Have many of our “fans” become entitled?

franksinatra said:
Im not sure if its entitled but often I am surprised by what people write on here, such as telling Pep to F off etc, however what can be misconstrued, by the likes of me, as offensive or OTT is just often the way people articulate themselves particularly in moments of stress or high emotion.

It is probably true expectations have been ramped up, after recent success, and I do wonder how some will cope when the inevitable happens and things change. Might take a sabbatical from the forum at that time.
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The response to the Leeds and Chelsea home defeats were especially weird to me, really, really OTT.
 
Mr. Sebastian you are not wrong..I see so many players being knocked on this forum and I just can not understand it. We have all read about Mahrez, Stones, Zin, Gundog, all being useless.Now they are all superb. How the tables have turned. Now, Raheem is the next target. Supporters should support their club, their players, and stop bloody whingeing when someone has a downturn in form especially when we have had the benefit of years of trophies and success.
I guess people of a younger generation have only seen the success, so know no better. The hard times for us old boys makes us understand this so much more. If one of my boys was on here giving grief I would give him a serious telling off.In fact ,they wouldnt do it, because I have ingrained in them the history of the club.
Just wait until Pep has gone and we may have a downturn in fortune. Just imagine what this forum will then be like. I am ready for it and embrace it because football is cyclical just as life. My cup will always be half full,especially after the last 12 years.
 
A City fan who I know usually texts me if City are not winning after 20 minutes. It's usually along the lines "City are shit, what are they playing at". I have asked him if he cannot remember the days of Barry Conlon et al. He seems to have the attitude that because of the players we have that every game should be won at half time. He also has an unnatural dislike for Rodri, Cancelo, Walker, Mahrez & Sterling. Actually said to me yesterday that we would never win anything with Mahrez playing. Mind you, he was also a big supporter of Trump & thinks Boris has handled the pandemic perfectly.
 
richardtheref said:
A City fan who I know usually texts me if City are not winning after 20 minutes. It's usually along the lines "City are shit, what are they playing at". I have asked him if he cannot remember the days of Barry Conlon et al. He seems to have the attitude that because of the players we have that every game should be won at half time. He also has an unnatural dislike for Rodri, Cancelo, Walker, Mahrez & Sterling. Actually said to me yesterday that we would never win anything with Mahrez playing. Mind you, he was also a big supporter of Trump & thinks Boris has handled the pandemic perfectly.
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I'm afraid that ones simple.

I hate to tell you that your mate is a knob.
 
richardtheref said:
A City fan who I know usually texts me if City are not winning after 20 minutes. It's usually along the lines "City are shit, what are they playing at". I have asked him if he cannot remember the days of Barry Conlon et al. He seems to have the attitude that because of the players we have that every game should be won at half time. He also has an unnatural dislike for Rodri, Cancelo, Walker, Mahrez & Sterling. Actually said to me yesterday that we would never win anything with Mahrez playing. Mind you, he was also a big supporter of Trump & thinks Boris has handled the pandemic perfectly.
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I can think back to 2009 and being surrounded by fans whingeing if we weren't a goal or two ahead at half time. Actually moved seasonticket to get away from it in the end.

I take defeats worse than I used to because the higher you climb the further you have to fall. Losing was an expectation back in the day and it would frustrate but not surprise me. Games like Lyon really take some getting over now. But we have to accept we will still lose games and there will be downturns in form and performances.

I usually wait before posting on here when I can reflect on the bigger picture. We have another two trophies this season and a CL final for the first time. We really cannot complain. And if we win the CL then the past 4 seasons have been ridiculous in terms of success and silverware.
 
Metalartin said:
Nah, theirs was "Not arrogance just better"... Seems like you're twisting words to fit your narrative there, to basically say "Backing your team is raggy", unless I'm misreading the opening line of that post. Much the same as what? That 'City just have to show up' or that 'confidence is not arrogance'?

