Citys Aguero Persuit Destroys RAWK [Merged]

[Prestwich_Blue]

Obviously the above starting 11 wouldn't fit all tactical situations or formations but it gives a pretty clear impression, 2 Liverpool players in the starting 11 (could be as low as 1 or as high as 4), and this is a team that some scousers think is a potential champion?!! Ridiculous.

Not going to quote the whole post but there's a key flaw in your logic. If we did that for the rags, who would get in our team? Evra, Vidic & Rooney definitely and possibly Nani. Yet they won the league. Liverpool also destroyed us at Anfield.

It's not just about individual players but how they combine as a team. People dismiss Kuyt yet he gets through an incredible amount of work and pops up in front of goal quite a few times. I still think they are relatively weak at the back plus they have a tendency to be up for the big games and not for the smaller ones. But I think they could be in the mix this season for various reasons.

I'd add Ashley Young to the mix for starting as well.

I can see what you're saying. However I think Liverpool may have a shot at a cup (it's pot luck sometimes with those things, and if Stoke can make the final.....) but they've got ZERO chance of a title challenge in my opinion. I think I've said it before but I'll reiterate just in case, I think the top 3 this seaosn will be United, Chelsea and City in some order, and that 4th, 5th and 6th will be Arsenal, Spurs and Liverpool in some order. I don't think there will be much to separate the top3 3 from each other, or the next 3 from each other, but I predict there will be a gap of circa 10 points between 3rd and 4th.

By "in the mix" I meant top 4. I think that they will beat Spurs & Arsenal to the 4th spot. A widely held opinion on RAWK is that Chelsea are the weak link.

 

[Matty]

Not going to quote the whole post but there's a key flaw in your logic. If we did that for the rags, who would get in our team? Evra, Vidic & Rooney definitely and possibly Nani. Yet they won the league. Liverpool also destroyed us at Anfield.

It's not just about individual players but how they combine as a team. People dismiss Kuyt yet he gets through an incredible amount of work and pops up in front of goal quite a few times. I still think they are relatively weak at the back plus they have a tendency to be up for the big games and not for the smaller ones. But I think they could be in the mix this season for various reasons.

I'd add Ashley Young to the mix for starting as well.

I can see what you're saying. However I think Liverpool may have a shot at a cup (it's pot luck sometimes with those things, and if Stoke can make the final.....) but they've got ZERO chance of a title challenge in my opinion. I think I've said it before but I'll reiterate just in case, I think the top 3 this seaosn will be United, Chelsea and City in some order, and that 4th, 5th and 6th will be Arsenal, Spurs and Liverpool in some order. I don't think there will be much to separate the top3 3 from each other, or the next 3 from each other, but I predict there will be a gap of circa 10 points between 3rd and 4th.

By "in the mix" I meant top 4. I think that they will beat Spurs & Arsenal to the 4th spot. A widely held opinion on RAWK is that Chelsea are the weak link.

Widely held and particularly inaccurate. Chelsea are far from the weak link. Arsenal have the same God awful defence and goalkeeping situation as last season (ok, so they've got Vermaelen back, but they've lost Clichy) and they are still FAR too reliant on Van Persie to score the goals, and everyone knows he'll miss 10 matches through injury. Nasri and Fabregas both want to be elsewhere ideally, and come September 1st either or both might well be. Wenger seems pathalogically opposed to spending money, I'm not sure if it's stubborness or not. If there was ever a time when Arsenal needed to spend big it's now, yet we're pretty much 2 weeks from the atart of the season and Arsenal have spent virtually nothing. Again.

 

[The Fat el Hombre]

Nasri and Fabregas both want to be elsewhere ideally, and come September 1st either or both might well be.

Just as likely neither will be elsewhere come September the 1st though. People are quick to write Arsenal off but it looks like Wenger's gonna get a decent centre half in with him bidding for Jagielka (the decent centre half might not necessarily be Jagielka) and with barca still pissing about Fabregas might stil stay. If Arsenal were to add Mata and Jagielka or another decent defender to their squad and keep either Fabregas or Mata there's absolutely no way they'll drop out of that top four. It'll be a closed shop. Where the top four will finish between themselves will be anyones guess as we'll all have quality squads of a similar standard, a level above liverpool. That's when Liverpools transfer strategy of bringing in decent young players but not great ones will come back to haunt them

To say Chelsea are the weak link is ridiculous as they are currently an unkown quantity with their new manager

 

[Prestwich_Blue]

I'd add Ashley Young to the mix for starting as well.

