Media thread 2022/23

Status
Not open for further replies.
manimanc said:
Can't stop laughing at deloony and the crank Harris for showing themselves up to be the thickest and most bitterest of cunts in the media.
When everyone else was bigging us up and praising us, and rightly so, these two freaks brought out the old state owned shite. And I actually think that some of their followers, or nobheads as I like to call them, turned round and said wind it in as we've heard it before, even they are getting bored of it.

How this prick still has a Job baffles me but their pain and misery is my joy.
Click to expand...

Isn’t he head of sport for that comic?
 
Kinkybyname said:
samuel text version:

On the touchline, even Pep Guardiola seemed to sense this was special. As the third went in, and Real Madrid were vanquished, he turned to the crowd and stood ramrod straight, both arms aloft, fists clenched. Manchester City are going to Istanbul, those are the plain facts; but not just any Manchester City. The best. The best of Guardiola's time here, perhaps the best English finalists there have been. The dismantling of Real Madrid was quite unlike anything we had seen. It wasn't just about one super striker, as so many have claimed this season. It is the team, the team Guardiola has built, the wonderful football it plays and the way it has inspired its followers to fall in love with a competition they once eschewed.

Manchester City fans, we are so often informed, still do not care for the Champions League. They bear grudges from past disagreements with the governing body, they boo the comically pompous tournament anthem, they don't care about past failures in Europe because they'd rather win the domestic league. All nonsense, of course. Manchester City fans love Manchester City, they love Manchester City playing beautifully, and they love Manchester City winning. And now they love the Champions League, too. For what better place is there to win, and play beautifully, than the Champions League.

And it's never full, or noisy, this ground. More rubbish. The Etihad Stadium sells out most weeks and when City are at their best it gets bold and boisterous just like any other ground. Is it Anfield under the lights in Europe? No, because nowhere is. Yet Real Madrid knew they were in a game from the start, and knew the locals were up for this long before it. Blue smoke in the surrounding streets, a ferocious takedown of anything UEFA-related before kickoff. So they boo? So what. Can't claim the place lacks atmosphere and then when there is atmosphere lecture the loyalists that it's the wrong kind. And if it's possible to Love United and Hate the Glazers, it's possibly to love

City in the Champions League while hating the body organising it. And they are no longer alone. After the debacle in Paris last year, there is no great love for UEFA at Anfield these days, either. They still sing about being champions of Europe, though.

Of course, City should embrace the Champions League. It would be a sporting tragedy if a team as great as this did not win European football's greatest prize. The arguments will rage about treble winners and backto-back European champions but, at half-time here, most observers were willing to agree that this is the best English football team they have seen. Certainly, no-one could remember a team that could have taken this Real Madrid side apart quite how City had done over 45 minutes. A few numbers? In the first 15 minutes, Real Madrid made 13 successful passes. After 30 minutes that was up to 45. In the same period, City's pass completion total was 237, and they led Madrid on attacking plays 29-0.

And there have been some great performances by English clubs in Europe. The greatest, arguably, was quite recent: Liverpool 4 Barcelona 0. Yet putting that night in context, Liverpool kicked off trailing 3-0 from the first leg. Naturally, they were hyped up, high energy, borderline frantic in their intensity. Their challenge when the game began was to pull off a win close to unimaginable. And they did it. Yet this was superior in some ways because City did not have to go all out like this. The game was poised at 1-1. City could have been measured, controlled, they could have dictated tempo, yet kept it steady. And they did. They demonstrated all of those qualities while also being hyped up, high energy, borderline frantic in their intensity. They were the best of all possible worlds, the supreme strategists. If there is such a thing as perfection on the field of play, Pep Guardiola will never acknowledge it. So let's just guess that in his dreams this is how his team plays. They school Real Madrid; they master Europe's masters. Luka Modric gets taken off after an hour because the game is passing him by; Vinicius Junior ends up in tense conversation with Carlo Ancelotti on the touchline because he can't get a kick. And then, when he finally does, Kyle Walker keeps pace with him and takes the ball from him like a dad teasing his son in the back garden, just to show the old man's still got it.

Perhaps it was for the best, too, that in the second-half the real Real turned up at last. Stung by Bernardo Silva's two goals they finally posed a threat and forced City to play on the counter. It was for the best. Had they dominated again it might have been claimed that Madrid merely suffered an off night, that City got a little lucky happening on their poorest performance of the season. By showing the resilience we know only too well, Madrid elevated City's brilliance. That City absorbed their pressure and doubled their lead is the greatest compliment of all. Madrid weren't just beaten by the better side on the night; City are truly the better side, the best side, maybe the best we have seen. They have proved it in the league, hunting down Arsenal, and now here, four goals up on mighty Madrid. And no-one can claim Real Madrid are callow, lack experience, or have been weakened by injuries. These are Europe's specialist cup winners, and they were beaten by the performance of the season. Certainly this season; maybe any.
Click to expand...
P45 incoming Martin.
 
