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Yet the City owners have invested more into the club and infrastructure regenerating areas, and the Utd owners have saddled their club with debt with the club having to pay significant debt repayments. UEFA see one of these situations as acceptable, and the other less so. And yet FFP was designed to discourage debt in football. Granted there’s not much a governing body could do to address a club owners debt, it still makes a mockery of the whole thing.
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Actually I think Adlab raises a fair point about the amount of debt at Utd. If this is about FFP, how is it fair that Utd are allowed to be over £430 million in debt? You can’t really be surprised that other clubs have bent the rules to then try and gain an advantage on such clubs. All this whole thing is just a big power battle between rich bigwigs.
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Regardless of people’s opinion on all this, the question now is where do UEFA go? They have proven so incompetent and so are inevitably so much weaker, that I don’t think they can paper over their cracks anymore. I suspect that when news was coming out about City’s alleged wrongdoing, UEFA somewhat panicked and there were then cries inside that they had to “do something”. And whenever you have such a panicked situation, disaster usually follows. To now call themselves a ‘governing body’ is getting increasingly meaningless. I think they simply have to bow down to the clubs whilst making out they’re making decisions independently of them. Indeed I think this action UEFA took was a last ditch attempt to reassert themselves. But the seeds for all this were sown long ago when clubs became the playground of the rich, with UEFA trying to exert control they effectively gave up at the same time.
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Steveo, but it doesn’t change the fact that Chelsea now have the worst defensive record of the top 4/5 clubs and by some distance. 49 goals now conceded. In fact you have to go down to 11th place before you find the next club to have conceded as many. It reminds me a bit of Rodgers at Liverpool. Great going forward but far too leaky at the back, which is ultimately what cost winning trophies with him. Just too naive. I’d be a bit worried for them.
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Interestingly Chelsea & Leicester have pretty much scored the same amount of goals this season but Chelsea have conceded 12 more goals than Leicester giving them the poorest goal difference in the top 5. Will it come home to haunt them?
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I think the blogger Swissramble noted the big problem with austerity in football with regards to Arsenal was that because inflation is so huge, saving money is pointless because the money you save will have hugely dropped in value by the time you’re ready to spend again. Letting their big stars run their contracts down obviously didn’t help either. Players also have to see a plan and be excited by it, or else they’ll be off. I still think Jose is capable of winning the league because at the top level, it’s more about mentality than the type of football you play. Liverpool have arguably been more Mourinho-esque this season with them constantly eking out results. But will Levy ever change? What was his strategy when he installed Mourinho?
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Steveo, as the saying goes, don’t let a good crisis go to waste.
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I just think we’ve been playing a long time though, and there probably ain’t going to be much of a pre season before we’re straight back into it next season.
As for Origi, I completely agree that he’s not got the talent of the others, but a big reason I think for his big goals in big games is due to the fact he’s a very cool head on the pitch and doesn’t get affected much by pressure, which is a very useful trait to have. So I’ve got mixed feelings about whether we should offload him. He’s obviously much better up top than on the wings too.
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Be an interesting summer ahead. Curtis Jones undoubtedly the brightest spark amongst the youngsters coming through. He doesn’t look out of place in the first team whenever I see him play which is the greatest compliment I can give him. So I’m all for promoting such players. As for Minamino, this is a guy that’s now 25 so he really needs to be knocking on the door sooner rather than later. I also think he needs to muscle up a bit for this league, so I think he’s some time away yet if he is to have a future. Elliot I think needs at least another season or two for me. Williams has looked quite good but again needs some development. Then there’s Keita. If he can stay fit, I do think there’s a player there. But we just keep seeing glimpses of something special and then he gets injured. So all in all, there’s quite a few maybes there rather than definites. So investment needed for me to both keep others on their toes, and to give us other options. Granted we’ve had the lockdown, a lot of our players have also been playing continually for a very long time now and I do just worry about burnout.
