Re: The Football Chat Thread : Mon Sep 26, 2011 6:48 pm  

Lord Tony Smith wrote:

Just out of interest whats your big problem with City spending vast amounts of money? Every team would be doing the same if they had rich owners, even Everton and you'd be loving it. No problem with it at all. The stronger the PL is the better it is for the game in general, also it's a pelasure to watch class players play in the PL each week.

Have you been sneaking in OT, The Bridge and the Etihad?

Re: The Football Chat Thread : Mon Sep 26, 2011 7:38 pm  

Lord Tony Smith wrote:

Just out of interest whats your big problem with City spending vast amounts of money? Every team would be doing the same if they had rich owners, even Everton and you'd be loving it. No problem with it at all. The stronger the PL is the better it is for the game in general, also it's a pelasure to watch class players play in the PL each week.

I've no real problem with it. I just don't think fans of clubs who do spend billions should be bigging up their achievements and their players.

I honestly don't want Everton to do it. It removes the soul from the club and makes it all rather meaningless.

Re: The Football Chat Thread : Mon Sep 26, 2011 7:57 pm  

Saddened! wrote:

I've no real problem with it. I just don't think fans of clubs who do spend billions should be bigging up their achievements and their players.

I honestly don't want Everton to do it. It removes the soul from the club and makes it all rather meaningless.

Why shouldn't they big up there players though? Come off it, mate. You'd love Everton to be spending vasts amount of money on players.

There's nothing wrong with building a team.

Re: The Football Chat Thread : Mon Sep 26, 2011 7:57 pm  

Saddened! wrote:

I've no real problem with it. I just don't think fans of clubs who do spend billions should be bigging up their achievements and their players.

I honestly don't want Everton to do it. It removes the soul from the club and makes it all rather meaningless.

I agree entirely, though its a difficult feeling to put into words without sounding bitter and jealous of those with all the cash.

Personally, I think its ruined the game as a sport...Its all now a business, with mega-rich businessmen playing a private ego-war over who can spend the most cash on the biggest names...Its killed the spirit and soul of the sport, without a doubt.

The league is now full of quality, over-paid mercenaries, who care little for the clubs they play for....For evidence, look at the clip of Tevez sulking on the bench on Saturday....Shocking behaviour feom a guy who was the club's captain just last season....Now, he doesn't give a toss, but for his pay packet each week.

Yes, back in the good old days ( ) the quality wasn't as good, but at least you knew your 'heroes' actually cared and, for the most part, loved your club.....Nowadays, all these foreign types are simply playing for the next big move and, with it, another huge pay-day.

I'll put this on record now...If Silva keeps up his form at City, he will be in Madrid or Barcalona by this time next year....Same with Suarez at Liverpool, and similar with the majority of these 'big-names'.

Re: The Football Chat Thread : Mon Sep 26, 2011 8:22 pm  

Dita's Slot Meter wrote:

Yes, back in the good old days ( ) the quality wasn't as good, but at least you knew your 'heroes' actually cared and, for the most part, loved your club.....

No one over 12 years of age should believe this nonsense.

Re: The Football Chat Thread : Mon Sep 26, 2011 9:05 pm  

Lord God Jose Mourinho wrote:

No one over 12 years of age should believe this nonsense.

Rubbish.....However much I disliked them, when you watched Liverpool in the 70's & 80's, you knew you were watching a 'team'.....Players played for each other and their clubs.....Its probably why when British clubs made a Eurppean final you actually rooted for them, whatever your dosmetic stance with them, compared with nowadays, where we cheer on the foreign team when in a big match with our 'own' sides.

Re: The Football Chat Thread : Mon Sep 26, 2011 9:19 pm  

Dita's Slot Meter wrote:

Rubbish.....However much I disliked them, when you watched Liverpool in the 70's & 80's, you knew you were watching a 'team'.....Players played for each other and their clubs.....Its probably why when British clubs made a Eurppean final you actually rooted for them, whatever your dosmetic stance with them, compared with nowadays, where we cheer on the foreign team when in a big match with our 'own' sides.