I'll answer anyway, you can be confident in your own team and respectful at the same time, the two aren't mutually exclusive. It's about balance at the end of the day, there are those that go too far either way is the problem.

Having a balanced outlook between confidence and respect of the opposition is much better than putting other teams chances above your own, knocking your own team and making them the underdogs before every big game. It's as I've said before, before some games, some seem determined to create a big cloud of negativity and then try and drag everyone else under it and then get pissy with anyone who disagrees with them. What they are saying in a way is: "Shit your pants with me or I'll call you an entitled rag". Those sorts are worse than the arrogant fans for me, I'd hate for the team to see how little faith they have in them, I find that just as distasteful. Not appreciating what we have or what the team have done to the point of ungratefulness and lack of faith. Balance...
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OK, when has Pep or any player ever come out & said we're confident we're gonna smash an opposition team?
 
grim up north said:
The FFS in relation to Mahrez sums up the entitled wankers of our some so called fans
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I don’t know about that.

I actually got ‘FFS Riyad / Ilkay’ tattooed on my forearm and I just circle one (or both) with non-toxic laser blue felt tip on match day depending on my mood.

Covered up the ill-advised ‘Alfonso Alves Till I Die’ tat nicely.
 
Dribble said:
OK, when has Pep or any player ever come out & said we're confident we're gonna smash an opposition team?
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Not the point I was making and therefore a strawman but I'll answer and ask my own question.

Never.

When has Pep or any player ever come out and said: "These guys are better than us(or their defence or their attack), I've got a bad feeling about this one lads! :( *parrp* " ?

The only times I've ever said anything remotely like what you asked is to balance out the doom mongers, who do my head in and everyone else's with their negativity. Even if someone did go into a game confident that we will win comfortably, it says more about the people who get triggered by that to me. Like I said, people are constantly trying to control things out of everyone's hands, with daft superstitions or a belief that Pep and the players come on here before games. Both sides do it IMO, I try and stay fairly balanced, I like to think but I would rather people not make out backing the team is wrong or entitled. See the definition of the word: "support" for why.

Did you even read that post you responded to where I suggested striking a balance is the most sensible option? I stand by it:

Having faith or confidence is not necessarily arrogance. Depending on the game and what opinion is offered. In times gone by it would have been deluded to make us favourites vs Real Madrid or Barcelona but our team/form and the opposition's etc can all change over time, it's not sensible to ignore all of that.

And:

Showing a complete lack of faith in your own team, is a fair few steps too far past showing respect to the opposition. Making our team the underdogs in every big game when the facts show otherwise, is not the sensible view either.

Sorry but for me it looks as though you tried to slip something into this discussion that doesn't belong, based on disagreement(s) before a game gone by, on our chances of winning. Those people making us underdogs saying our defence will get torn apart by Dortmund or PSG were proven wrong in the end. It was only that, that I didn't agree with really.
 
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Metalartin said:
Not the point I was making and therefore a strawman but I'll answer and ask my own question.

Never.

When has Pep or any player ever come out and said: "These guys are better than us(or their defence or their attack), I've got a bad feeling about this one lads! :( *parrp* " ?

The only times I've ever said anything remotely like what you asked is to balance out the doom mongers, who do my head in and everyone else's with their negativity. Even if someone did go into a game confident that we will win comfortably, it says more about the people who get triggered by that to me. Like I said, people are constantly trying to control things out of everyone's hands, with daft superstitions or a belief that Pep and the players come on here before games. Both sides do it IMO, I try and stay fairly balanced, I like to think but I would rather people not make out backing the team is wrong or entitled. See the definition of the word: "support" for why.

Did you even read that post you responded to where I suggested striking a balance is the most sensible option? I stand by it:

Having faith or confidence is not necessarily arrogance. Depending on the game and what opinion is offered. In times gone by it would have been deluded to make us favourites vs Real Madrid or Barcelona but our team/form and the opposition's etc can all change over time, it's not sensible to ignore all of that.

