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Kane to Abu Dhabi Chucky? How you working that one out? Kane has 1 option this season if he wants to get the PL goals record and that’s Utd. Saudi Arabia might be able to tempt him, mind. That would be some statement by them now they have CL football. Next season, assuming Poch gets Chelsea performing, I wouldn’t rule out Kane to Chelsea. Of course, it’s all about what is more important to him, trophies or the goals record. He could easily guarantee trophies by going to Bayern, Real Madrid or PSG, all of whom would take him in a heartbeat.

So, imo he needs to pick between trophies (Real, Bayern, PSG) or the goals record and a slightly higher chance of trophies than at Spurs (Newcastle, Utd, Chelsea) or he stays put and becomes a hero, the record goalscorer but pretty much says no thanks to winning anything.

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Yeah Sean, looks that way. Think we were both after Mount and Mac Allister and looks like one chose Liverpool and the other chose Utd.

Yeah I’d imagine so Chucky. Love Eriksen but his legs can’t handle 2 90min games a week.

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I dropped Paul an email this morning letting him know we’re all thinking of him. Will let you know if I hear anything back

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Spot on in your last paragraph Threeps. I think there are times when net spend is worthwhile looking at. For example, Southampton down the years who have always had to sell their best players which, in turn, means having to replace them is always going to mean their gross spend will be higher than teams around and above them. It wouldn’t be fair to judge them on gross spend alone as they’ve been forced into the market. The likes of City stockpiling young players and selling them to enable them to spend more is not the same. Net spend also doesn’t take into account things like the unprecedented agent fee involved in the Haalaand deal nor does it take into account the vast sums of money paid into improving the facilities at City, all factors taken into account when a player is deciding which club to join. If a player has 2 choices for the same amount of money and 1 has spent hundreds of millions on state of the art modern facilities,the player will obviously choose that club. That also enables the club to have a lower net spend. What a club has spent is such a complex formula because there are so many variables that are more or less relevant depending on each scenario. All too often, these variables are cherry picked to suit an argument. What can’t be argued is that only Saudi Arabia canvompete going forward with Abu Dhabi in terms of financial might. Shouting about net spend is missing the point completely.

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Yeah I wonder why you want to cap it at the last 5 years Adlab 😕😄. Of course you don’t need to spend much now. You’ve stocked up on players over the years through heavy spending meaning you can just sell players who aren’t good enough and keep your net spend low. Here’s a much longer term view:

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Ppt, it’s absolute nonsense to compare City’s spending and alleged cheating to what Utd did under Ferguson.

Ferguson took over a club who had a net spend of minus £1.5mil in the 5 years preceding his appointment and £14mil total in the 5 years post his appointment (both Spurs and Liverpool spent more during this period). Newcastle, Liverpool, Chelsea, Everton, Spurs and even Man City outspent Utd massively during the period 92-98. It wasn’t until the oil clubs came in that Utd started to spend big.

You say nobody could compete with Utd financially but we hardly spent before Ferguson came in then only once before the treble season were we the league’s biggest spenders. Over the course of the 30 years since the PL began, we’ve been the biggest spenders in 5 seasons, which is fewer times than City despite City’s lengthy absence from the league.

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It is like someone has found a cheat code on football manager and are making the most of it. To win the league last season and then go out and buy the best striker in the world to add to that side is financial power we’ve not seen before in this league. There have been big spenders but never before has a PL team had the financial muscle to go and get the very best in the world. That was a luxury always reserved for the Italian or Spanish teams under previous spells of PL dominance.

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Have to agree re City Sean. I don’t particularly enjoy their games. It’s not end to end, exciting football. To me it’s more like that image when you have a smaller person trying to punch a taller person but the taller person is just holding the smaller person at arm’s length without breaking a sweat. It’s like watching an adult team play a kid’s team. I understand why City fans enjoy it but it’s not particularly entertaining for the neutrals imo but we’re all different.

That’s spot on from Miguel Delaney.

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Yeah always good to look back at these threads. I was way off about Lingard doing well Sean 😁. I thought we’d see the West Ham Lingard bit he’s been rubbish. Scamacca another one I got badly wrong. Whilst I didn’t actually predict Leicester would go down,I did have them as my surprise team to struggle this season and potentially get pulled into the relegation scrap.

