Spurs (H) Post Match Thread

[Metalartin]

So the Spurs fan thinks we are owned by a state afterall and that it is indeed just a sports-washing project that will end when and only when City win the CL?

11 years in and the UAE, Abu Dhabi in particular are really benefiting from all that positive press, to clean up their image. Which of course comes with every Manchester City related achievement. It also looks like it's improving the bigger the club gets. Money well spent if that was the aim. What is it, £500bn spent so far? According to the none-tinfoil hat wearing folk, that don't believe the crazy talk about a cartel of sorts in football.

Yep, airtight that, "it is all just a sports-washing project" theory.

 

[kaz7]

So the Spurs fan thinks we are owned by a state afterall and that it is indeed just a sports-washing project that will end when and only when City win the CL?

11 years in and the UAE, Abu Dhabi in particular are really benefiting from all that positive press to clean up their image, which comes with every Manchester City related achievement. It also looks like it's improving the bigger the club gets. Money well spent if that was the aim. What is it, £500bn spent so far? According to the none-tinfoil hat folks, that don't believe the crazy talk that there is a cartel in football.

Yep, airtight that, "it is all just a sports-washing project" theory.

At least he waited 4 days before he started with city bingo,they always play nice for a few days first

 

[Marvin]

I'm finding it hard to respond to this without referencing the 'sports washing' which I expect will be regarded as wumming.

I grew up (late 80s - 90s) with 2 City supporting step brothers so I'm not as 'out of the loop' as you may think - and have always been sympathetic towards the fans of a great club who are being used with little to no resistance. Have seen City play live into double digits and don't regard myself as a regular 'rival fan' purely because City has been imposed on me my whole life - even though I support Spurs. I'm no expert, but am also not completely ignorant.

Well I guess everyone is against you then like you say. Any allegations made against City, the fans will once again turn a blind eye and see them as further evidence that Uefa and other organisations have an agenda against the club. That may be true - but also 'project longbow' may be true or other skulduggery that's supposedly going on. None of us posting on here are very likely to have sufficient evidence available for the complete picture and will be filling in the gaps with speculation.

Such corruption would be far easier to sustain against City without VAR though. Can only see it working in your favour.
I mean, the Champions League is all the Abu Dhabi lot really want to win and be associated with anyway - and I feel kind of proud to see City fans being focused on winning (consecutive) domestic titles as opposed to buying in to the state organised agenda.

But alas, this is a local forum for local people.. or something to that effect.

You are completely ignorant on several counts

1) City are part owned by Sheikh Mansour. Not Abu Dhabi. (The other 15% is owned by Chinese Media Capital .)

2) City have said repeatedly that the Premier League is the priority. You must have seen that when we played you at the Tottenham Stadium last season when City clearly put out a side, and resorted to conservative tactics clearly reflecting the importance of the Premier League

3) How does Sportswashing work when if anything the UAE has come under much closer scrutiny because of links to City? I've never once seen Manchester City fans carrying UAE flags around with them promoting the UAE. City fans will reject propaganda, but promoting the UAE? Just does not happen. Have you seen any evidence of it whilst you've been on Bluemoon? I doubt it very much.

4) Re UEFA FFP. THe whole thing is a total farce. We all followed every little intricacy back in 2010 or whenever it was. City were set to fail FFP, but excape without a financial sanction, and then UEFA decided to change the assessment criteria for pre-existing players contracts which changed everything and suddenly City were in big trouble, and responded allegedly by Projects to increase self-sponsorship. We're not alone in sponsoring ourselves see King Power, Sports Direct etc. Loads of clubs do it. Are we expected to believe that the only club with financial skeletons are Manchester City? And yet it is always Manchester City who are being investigated. It's clearly highly political, and fairness does not come into it.

I'm bored, but you get the picture.

 

[caseball]

ive mentined them before...never seen them do anything!

One of them intervened that ended up with a pen awarded to Monaco that happened so fast, you could only see it in slo-mo. Against City. Other than that, no, I've never noticed them do anything significant in any game, either.

 

[Chippy_boy]

corruption would be far easier to sustain against City without VAR though. Can only see it working in your favour.

I don't agree with that. VAR has the potential to achieve that, but the way it is implemented, it makes matters much, much worse.

Prior to VAR when all officiating was done on the pitch, officials had the scrutiny of 50,000 people to worry about. Their decisions would be analysed by Sky and MOTD and they would have to turn up next week in front of another 50,000. There is not much they can do about their own incompetence, but their ability to blatantly cheat is highly moderated. Make too many dreadful calls and questions may be asked and you may find yourself dropping down the refereeing pecking order.

