I'm quite riled about a comment in the media. Apparently it's come from Pep's mouth.
'He see's City as a second rate club in England, similar to Villareal in Spain'.
We are in no way comparable to Villareal. We never have been and never will be, I can't fathom the justification behind it. Last season they averaged just over 17,000 fans a game. We got over 35,000 MORE than that. We come from a big industrial City (which Villareal is not - it's a small fishing port) which we share with the most successful club in England. We've always been a cup side and have won numerous trophies (even before our late resurgence) whereas they have never won anything. I genuinely can't understand that comparison at all.
Now if you want to discuss how big a club is, there are only two things you need to look at. Firstly I'd argue trophies. In the entire history of English football we're 8th (out of hundreds). If you look at the most successful teams over the last decade (which is more relevant to how big a club currently is) we're third - ahead of the likes of Liverpool, Arsenal, Everton, Villa.
Now the next thing, and most importantly (IMO) is attendances. Our average attendance last season was higher than the following clubs: Rangers, Celtic, Liverpool, Inter Milan, PSG, Athletico Madrid, Benfica, Feyernord, AJAX, Newcastle, Monchengladbach, Hamburg, Juventus and AC Milan. We're the 8th best supported club in Europe. We hold the highest attendance away from Wembley in England and have done so for 80+ years. When we were in division three we averaged 28,261 fans. That was more then the following clubs (who played in the top division): Sheffield Wednesday, West Ham, Blackburn Rovers, Nottingham Forrest and Southampton. You could argue the number of travelling fans held us back from averaging over 30,000 fans that year too.
We are a big club. The only clubs in England that can argue to be much bigger than us are Arsenal/Liverpool/Rags. That's the be all and end all. I can understand that we're not as big as Barca or Bayern, but don't ridicule us and put us in the same bracket as a club that can't average more than 20,000.