Sheffield United (A) | PL | Post-Match Thread

[mcfcphil]

I take your point re Bayern, they're just an exceptionally big club full top though and the natural big fish in the pond there. How has the 5o plus 1 rule made Bayern so dominant then? Is that due to the 50 plus 1 rule? I'm not so sure there but do stand to be corrected. As I said earlier, any frustrations I have are not with City, it's how the model is allowed to be that is the issue and without regulation then we've created a monster in itself in my view. We've got the ownership issues that even the bigger clubs too are affected by such as Man U in terms of a leveraged buy out, we've got wages and transfer fees spiralling out of control, ticket prices that are ridiculous and earnings from them are no longer the main source of income yet they continue to be sky high. If people are happy with this then there's something fundamentally wrong!

Some of the stuff re German football does not need to be necessarily replicated here but we desperately need more fan ownership/control from fans in our clubs and a more even distribution of wealth from the PL to the rest of the football league. I can't ever see subsidised travel or matches coming in from the government but the wealth created from the PL needs distributing more so away from astronomical wages and transfer fees and into a more sustainable model. Ticket prices shouldn't be £50 plus in my view. I paid £41 yesterday and that is a lot too in my view, too much. Maybe my views are seen as contrary to the investment City have invested into the club and maybe if we had more regulation than City wouldn't have been as successful but that's not the aim, the aim is for a sustainable model in my view that doesn't rely on billionaire run clubs even for teams towards the bottom in some cases.

You're right re Forest that they did spend money, I'm not one for defending Forest but the point is that back in the pre-premier league days the league could be won, and was won, by a series of teams not just one or two. Granted we've had several winners of the PL, but with the investment that City has spent it's taken it to yet another level and when clubs of Liverpool and Man U's size are struggling to make up the difference then you've got a situation that you've mentioned with Bayern, approaching a one team league.

I'm not saying for one minute it's just down to just spending money on players because it isn't. City also have the best manager in the league, one of the best academies and I know they've great in the community also. All of that of course takes huge investment though it has to be said in terms of the training ground/academy and the budget that City has attracts the best manager too. I don't want to come across as criticising City because it's not City it's the league as a whole which has become a monster in my view, what's happened at City is the stuff of dreams for City fans, particularly those that were there in the days before, but for teams like mine, just surviving in the PL is near impossible without a serious amount of cash, beyond what we can afford. We did it for two seasons last time but it can only last so long without serious investment that requires billionaire owners or not far off. If you're happy with as it is now, that's your prerogative, with respect I don't agree.

Anyway, I've digressed away from yesterdays match, all the best, I appreciate the respect people have shown to me on here, I've said everything I wanted to and answered as best possible points back, we'll not agree on some things. Take care as I said, God bless.

What a load of cliche bollocks

 

[Tangled up in blue.]

Don’t disagree but the one where the defender basically bear hugs him is a blatant penalty and VAR does nothing yet again.

This is why we have to bring in AUDIO VAR like they do in rugby, where you can see and hear them explaining what's happening as they are showing reruns of the incident close up and in slow motion

 

[LongsightM13]

The very worst time to play newly promoted sides is early in the season, when their fans and players are at their most up for it.
We’ve come a cropper in these games in the past, Cardiff, Norwich etc
Although relatively comfortable on paper, our start has been more than tricky enough. Beat Fulham next week and it’s a great start, especially after a disrupted summer and some early injury problems.
The performances will come, we all know that. Some of the doom and gloom here is laughable but entirely predictable

 

[knuckles]

Just watching the match again, the amount of times Haaland gets fouled is pretty bad - I am amazed that he keeps his composure, but also the amount of times Jack gets fouled - I still don't get why fans boo him as well, did he have some issue with sheffield?

 

[citymad]

Im really happy with our start. No pre season, players injured. 3 wins out of 3 incredible start for me

And we look like we can go up a gear or two.

 

[citymad]

Just watching the match again, the amount of times Haaland gets fouled is pretty bad - I am amazed that he keeps his composure, but also the amount of times Jack gets fouled - I still don't get why fans boo him as well, did he have some issue with sheffield

It probably hurts them to see Jack torment their defenders and them look like amateur players.

 

[Booker4]

Just watching the match again, the amount of times Haaland gets fouled is pretty bad - I am amazed that he keeps his composure, but also the amount of times Jack gets fouled - I still don't get why fans boo him as well, did he have some issue with sheffield?

I answered that previously Knuckles.

Most of what you are advocating is what the old sky4 want(ed), ie dominance over anyone else like they had for years, and you'd have mufc winning most trophies, with lfc, afc, and cfc mopping up the dregs, so there is a bit of choice to be had here. Outside investment or not.