And:

Showing a complete lack of faith in your own team, is a fair few steps too far past showing respect to the opposition. Making our team the underdogs in every big game when the facts show otherwise, is not the sensible view either.

Sorry but for me it looks as though you tried to slip something into this discussion that doesn't belong, based on disagreement(s) before a game gone by, on our chances of winning. Those people making us underdogs saying our defence will get torn apart by Dortmund or PSG were proven wrong in the end. It was only that, that I didn't agree with really.
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The OP created this thread in respect to entitled City fans. I'm trying to stay on point, but we seem to be swerving all over the place.

So if the manager, his staff or the players don't go larging it up all Billy Big Bollocks, isn't that the example we should follow?

OK, let's put it another way has Pep, his staff or the players ever said we're shit scared of "Example Team" & we believe we're gonna get stiffed regardless of what we do?
 
Dribble said:
The OP created this thread in respect to entitled City fans. I'm trying to stay on point, but we seem to be swerving all over the place.

So if the manager, his staff or the players don't go larging it up all Billy Big Bollocks, isn't that the example we should follow?

OK, let's put it another way has Pep, his staff or the players ever said we're shit scared of "Example Team" & we believe we're gonna get stiffed regardless of what we do?
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Yes we are going over the same place, I even said I agree with most of what you said but you're confusing confidence with entitlement when they are two different things. It doesn't belong in the conversation for me.

Making us favourites or simply saying "I fancy our chances in this game because..." isn't being billy big bollocks, as long as it's a balanced view, I think I've explained all of that well enough.

Pep wont say the above publicly or make us favourites publicly because all that does is invite public pressure or worse still gives the gameplan away. Also, he has gone as far saying he accepts when others make us favourites but that it doesn't really mean much if we don't perform on the day in so many words.

Privately though I'm sure Pep will tell the team "We can beat this team if we play to our best/concentrate on what we have to do to win". Support/encouragement/faith/confidence, these are the words I'd use for that and any fans giving a similar message, never entitlement. I was surprised that Pep said something feels different this year so early into the CL this season, but I don't think he was being entitled by saying that either. It's just how he felt based on his own team's performances, the only entitlement there, is the right to have his own opinion.

I've asked you that last question already in response to the question you asked me. Saying we just have to turn up or the other team have no chance is not balanced or sensible I agree but you seem preoccupied on one side of the same coin. So in a way you're agreeing that it's not a case of: confident = entitled vs doubtful = not entitled/sensible/non-raggy . Neither of those outlooks are sensible, it's also a different conversation from the entitlement one.
 
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Metalartin said:
Yes we are going over the same place, I even said I agree with most of what you said but you're confusing confidence with entitlement when they are two different things. It doesn't belong in the conversation for me.

Making us favourites or simply saying "I fancy our chances in this game because..." isn't being billy big bollocks, as long as it's a balanced view, I think I've explained all of that well enough.

Pep wont say the above publicly or make us favourites publicly because all that does is invite public pressure or worse still gives the gameplan away. Also, he has gone as far saying he accepts when others make us favourites but that it doesn't really mean much if we don't perform on the day in so many words.

Privately though I'm sure Pep will tell the team "We can beat this team if we play to our best/concentrate on what we have to do to win". Support/encouragement/faith/confidence, these are the words I'd use for that and any fans giving a similar message, never entitlement. I was surprised that Pep said something feels different this year so early into the CL this season, but I don't think he was being entitled by saying that either. It's just how he felt based on his own team's performances, the only entitlement there, is the right to have his own opinion.

I've asked you that last question already in response to the question you asked me. Saying we just have to turn up or the other team have no chance is not balanced or sensible I agree but you seem preoccupied on one side of the same coin. So in a way you're agreeing that it's not a case of: confident = entitled vs doubtful = not entitled/sensible/non-raggy . Neither of those outlooks are sensible, it's also a different conversation from the entitlement one.
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You're not getting the point. ManUre fans have spent the last 30 years with "20 titles" "3 Champions Leagues" " X amount of FA & League Cups" "Your club's shit because we've got more than you have" etc....