It seems Arsenal, Utd and Newcastle were the overachievers and Liverpool and Chelsea the ones to underdeliver based on our expectations. As you say Sean, Chelsea have been an absolute shambles. Poor decision after poor decision. I read somewhere that someone suggested they couldn’t decide who was the worst team of the season between Lampard’s Everton or Lampard’s Chelsea 😄.

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Adlab, Barca haven’t won the league since 18/19. Not sure if you’ve got things mixed up there. In fact, there have been 3 different winners in the last 3 season. As for Bayern and Psg, literally everyone says their leagues are boring for the fact they have the same winners every year. It’s incredibly boring and it’s now starting to happen here where the only chance of any competition is when the other state owned club catch up.

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Normal people 😄. Pep has been accused of racism before by the likes of Yaya Toure.

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No, fair point Mikus. I think it’s even a stretch to call it a top 2. It’s City then then rest. Arsenal slightly better than the teams directly below them, Utd and Newcastle slightly better than the teams below them and so on. The gap between City and even Arsenal, though, is huge.

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Bit harsh that IMO Mikus on the likes of Newcastle and Brighton who have been very good vs what was expected of them.

I’m delighted we’ve got back in the CL anyway. Decent enough 1st season from Ten Hag. Definitely something to build on but it’s clear there is still a lot of rubbish to clear out.

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I think it’s safe to say we won’t be seeing Lampard managing in the PL again

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Agree Threeps. Utd look like they’ve already checked out for the season which is worrying with a cup final to come. We shouldn’t be struggling against this poor Chelsea side. Eriksen looking his age today. I don’t know why we persist with Eriksen and Bruno in the same side. It’s asking for trouble.

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Pepe Reina too. Absolutely clueless. The Italians and Spanish general attitude to racism against footballers stinks

🗣 Pepe Reina: "Vinícius? The less you provoke the rival fans and the less you protest to the referee, the more respect you will have from everyone. He's becoming one of the best in the world but I think he must mature in behavior and have more respect for his rivals." @marca pic.twitter.com/3xn2uyxPrq

— Madrid Xtra (@MadridXtra) May 25, 2023

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He seems a real piece of work Adlab, that’s for sure. Still, I think there are reasons to dislike the whole principle around state ownership that extend beyond merely skin colour. I mean, I haven’t heard him criticize the Everton ownership, for example, and they’re not white.

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Utd don’t need a state ownership to be able to compete. In fact, looking at the Qataris chaotic running of PSG, I’m not sure it would get us any closer. Utd simply need an owner who can put the right people in place to make footballing decisions. They need investment into the infrastructure, stadium etc. They need to stop paying out a billion in debt repayments to the likes of the Glazers. Money which should have been invested into the club, preventing Utd from falling way behind in terms of facilities which has a massive effect on the ability to attract players.

I’d absolutely hate it if it turned out that Utd became state owned. As you say Sean, it’s embarrassing to see both some Liverpool and Utd fans calling for that kind of ownership. Sadly, the size of the fanbases means you’ll always see a big difference in opinion amongst the fans. I want to say I’d stop supporting the club if that happened but I’m not sure I could. I don’t feel they deserve that power over me. My support would change. I wouldn’t be financially supporting the club in any way, that’s for sure. I just feel way took invested in the club now to let my continued support be decided by who owns the club. Utd fans already hate their owners so we’re very used to being able to separate the club and its history from the people who own it.

It really is a sad state of affairs when fans see state ownership as the only way their clubs can compete with Saudi Arabia and Abu Dhabi going forwards.

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Totally understand your feelings Chucky. I think we’re 3-4 years away from this league becoming a battle of the States with Newcastle and City battling to have the shiniest toys to show off and the rest of us left to fight it out for everything else. We’ve got to the point where younger fans are just clamouring for oil states to buy their clubs because that’s the only way they can compete for trophies. Quite sad in a way.

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Congrats to the City fans on here. Hope you’re still reading somewhere Brian 🙏

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