You probably only ever read about the money spent to win trophies, and know nothing about the money City's owners have invested in infrastructure around the local area of east Manchester, and that's probably more than into the team itself. The reason you don't hear about this, is that our media also want the old sky4 restored, so they don't report on it.

City, yes our club, took on a filthy brown field site that was a wasteground, they cleaned it up at great expence, then built a state of the art facility on it, to produce top quality footballers at a football "university" that actually starts with 8 year olds, not just to produce talent for us, but for lots of other clubs (2 of which helped you to get into the PL last year by the way). Nothing is ever said about this in the media, yet what do mufc do for football (at all levels), oh yes they produced the class of 92, over 30 years ago, and we'll never hear the end of it. Meanwhile City are producing top class talent (yes we make money out of it), year after year, actually developing footballers, we keep a few, but the ones that move on, are trained and educated by City, so we are giving back to football.

All we ever get from the media (and other fans) is slagged off for our huge spending, and because we "bought football". We didn't buy football, we made huge investments into football to get to this point, and very much not all of it has gone on players, large areas of east Manchester have also been improved as a result of that investment (and that continues today).

Anyway rant over.

I did mention the community stuff in one of the posts and the huge investment in the area. I think I must have said about six or seven times that there's no gripe from me about City as a club or the spending as long as it's within the rules and that's not a dig at City either to current situation, as I said that side of things just bores me and it will no doubt go on for years. It's the Premier League and it's lack of regulation that's the issue, as others have said on here, loads of clubs have spent money in the past, maybe not for quite as intense for what City have recently, but Man U were regularly the biggest spenders for years and they also had a superb youth system. Blackburn bought the league at the time, but that was their right to do so and they spent very well too.

My issue is mainly with the lack of wealth distribution from the PL to the rest of the football league, it was the sole reason the PL was created was to remove themselves from the rest of the league so they could regulate themselves and make more money, the latter understandable, but then you've got the rest of the league feeding off the scraps and that doesn't make for a healthy football league. You've also got insane wages, transfer fees, ticket prices with so little regulation. Other sports like rugby league and cricket have a wage cap, we don't in football because of course the PL would no longer be able to attract the talent that we never could before because players will always join the biggest league for wages, Saudi a slight exception because it's in its infancy and it's not in Europe, obviously! Cricket and rugby league have a limited pot of money, football doesn't in this country because it relies on hugely wealthy owners to finance it, and again, I'm not referring to City alone but almost the whole PL because to get there that's what it takes. Granted football generates huge income but the PL money isn't enough to finance the wages that most PL teams have to pay to compete, you need big backing also.

If City fans, and everyone else, but particularly the biggest clubs who have to pay the most ticket prices think what we've got now is good for the common man then fair play. I disagree. It's only sustainable if you have billion dollar owners, and given the insane money that owners are putting in and also the wages going out, why can't fans be given subsidised tickets if that's what's needed? Or we could have a wage cap and try and get this under control. It won't happen because we've gone too far now down the road.

 

[Chi-town blues]

Just watching the match again, the amount of times Haaland gets fouled is pretty bad - I am amazed that he keeps his composure, but also the amount of times Jack gets fouled - I still don't get why fans boo him as well, did he have some issue with sheffield?

stoke city 2.0

 

[adr2.8i]

I watched the full match again earlier and I thought we were pretty dam good. The hunger is still there lads. Dias flinging himself in front of the ball.....did u see halaands reaction to his block!! The hunger, the fight, the togetherness is unrivaled. Kova and gvardiol settling in nicely....walker looking insane bar his one brain fart.....Rodri immense. Haaland could have had 4 on another day.....fairplay their keeper had a stormer.
I think it's looking ominously good for us considering it's early doors and bedding in a few newbies, and we've lost some experienced players, PLUS we have kev and stonsey out injured!! Dead happy with 3 out of 3 so far,and to be honest, nobody else's performances have exactly got me shit scared so far!! Up the blues!

 

[BrianW]

I don't blame Sheffield United for playing as they do, as long as their tactics remain within the law of the game. Their objective is to stay in the PL, not entertain City fans, and their resources are limited. They were up against (arguably) the best club side in the world, and they would have been made up with a point.

Their gamble failed. But if they'd come at us, who will say that would not have failed too? It might have been 7-3 to City or something like that. How would that have helped them?

Staying in the PL (or not) is a multi-million-pound thing. I don't see how you persuade clubs to not park the bus unless you structure things so that there is no relegation. Then you might gradually get a league where with financial security assured, teams would be less keen to try for 0-0 draws. You could give bonuses for goals scored, for example.

But while that would be great for the teams in the PL at this snapshot in time, it'd be damned hard on the many big, historic clubs currently in lower leagues, and I guess most of us would hate it.