I can see what you're saying. However I think Liverpool may have a shot at a cup (it's pot luck sometimes with those things, and if Stoke can make the final.....) but they've got ZERO chance of a title challenge in my opinion. I think I've said it before but I'll reiterate just in case, I think the top 3 this seaosn will be United, Chelsea and City in some order, and that 4th, 5th and 6th will be Arsenal, Spurs and Liverpool in some order. I don't think there will be much to separate the top3 3 from each other, or the next 3 from each other, but I predict there will be a gap of circa 10 points between 3rd and 4th.

By "in the mix" I meant top 4. I think that they will beat Spurs & Arsenal to the 4th spot. A widely held opinion on RAWK is that Chelsea are the weak link.

Widely held and particularly inaccurate. Chelsea are far from the weak link. Arsenal have the same God awful defence and goalkeeping situation as last season (ok, so they've got Vermaelen back, but they've lost Clichy) and they are still FAR too reliant on Van Persie to score the goals, and everyone knows he'll miss 10 matches through injury. Nasri and Fabregas both want to be elsewhere ideally, and come September 1st either or both might well be. Wenger seems pathalogically opposed to spending money, I'm not sure if it's stubborness or not. If there was ever a time when Arsenal needed to spend big it's now, yet we're pretty much 2 weeks from the atart of the season and Arsenal have spent virtually nothing. Again.

Couldn't agree more with that assessment. Arsenal's form for the last third of the season wouldn't have got them a top half place. They're trying to get Jagielka, who would be a good buy at £15m and Mata but it looks like he will be Nasri's replacement.

 

[Matty]

Nasri and Fabregas both want to be elsewhere ideally, and come September 1st either or both might well be.

Just as likely neither will be elsewhere come September the 1st though. People are quick to write Arsenal off but it looks like Wenger's gonna get a decent centre half in with him bidding for Jagielka (the decent centre half might not necessarily be Jagielka) and with barca still pissing about Fabregas might stil stay. If Arsenal were to add Mata and Jagielka or another decent defender to their squad and keep either Fabregas or Mata there's absolutely no way they'll drop out of that top four. It'll be a closed shop. Where the top four will finish between themselves will be anyones guess as we'll all have quality squads of a similar standard, a level above liverpool. That's when Liverpools transfer strategy of bringing in decent young players but not great ones will come back to haunt them

To say Chelsea are the weak link is ridiculous as they are currently an unkown quantity with their new manager

Arsenal are bidding £10m or so for Jagielka, Everton want double that. That tells me they are unlikely to get Jagielka and will, ultimately, either leave it as it is or spending circa £10m on a centre half from Europe. Could be a Vermaelen and work out fine, could be a Senderos and be fairly useless. As for Mata, I'm as astounded as anyone else at the price being quoted, young, clearly giftedm and less than £20m?! When you look at the money Liverpool spent on Henderson, or United spent on Jones, then the price being suggested form Mata is a steal. So much so, in fact, I'd be surprised if Arsenal didn't find themselves with competition for his signature from elsewhere (potentially, but not exclusively, from City).

If Arsenal stay as they currently are, with Nasri and Fabregas staying, but with no additional defensive cover, and no more striking options, then 4th is the best they get for me. If I was a betting man I'd say that Fabregas will stay, as Barca haven't been pulling up trees to get him, but that Nasri will leave. Wenger is talking about holding on to him and letting him leave for free next season, but I just can't see it happening. £20m is a lot of money to simply throw away.

 

[stony]

UEFA will need to put genuine pressure on Manchester City now - there's financial might, and then there's these pisstaking displays of wealth in collecting all these players for these fees, which endangers smaller clubs through the knock-on effect of artificially-inflated wages that players come to expect as other big clubs attempt to compete as best they can, and generally helps the game destroy itself.

Real Madrid & Barcelona may take the mick in this sense too, but they are truly historically massive clubs, their domestic and European supremacy stretching back decades. They have an unbelievably large global fanbase, cultivated over 50-odd years or so. Real always has had an unfair advantage in its connections to the state (Royal Madrid), but at least that's within their own country. For Man City to have so much sway all of a sudden as a result of being newly owned by Middle Eastern royalty, with no connection whatsoever to either Manchester or Britain in general, makes football a pantomime. Foreign enterprise is rife in modern football (we'll all take FSG as our new cheque-writers, provided they understand our values), but there comes a point where it just becomes more than a little dodgy.