VAR drives a coach and horses through this. Faceless, unaccountable people in a dark room 100's if miles away can do WTF they like. Critically they can let pass the infringements they want to let pass, whilst ruling over the ones they do not. No-one in the stand saw the ball hit Laporte's arm. What other infringements happened which no-one saw, but the VAR team did see, but chose to ignore? We have no idea.

In the Spurs game I don't think there were any actually (the Rodri penalty, we all saw, and they still managed to ignore that!).

But what if the game had been different and a ball had struck a Spurs players arm, just as it supposedly hit Laporte's? What's to stop corrupt officials simply choosing to ignore it?

No, if VAR is to diminish bad decisions and downright cheating, it needs to be MUCH more transparent. For example, why is the VAR data, ALL of the VAR data not available for public scrutiny? Or at least for scrutiny by all the clubs? If fairness, neutrality and better decisions are the true motive, then surely that would be an obvious thing to do.

I don't think that is the motive however, at least not the entire motive. It offers the opportunity to improve decision-making overall and I am guessing it will do that. But it also offers a perfect cover for the manipulation of results. It's absolutely ideal as it stands, to do that.

 

[Lovebitesandeveryfing]

Good post, @Chippy_boy. Reasoned, nuanced. I'm generally pro-VAR but you're certainly giving me stuff to mull over.

 

[Marvin]

I don't agree with that. VAR has the potential to achieve that, hut the way it is implemented, it makes matters much, much worse.

Prior to VAR when all officiating was done on the pitch, officials had the scrutiny of 50,000 people to worry about. Their decisions would be analysed by Sky and MOTD and they would have to turn up next week in front of another 50,000. There is not much they can do about their own incompetence, but their ability to blatantly cheat is highly moderated. Make too many dreadful calls and questions may be asked and you must get find yourself dropping down the refereeing pecking order.

VAR drives a coach and horses through this. Faceless, unaccountable people in a dark room 100's if miles away can do WTF they like. Critically they can let pass the infringements they want to let pass, whilst ruling over the ones they do not. No-one in the stand saw the ball hit Laporte's arm. What other infringements happened which no-one saw, but the VAR team did see, but chose to ignore? We have no idea.

In the Spurs game I don't think there were any actually (the Rodri penalty, we all saw, and they still managed to ignore that!).

But what if the game had been different and a ball had struck a Spurs players arm, just as it supposedly hit Laporte's? What's to stop corrupt officials simply choosing to ignore it?

No, if VAR is to diminish bad decisions and downright cheating, it needs to be MUCH more transparent. For example, why is the VAR data, ALL of the VAR data not available for public scrutiny? Or at least for scrutiny by all the clubs? If fairness, neutrality and better decisions are the true motive, then surely that would be an obvious thing to do.

I don't think that is the motive however, at least not the entire motive. It offers the opportunity to improve decision-making overall and I am guessing it will do that. But it also offers a perfect cover for the manipulation of results. It's absolutely ideal as it stands, to do that.

They've been inviting the press for the last fortnight to workshops and presentations. Apparently they showed them the Rodri incident and they feel they didn't want to undermine the ref's opinion that the player dived. He did, but only after being fouled, the same way that Pogba dived to get a pen at Wolves.

A problem with VAR is that we have a pathetically weak media. They work hand in glove. Media should hold them to account. They have no inclination to do so.

 

[Chippy_boy]

They've been inviting the press for the last fortnight to workshops and presentations. Apparently they showed them the Rodri incident and they feel they didn't want to undermine the ref's opinion that the player dived. He did, but only after being fouled, the same way that Pogba dived to get a pen at Wolves.

A problem with VAR is that we have a pathetically weak media. They work hand in glove. Media should hold them to account. They have no inclination to do so.

Agreed, but what about the incidents they choose not to review?

Let's suppose Spurs scored the winner in the 93rd minute, but VAR revealed it had struck a Spurs players' arm on the way through. And yet Mr X in the VAR room is a spurs fan and decides to ignore it?

How do we stop that happening with VAR as it stands?

Of course such cheating was possible before, but at least it had to be done in full view of 50,000 "auditors". Now it can be done in secret and no-one has any idea.

 

[rnblade]

Sports washing???

So the MASSIVE investment in the local area, services, facilities etc etc and the community related programmes being funded by the club is sports washing.

BITTERNESS EVERYWHERE.

 

[Chippy_boy]

The one thing I would add is that we should continue to kick up as much as stink about this as we possibly can. Booing in the stadium and at away matches, we must not let it drop.

Why? Because the more the spotlight remains on the VAR decisions, the more difficult it will be for them to continue to cheat. We've already had consecutive matches with ridiculous VAR decisions. If there's another one at Bournemouth, a few more neutrals will start to think "hang on, what's going on here". And pressure will continue to mount, lessening the room for further cheating.