Are City really ruining football?

Musselburgh Blue said:
I often find the narrative of City ruining football somewhat amusing when it's brought up by certain groups of fans across England. City have definitely had success, but are self sufficient now and run much more effectively. The rest need to play catch up and that's on them, but who needs hard work when you can point the finger at a club who have had some investment.

I'm born and bread Edinburgh and live in Musselburgh just outside the city on the east coast. As a kid, I went to watch Hibs since they were my local side, but grew increasingly fed up of it due to the Old Firm dominance. I now get my local football fix from ironically watching the Citizens up here, Edinburgh City in League Two (keep an eye on them!). The last team to win the title outside of Glasgow was Aberdeen and I was in nappies at the time in the mid 80's. That's a ruined football league and it's unrecoverable.

Some fans of other clubs like United, Liverpool, Arsenal and Spurs etc. should try supporting Hibs, Hearts or Motherwell - then they'll know what ruined football is... They all have money and resources to compete - and they will again. They need to get over it... nobody complained when it was the rags a number of years ago with their pop songs in the charts and all that bullshit.
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In my friendship group we have a Bolton and Stoke fan, and a couple of Liverpool and United fans. Whenever the latter start piping up about City ruining football the former are pretty quick to shut it down. We can either completely reimagine how football is organized and funded - which I'd be up for, actually, but it would radically transform the game - or we can keep it how it is, but I'm not interested in setting in stone so Manchester United and Liverpool get to win because they were at the right place to take advantage of global changes in the 1990s.
 
When we pipped the scousers to the title they acted like the scousers won the title because they painted them as plucky underdogs beating the masked villain.

I can't wait until we get even more points on the board, there is no need for humility because the supporters of European royalty just deserve humiliation and us making hay while the sun still shines.

If they complain about money we should spend more, and if they point and say "Look you are spending money we should say".

 
You can definitely tell when we are doing well when these things are taking place.

Media highlight the league is boring and or unfair ✅
Rival managers constantly whinging about us in regards to resources, squad size?, how they can’t compete etc✅
Major pundits suddenly start acting as if someone has been pissing on their cornflakes all of a sudden ✅
Social media posts about how we are state owned, human rights, cheats etc✅
Teams languishing behind us labelled proper clubs, organic and only spending what they earn etc✅

There’s more than a few more but you get the picture.

In a nutshell it’s all a load of entitled, totally unfounded bullshit spouted by totally entitled unfounded bullshitters.
 
Seedy Ron said:
You can definitely tell when we are doing well when these things are taking place.

Media highlight the league is boring and or unfair ✅
Rival managers constantly whinging about us in regards to resources, squad size?, how they can’t compete etc✅
Major pundits suddenly start acting as if someone has been pissing on their cornflakes all of a sudden ✅
Social media posts about how we are state owned, human rights, cheats etc✅
Teams languishing behind us labelled proper clubs, organic and only spending what they earn etc✅

There’s more than a few more but you get the picture.

In a nutshell it’s all a load of entitled, totally unfounded bullshit spouted by totally entitled unfounded bullshitters.
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Bravo
 
Those were the days.

Launch the ball, and as it was headed in by Quinn, the snow would fall off the ball.

1640963739490.jpeg
 
City’s period of dominance is, at least as yet, some way short of the periods of dominance enjoyed by Liverpool and United. Between 1975 and 1990 Liverpool won 10 out of 15 league titles - 67% of the total. In the two decades following the creation of the premier league United won 13 titles - around 62%. City have won 5 titles in 10 seasons - even if City win this league it will be 6 in 11, which is less than 55% - so a fair way behind these teams in both absolute and relative terms.

During that same period of dominance, Liverpool also won the FA cup twice and the League cup 4 times. During their dominant period, United also won the FA cup 4 times and the League cup 3 times. City’s cup success since 2011 is 2 Fa Cups and 6 league cups. So, on balance, it probably is fair to put City’s domestic dominance in the same bracket as the other two clubs periods of success.

Yet this throws up an interesting paradox.

It is interesting to compare the periods of dominance that one English team has had domestically with the success English teams have had in European competition.

During Liverpool’s heyday, the European cup was contested by an English team on 9 of the 11 finals starting with Leeds’ defeat in 1975 and ending with English clubs’ ignominious exit from Europe after Heysel in 1985. In particular, English teams won every European cup bar 1 between 1977 and 1984 - Forest in 1979 and 1980, Villa in 1982 and Liverpool in 77, 78, 81 and 84. This of course was the time when only the champions entered the European Cup, which meant one team per country unless the previous year’s cup winners were English - which, at this time, they usually were.

During the same period, English clubs did well in other European competitions. Everton won the Cup Winners cup, and West Ham and Arsenal both got to the final. Liverpool, Ipswich and Spurs all won the UEFA cup in the same period.

During second half of United's period of domination, English teams again began to dominate. Between 2005 and 2012 English cups contested the final on 7 out of 8 occasions, winning three. There was an all-English final in 2007, and there were two or three seasons when three of the four semi finalists were English, including the season when Chelsea were blatantly and infamously cheated out of victory by a Norwegian referee. And of course let's not forget that fucking balmy night in Barcelona.

In the same period Arsenal, Middlesbrough and Fulham all reached the UEFA cup final, which Liverpool won in 2001.

Our own period of dominance, especially during the Pep years, coincides with a resurgence of English success in Europe. Two of the last three finals have been all English affairs, Liverpool losing in the final to Real Madrid in 2018. There have been several seasons where at least two of the four semi finalists were English teams. In the same period, Chelsea won the Europa League twice, United won it in 2017, and United, Liverpool and Arsenal have all lost in the final in the last 6 years.

In total, English teams have won the European Cup/Champions league on fourteen occasions. Thirteen have been in one of these three periods of domestic dominance. English teams have won the Europa league/UEFA cup on nine occasions. Seven came in one of the same periods.

Does that prove that a period of domestic dominance is good for English teams in Europe?

By reference to Empirical evidence, it does, even if correlation does not necessarily imply causation. But it is an interesting point, and not necessarily a counter-intuitive one, that when one team raises the bar domestically, others need to raise their game to be able to compete. And when they do, that benefits them in Europe as well as domestically.

By that reckoning, City aren't ruining football, neither did United or Liverpool when they were dominating.

They were improving it.
 
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jrb said:
Whilst Liverpool fans and other fans are talking about the overwhelming size of City’s squad and the advantage that gives City in the title race. In reality, if this list is correct?

View attachment 33167

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Its a bit disingenuous to include players with no appearances at other clubs and not include Cole Palmer, Torres, or even (unfortunately) Mendy.

I think the general point people make is the depth of our quality in our squad rather than quantity. You don't see a drop off when there is rotation.

My only point would be we manage the rotation slightly better, so aren't as reliant on a small number of players (but we would struggle without Rodri, Dias, and Walker/Cancelo for a considerable period).
 
cptaidan88 said:
Its a bit disingenuous to include players with no appearances at other clubs and not include Cole Palmer, Torres, or even (unfortunately) Mendy.

I think the general point people make is the depth of our quality in our squad rather than quantity. You don't see a drop off when there is rotation.

My only point would be we manage the rotation slightly better, so aren't as reliant on a small number of players (but we would struggle without Rodri, Dias, and Walker/Cancelo for a considerable period).
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Yeah agree

I think we've got some fairly versatile players which masks a bit of the depth too
 
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