People and the media piss and moan all day long at Arsene Wenger (not least gooners on football phone-ins), but he remains easily in the best position to criticise Man City's suspicious dealings, and demand action from UEFA without provoking accusations of hypocrisy - he's a spokesman for stability, sustainability, and the progressive long-term running of a top club competing for top honours year in, year out. Arsenal's achievements from a few years ago is how it should be done; we may have been a little envious, but there just wasn't the resentment and sense of injustice that Manchester City are bringing out in true football fans, without even having won anything beyond the FA Cup. It is bad for football, and ultimately will be bad for Manchester City. I know for a fact that some of their more discerning real supporters acknowledge this, and cannot truly enjoy this newly bought success; ominous dark clouds painted sky blue, all pretty meaningless PR gradually draining the institution of its big, unique soul. It'll end in tears, 'cause Man City have always been more of a proper club than Chelsea, so their 'plastification' and potential eventual abandonment up shit creek will have a far greater cost than when Abramovich jibs them other lot off.

Get your violins out, football is dying again.

 

[taconinja]

I love (No, I don't) when people cast football in moral terms. It's a game. It has no morality. It has no soul. It has no ethics. It's not a living thing. People have those things, but how much a person wants to spend of their own money on a footballer has no moral implications unless we're arguing for a collectivist mindset and then we shouldn't pay anything for football and it shouldn't exist as it does not directly add to the welfare of the populace.

What "values" does a football club have? And isn't it amusing that their owners are okay, it's just other people's owners don't understand the club's "values." I can tell you right now what values a football club possesses: None.

 

[Ducado]

UEFA will need to put genuine pressure on Manchester City now - there's financial might, and then there's these pisstaking displays of wealth in collecting all these players for these fees, which endangers smaller clubs through the knock-on effect of artificially-inflated wages that players come to expect as other big clubs attempt to compete as best they can, and generally helps the game destroy itself.

Real Madrid & Barcelona may take the mick in this sense too, but they are truly historically massive clubs, their domestic and European supremacy stretching back decades. They have an unbelievably large global fanbase, cultivated over 50-odd years or so. Real always has had an unfair advantage in its connections to the state (Royal Madrid), but at least that's within their own country. For Man City to have so much sway all of a sudden as a result of being newly owned by Middle Eastern royalty, with no connection whatsoever to either Manchester or Britain in general, makes football a pantomime. Foreign enterprise is rife in modern football (we'll all take FSG as our new cheque-writers, provided they understand our values), but there comes a point where it just becomes more than a little dodgy.

People and the media piss and moan all day long at Arsene Wenger (not least gooners on football phone-ins), but he remains easily in the best position to criticise Man City's suspicious dealings, and demand action from UEFA without provoking accusations of hypocrisy - he's a spokesman for stability, sustainability, and the progressive long-term running of a top club competing for top honours year in, year out. Arsenal's achievements from a few years ago is how it should be done; we may have been a little envious, but there just wasn't the resentment and sense of injustice that Manchester City are bringing out in true football fans, without even having won anything beyond the FA Cup. It is bad for football, and ultimately will be bad for Manchester City. I know for a fact that some of their more discerning real supporters acknowledge this, and cannot truly enjoy this newly bought success; ominous dark clouds painted sky blue, all pretty meaningless PR gradually draining the institution of its big, unique soul. It'll end in tears, 'cause Man City have always been more of a proper club than Chelsea, so their 'plastification' and potential eventual abandonment up shit creek will have a far greater cost than when Abramovich jibs them other lot off.

Get your violins out, football is dying again.

They really are up their own arses!

It's out and out jealousy, pure and simple, why can't they just come out and say it

" I am pissed off because Man City have loads of money and are going to be one of the leading clubs in Europe, I wish it was us"

Believe it or not I have had a few genuine football fans say that to me, it's the truth I wish they would get over themselves, is there not something else they can grieve about?

 

[SilvaLining]

For Man City to have so much sway all of a sudden as a result of being newly owned by Middle Eastern royalty, with no connection whatsoever to either Manchester or Britain in general, makes football a pantomime. Foreign enterprise is rife in modern football (we'll all take FSG as our new cheque-writers, provided they understand our values), but there comes a point where it just becomes more than a little dodgy.

No connection to Manchester or Britain? Correct, just like those AMERICAN owners have no connection to Liverpool. Pot. Kettle. Black.

 

[mancboy123]

Sometimes you have to ask whether its irony or stupidity. The guy says they will take FSG as their new cheque writers as long as they understand their values, how exactly do you gauge whether they understand their values