It stuck in my fuckin throat, but now we've got fans doing the same to other fans, which to me shows a lack of class by becoming like those we despise.

My take on this? When asked about our chances vs PSG, I simply said they're dangerous & we've got our work cut out against them. However, they've got as much to worry about us, as we have them, so ultimately it comes down to our boys to do the business when called upon.

When asked about our achievements, I generally say how proud I am that we've lived up to our potential, & considering where we were 20 years ago, I'm in dreamland & appreciating every second of the football we play & the success it's brought. However, I don't dwell on it as we have to keep progressing because other teams won't just stand still admiring us.

I also acknowledge that nothing lasts forever & point to Liverpool going 30 years without a league title as a warning. I've personally cringed at City fans bragging how much money we've got, & that as long as Sheikh Mansour & his trillions remain, we'll continue to splatter all before us for centuries to come, or until global warming ends life as we know it, whichever comes first.

This is the EXACT type of rhetoric which makes me hate ManUre & Liverpool fans, & is the very last thing I want City fans to become. However I'm sad to say I've heard these views said in front of me, & read them online from a small number of fans. Again, this is what I think the OP is trying to highlight, so let's stay on topic otherwise we'll still be here going round in circles this time next year. :-|
 
You could argue that every single one of us from the Sheikh to the board to the management team to the playing team to club staff to the fans have all become entitled.

Mancini brought a winning mentality to City that we’d not had for decades. Part of a winning mentality is having an attitude that not winning is not good enough for this football club anymore. A draw isn’t good enough, never mind a defeat. A defeat in a dead rubber game the other night is not good enough, even if it doesn’t mean anything, it’s still not good enough. Anyone not playing well is not good enough, anyone doing things that contribute to not winning is not good enough, never mind a shit performance. We have to win every game, we have to, nothing else is good enough. We should be completely focused on winning being the only thing we should ever do… nothing but winning is good enough for Manchester City Football Club!

And there’s nothing wrong with any of that. That’s the healthy mentality of a winner.

With that comes that sense - especially when we play the football we play and break the records we break - that we deserve to win. That’s a kind of definition of entitled. We should win because we’ve built the best team, built the best squad, we’ve got the best manager, we play the best football, we play to a level that should win titles. What we’ve done at this club deserves success.

Now that’s a bit different to the sense of entitlement where you think you should be given privileges or special treatment because of who you are.

We don’t have that.

In Pellegrini’s final season we’d allowed our squad to drop in quality, we progressively got to a stage where I felt we were the most unfit team in the league (and West Ham players said the same thing after Pellers left them n’all) and we weren’t playing good football. In Pep’s first season we didn’t sort the squad out ready for him to come, our squad was hugely lacking for his arrival. We didn’t deserve anything around that time. We weren’t good enough. So our sense of entitlement wasn’t in our makeup in the sense that we understood we weren’t good enough and didn’t deserve to win things just because we had done previously or we’d brought in Pep.

But the sense of entitlement at that time was in that we were now a club where not being good enough was not fucking good enough anymore, and that we should be doing better than accepting not being good enough.

However, again, I accept that the window of time where we will be in this position of not accepting not winning, won’t last forever. I, and probably all of us, understand that sport is cyclical and nobody stays at the top forever. We will have our moment, maybe a couple of decades at the top, and we will eventually fade to see other clubs, different clubs, succeed. That’s how it should be, that’s what sport should be like. We accept that and when we know we aren’t good enough but have had a good run and that time has run out our entitlement of thinking nothing but winning is good enough will also fade away.

We’ll see others winning and we’ll look back on our time at the top with great memories, but we won’t just expect them to last forever because we were once great so we should always be.
 
Good to see you.

I joined this only a couple of years ago. Like life, you can get everything here. The good, the bad and the ugly.

