curse in the CL it’s an advantage in the league. What’s always surprising for me is Pep’s ability to keep his team playing at the highest level over a long season. There’s aren’t often chunks of the season where form is really poor like we always get (even in that season) and I think this is partly down to not letting his players ‘think’ as much as they could. They’ve got a formula every game. Pep applies the formula. The team comes away with a win. His team don’t have drop offs where they lose focus because they aren’t really thinking but are on auto-pilot. Klopp has spoken a lot recently about giving only the minimum information to, for example, Diaz so that he can play his own way and do his own things. Klopp gives the team the tools to break down an opponent but there is no user guide for the players to follow religiously like City players do Pep’s.
Swinging back to my comments on money. I don’t feel their financial advantage is the main reason for their on-field advantage. But I also don’t think it’s sustainable for us to expect our transfer team to get their targets as spot on as they have in the recent past. So I think over the long term we won’t be able to compete. It would only take a couple of poor scouting off-seasons for our squad advantage to be lost given that City can continually throw £100m at each and every player they target and they only need a minority of those to be successful to come out on top, while we need most of our signings to work.
But right now, while their financial advantage doesn’t translate into a squad advantage, I don’t have much time for the excuses and the tears about how we can’t compete. And how we don’t deserve to only have 1 league title. We can compete. We are competing. We have a better team, better squad, better fans, better manager. Some think all that should mean we win 5 league titles on the bounce, but those days are long gone. Not even City can do that. Not even United did that back when winning leagues wasn’t as complicated as it is now.
As I say we can’t compete with City long term, expecting our transfer committee to continually make improvement signings with our limited budget so I see how City’s cheating will hurt us down the road. But it is not this day.
That’s a little old now. That was a few years ago. They won their last Copa with Bobby mostly starting ahead of him. I think he even played a little bit off the sides since then, like he does now on the right side of attack for City. I agree he’s still a good player, but perhaps his development stalled or went in another direction than they maybe hoped.
I agree with most of this. We all know City are cheating FFP but United have spent more money recently and look at the state of them. It helps when you can spend a fortune but it doesn’t guarantee success nor does City’s existence guarantee we won’t be successful. The difference has been Guardiola. I think JK is the better manager because he would succeed at any tier of football but Guardiola, whether we like it or not, is a very good coach. They finished 4th the season before he arrived with just 66 points. They were spending huge amounts of money then and (more openly) cheating the system but they weren’t as good because the players and the manager weren’t as good.
It annoys me that we aren’t just stomping all over everybody to win everything going but no point in crying about it. Just enjoying the fact that we are challenging again, playing great football with an amazing manager and actually winning stuff in the process. 5 major trophies in 3 years with possibly more to come this season. That’s pretty good going. If anything the fact that City are so strong makes everything we have achieved and continue to achieve under Klopp even more enjoyable.
No money, no Pep.
Pep is undoubtedly a great coach, but there is no way he looks twice at City without both the promise of unlimited resources and the platform pre-pep that this money built.
Correct - HOWEVER - If there were a scenario in which City don’t get bought by Abu Dhabi, I think there’s a likelihood that Pep would eventually find his was to managing united, and I’m thankful that hasn’t happened. Everyone except for City fans discounts all of their accomplishments - even under Pep - because it’s all completely artificial. With United, it would have been real, and fucking unbearable.
I back LFC to the hilt and very much agree: better team, better squad, better manager, much better fans.
All by legitimate means too.
City’s money has not meant they are streets head of us. But it has meant they are there with us this season, and have generally got the better of it in recent seasons. We should be out of sight, and what we have been doing should be going down in history. But the prizes they have won have been by foul means, and we would have been well placed to collect many of those trophies.
Who knows, this season might see something happen that has never been done before.
My question is still the same though.
We all know they are cheats, but what are we supposed to do about it?
Well, of course we support our boys to the hilt, and hopefully we overcome them anyway.
But is there anything that we can do to help bring them to account?
But that’s because money has no meaning to them whatsoever. If someone they sign flops, they just sign somebody else.
Other teams simply cannot afford to do that.
Maybe it’s his finishing, I’m not saying he doesn’t work incredibly hard but for me he’s not a patch on Aguero for example.
If it weren’t for us, City would be winning their 5th title on the bounce this season. Similarly we aren’t going for our third in a row because of them. The difference is that they are artificial. They’ve cheated to get where they are. We did it organically. If the same rules applied to them as for most of the other clubs around, they wouldn’t be at this level every single season. No one would. The only club, the only team that has managed to operate within its means at such an absurd level of efficiency and success is Liverpool.
So no, we do deserve more titles because they have cheated and will continue to do so in order to win and get ahead of the rest of the suckers that have to abide by the rules. Force them to respect the rules for a few seasons and then we’'ll see how well they’ll do.