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I think the ‘fit & proper person’ test has always consisted of just one question:
Can you afford to buy the club?
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It’s the mentality of a side that dictates a lot of their success. Under Klopp Liverpool have arguably played better football in previous seasons than this season, with the difference being they were much stronger mentally this season which constantly saw them get over the line in many games. I think Jose took a poor Utd side with some players he didn’t really want and overachieved with them the season they finished second. So Jose is still more than capable of instilling such a mentality in teams but his last two clubs (including Spurs) have invested poorly. And Spurs are in desperate need of some fresh faces.
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Levy is undoubtedly the root cause of Spurs’ problems. On one hand he’s very conservative. But on the other, he invests hugely in a new stadium at a time when match day revenues account for a smaller and smaller proportion of total revenues. It’s like buying a hotel on a monopoly board before you’ve bought the houses.
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“BTW, did you lads, did ye know that Liverpool havent scored an away goal in their last 5 attempts? How crazy is that?”
We’ve lost something in attack this season but have had a greater mentality to eke narrow victories out. But as I’ve recently said, I still think we need some more attacking options.
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Sean, I’d say we started winning things when Van Dijk & Alisson came in albeit funded by an unbelievable offer for Coutinho. Doesn’t mean we still don’t miss that kind of player though.
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In pure footballing terms, I’d argue we’ve been poor in more games than that, and we have struggled. But, we have much heart in the team and we kept eking out narrow victories. Indeed the team is the image of Klopp, and we’ve heard Klopp talk, right from the outset of his time here, about his teams showing heart. So this is undoubtedly our strength. But I just think we can help relieve the pressure in those games we struggled in with a bit more drive and creativity in the centre of the park. Indeed I seem to remember in the away game at Sheff Utd we were struggling in, it was Matip of all people who started to drive into the opposition as the game was ticking by. It’s a real shame Keita hasn’t hit the heights we wanted, because if he had, we’d be a much more robust side. And that’s the key word for me – City’s strength is their robustness and options – no matter who the opposition, no matter if they have an off day, they generally seem to score freely and almost effortlessly.
But it is what makes the rivalry between the two clubs so intriguing.
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Threeps, do you think City would have struggled to score away at Atletico? I don’t. We’re missing something there for me. Also if Klopp is so happy with the 3 you mention in midfield, why did he spend £50 million on Keita?
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I think the difference between City and Liverpool is that Liverpool have that bit more heart which has got them over the line in many games this season, but as a technical clinical team, City are still superior (though with an inferior defence this season). They never struggle to score goals. I really want us to sign some more creative and clinical players in midfield. Ox is the only one who looks like scoring from there. Take the away game that Liverpool lost at Atletico Madrid. There’s no way City would haven’t scored in that game. Just no way. Now Liverpool may have been let down by the goalkeeper in the return leg, but that midfield area is still the weakness for me.
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Mak, with KDB in the team, we would be the absolute complete side. As the commentators said tonight, he always hits the right ball and is highly intelligent. Need to find someone like that. As I’ve said on the other thread, City rarely, if ever, get a drubbing. Even in an off season, they score for fun. They are such a robust team. Get the defence sorted and they’ll be back next season, no doubt about it. Need to find our own KDB, but I’d take Mbappe 🙂
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I don’t think City have lost a game by more than 2 goals in the last 3 seasons which is pretty impressive. You never see a drubbing of them. Even in an off season, they still score for fun. Get the defence sorted, and they’ll be right back up there next season.
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Think Klopp should have played some more of the kids tonight that would have helped with some more drive in the team as the first team understandably weren’t all there tonight after the recent celebrations. Sorry, but Fabinho is at best a squad player for me. As for Keita, it’s like he needs a good run of games – daft not to start him tonight. Is he ever going stay injury free enough though? Reinforcements needed in midfield. KDB a joy to watch tonight: cool, calm, brilliant. He’d walk into any team in world football. Player of the season for me.
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