Expectations will increase when someone performs better at their job so it’s unsurprising if that’s what happened for a lot fans. You could say there’s a bit of entitlement but I wouldn’t be able to gauge or measure that.

BM wouldn’t be a good barometer to represent all the fans. Football is a sport that makes emotions run high. Clouds judgement. By the way, not on Twitter but it’s a cesspool. It’s never and probably won’t ever bother me the different view people have. In some ways they all have an underlying theme- wishing that City do well.

You’ll always have the ‘old’ vs ‘new’ fan dynamic. Also, the home vs foreign fan dynamic. Let’s add the ‘Manc’ vs ‘others’ dynamic. It’s inevitable. Some would argue that the ‘bad’ days are romanticised. On the other hand, some of the more recent views can be seen as extreme on the other side of the spectrum.

After all that waffling, the answer is there is some entitlement. There are also higher expectations. It’s not going to change. Best to ignore it all unless a new fan forum is made for people from the 70s till 2008 and one for fans from 2008 till date. Sad to see the infighting but it’s mostly opinions at the end of the day. Whether absolutely shit or not, people will always have one.
 
If entitled means expecting more from our team than we used to then yes we're entitled.

I've seen dozens and dozens of posts over the last ten years containing quotes like "it was better back in the old days"

Reality is, it wasn't. Yes having beers and standing on the terraces at far flung grotty grounds with your (younger) mates was a laugh and the 90 minutes would often spoil the day. But that was OK back then because it was what we were used to. You'd have liked us to win a few more games, may be get promoted, may be, good god, get to a Cup Semi Final, but all we wanted was a "relative improvement" or a "don't go backwards".

And I think that's what we still basically want today - a "relative improvement" or a "don't go backwards".
Its just we starting from a much, much, much higher point.

This means of course if we actually win Ole Big Ears at the end of the month we're on a hiding to nothing going forwards, because our "satisfaction" factor will be dashed if we don't keep doing it year after year.
 
Dribble said:
You're not getting the point. ManUre fans have spent the last 30 years with "20 titles" "3 Champions Leagues" " X amount of FA & League Cups" "Your club's shit because we've got more than you have" etc....

It stuck in my fuckin throat, but now we've got fans doing the same to other fans, which to me shows a lack of class by becoming like those we despise.

My take on this? When asked about our chances vs PSG, I simply said they're dangerous & we've got our work cut out against them. However, they've got as much to worry about us, as we have them, so ultimately it comes down to our boys to do the business when called upon.

When asked about our achievements, I generally say how proud I am that we've lived up to our potential, & considering where we were 20 years ago, I'm in dreamland & appreciating every second of the football we play & the success it's brought. However, I don't dwell on it as we have to keep progressing because other teams won't just stand still admiring us.

I also acknowledge that nothing lasts forever & point to Liverpool going 30 years without a league title as a warning. I've personally cringed at City fans bragging how much money we've got, & that as long as Sheikh Mansour & his trillions remain, we'll continue to splatter all before us for centuries to come, or until global warming ends life as we know it, whichever comes first.

This is the EXACT type of rhetoric which makes me hate ManUre & Liverpool fans, & is the very last thing I want City fans to become. However I'm sad to say I've heard these views said in front of me, & read them online from a small number of fans. Again, this is what I think the OP is trying to highlight, so let's stay on topic otherwise we'll still be here going round in circles this time next year. :-|
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I don't think I disagree, really, but I also think that some City fans think there is some kind of core thing that makes United specifically egregious rather than it just being a general thing that all fans of successful clubs go through. That their golden period aligned with our shit period meant it hurt even more, and I grew up in the 90s in a school with 100s of United "fans" who has seen their team play less than I had, so I know how much it hurt, but you could take any football team across the football league, have them have the decade we have had, and you'd see that bravado sneak in. It's part of the game - give me winning things and fans getting cocky over relegation days and fans being humble.
 
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