If you want a laugh go and read the Spanish press...
I hope fans of my club never become as arrogant as those Spanish mediah hounds.

Unbelievable Jeff.
 
BlueAnorak said:
If you want a laugh go and read the Spanish press...
I hope fans of my club never become as arrogant as those Spanish mediah hounds.

Unbelievable Jeff.
Click to expand...
Real Madrid’s 4-0 humiliation at the hands of Manchester City in Wednesday night’s Champions League semi-final second leg prompted an emotional backlash in the Spanish media, as attention turned to "pathetic, cowardly" coach Carlo Ancelotti.
City's masterclass was "enough to make you cry," according to AS, while Josep Pedrerol, presenter of LaSexta TV’s ‘Chiringuito’ sports show said: “Real is losing because of Ancelotti’s pathetic and cowardly approach."
There was genuine shock at the one-sided nature of the defeat and calls for a complete overhaul of the club’s personnel.
The front-page headline of sports paper Marca could hardly be clearer: “A thrashing, of the kind that really hurts.” Marca said that Real had suffered a “90-minute-long nightmare” at the Etihad.
Marca font page - 'An earthquake ... Enough to make you cry' – Spanish media react to Man City masterclass over Real Madrid'

Spanish media were shocked by the way Real Madrid completely capitulated at the Etihad
Rival sports paper AS went with a front-page photograph of Karim Benzema with his face in his hands and El Pais chief sports writer José Sámano described the night in Manchester as "an earthquake for Real."
“What I cannot forgive is the impression Real have given in defeat,” said Tomás Roncero, chief Real Madrid correspondent for AS.
Advertisement

“Madrid were beaten 4-0 and you have to be thanking [Thibaut] Courtois it wasn’t by more.”
Asked about his future at Real Madrid, Ancelotti said afterwards there was “no doubt” and that club president Florentino Pérez had signalled his support for the coach.
But Predrag Mijatovic, who won LaLiga and the Champions League during his spell at the club, said: “I believe that we can clearly speak of a cycle that has ended."
Like many other pundits, Mijatovic suggested that Carlo Ancelotti’s time was up.
“Tonight has shown that Real Madrid must think about the future, starting with the coach and the players," he said. "
The team wasn’t good; the rival was much better. Now we have to make plans for this summer and for the future."

The former Montenegrin forward said Real needed replacement forwards and full-backs, but said Luka Modric and Toni Kroos, both substituted in the second half, should still play a role next season.

Guardiola: 'The Treble is there now – we can think about it'​

By James Ducker
Pep Guardiola told his players to “visualise” winning the treble after hailing the greatest performance of his seven-year reign as Manchester City manager.
City crushed Real Madrid 4-0 at the Etihad Stadium to reach a second Champions League final in three years after channelling the “pain” of last season’s agonising defeat to the Spanish giants.
Inter Milan now stand between them and an elusive first European Cup in Istanbul on June 10, when Guardiola’s men could also become only the second English side in history to win the treble.
City will clinch a fifth Premier League title in six seasons if they beat Chelsea on Sunday – assuming Arsenal do not first gift them the trophy by losing at Nottingham Forest the day before – and also face Manchester United in the FA Cup final next month.
And Guardiola has urged his players to seize the chance to become history makers.
“We are there now and the players can think about it, visualise it,” he said. “We are three games away. One in each competition. We can do it.
“We need to win one more game in the Premier League, then we have our neighbours in the Cup and a Champions League final against an Italian side.
“The pleasure of being there and playing against Inter Milan is incalculable and we are going to enjoy the occasion.”
City’s stunning victory over Real – which Guardiola described as “the highest” of his tenure at the club – came 12 months after a dramatic late semi-final collapse at the Bernabeu.
“We still had that pain in our stomach from last year and we brought it all out today… we had the energy after so much pain last year,” he said.
“It was so hard and tough last season when we played quite similar to today and I remember Toni Kroos gave an interview saying they could have lost 10-1 or 10-2 [in the first leg] at the Etihad.
“Kroos is one of the best players I have ever seen and trained and when he says that it means we were there and it was really tough losing the way we lost. In that moment, we had to swallow poison but football and sport always gives you another chance.
“When the draw was Madrid, I said ‘Yeah, I want it'. I wanted it because I think today everything was there - the energy we had from a year of being criticised as players for not having character when we lost because it was football.
“Today it was there and I'm pleased for the whole organisation - for the chairman, owner, staff and especially all the players because we accepted the defeat and today we were there. “One year later, we are in the final of the Champions League. Football and life always give you opportunities if you don't give up.”
Carlo Ancelotti, the Real coach, admitted his side had been well beaten but expressed no concerns over his future as manager. “No one doubts me, the president has been quite clear two weeks ago, there are no doubts about my staying on,” he said.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Unread Posts

Don't have an account? Register now and see fewer ads!

SIGN UP
Back
Top
✖
  AdBlock Detected
Bluemoon relies on advertising to pay our hosting fees. Please support the site by disabling your ad blocking software to help keep the forum sustainable. Thanks.