They were the best team and all the players they brought in would have been on the best money. They were massively successful.

But that doesn't mean that players at all clubs loved their clubs, which is pretty much what you were inferring.

Football players have always been mercenary. The only difference is that now the sums are much bigger and better publicised.

The players like Giggs, Beckham, Scholes etc would have totally loved playing at Man Utd. How could you not? Playing at one of the biggest and best clubs in the world in front of 75,000 every week, earning tens of thousands a week, winning massive trophies regularly. Their love for their club will probably be as high as any players through history.

It's dumb to think that players of the 70s and 80s loved their clubs just because the best team had happy players. Do you think that decent players stuck at mid-table sides who were winning nothing had the same feelings?

Re: The Football Chat Thread : Tue Sep 27, 2011 1:21 pm  

I think the main dislike of City is/was that they were a crap club that weren't doing anything excellent other than raising homegrown players. For them to get multimillion (billion?) pounds investment just stank of real unfairness. I don't know enough about the history of British football to know who dominated what era through whatever investment, but what I do know is City weren't a club deserving of such an investment. As if getting that stadium wasn't enough, they got arguably the richest owners in football to come and completely change their side.

Me personally, I don't have a huge dislike for City. I don't think it's fair that they're on such a different level to everybody else financially, but what makes it worse is they done absolutely nothing to contribute to that as a club. They weren't a club with a massive fan base, they weren't a club that competed, they were mediocre at best but now they get to escape that through the ambition of a bored Arab.

As for their players being mercenaries. Most footballers (or humans) will always go for more money, it's the whole point of working. I think the main problem most people had was these footballers sacrificed their short-term ambition for money, something very few agree with or generally view as 'false'. e.g. Most people believe when a player goes to their club, they go there because they wanted to, or they wanted to win, but with a lot of City's players, the general impression was their decision was purely financial.

I do fear them, they have one of the world's deepest squads and they can expand on that at will. It is something to be scared of because it raises competition to levels beyond the realms of what we view as normality. Until we end up like America, where we have salary caps, transfer fees mean little and contracts mean a bit more, we'll simply have to accept that a club like City can hit jackpot and surpass all around them using little skill or ability. Although football has been getting way out of hand for the past couple of decades, I think some supporters still clung on to the hope of football being the 'working class' sport, but with the image of the modern footballer - and football club - changing, it's gradually becoming the sport of the flash celebrity.

Re: The Football Chat Thread : Tue Sep 27, 2011 3:02 pm  

I have no real animosity towards Man City. In many ways they were like a northern version of Chelsea for most of my life. We were both big clubs who spent time yo-yoing between the first and second division. Our mismanagement meant we were relegated from the first more than we should have been, but our size meant we usually came straight back up with ease.

Having been the recipient of foreign billionaire wealth I have no problem with another club getting an even bigger sum spent on them.

I do think their success is taken as being guaranteed when I simply don't think it is. They've won the FA Cup so far, and I do question whether they'd have won that had United not been going for the league and CL as they were, but the FA Cup is nowhere near where they want to be. There's no guarantee at all that they'll be able to make the step up to league and/or CL winners though.

My only real problem with "Citeh" is with Enfield Exile. It was difficult to find someone more outspoken against Abramovich's investment than him. He made ludicrous claims that Citeh's production of mediocre players as being more satisfying than "Chelski's" title wins and CL adventures. And now he's got a taste of the Sheikh's cash he seems to have driven his previous thoughts out of his memory. My major sporting hatred is the hypocrisy of Liverpool and Arsenal. Well EE is a supporter version of them.

I guess the disappearance of the Citeh fans on here whenever they lose is quite funny though. As is their sudden emergence as Citeh fans when previously there was about 2 or 3 people who identified themselves as Citeh fans.

Re: The Football Chat Thread : Tue Sep 27, 2011 7:34 pm  

City 2 down at HT... bless