so this agenda thing.

[Len Rum]

As I said, it's not about one match. I understand why you want to carry on making it about one match and why you are reluctant to discuss the issue of sustained press coverage but I can't be any clearer than I have been.

We can go on all day mate, it's no skin off my nose. I know it's not about one match, you have been clear on that forever. Today was discussed as one match - yesterday's match, then we entered old ground and expanded on your so called bigger picture.

Judging by your posts you are so adamant that negative press should be ignored.

Question please, do you believe Mancini was sat in the stands during Mark Hughes's last game at the Etihad before he was sacked and even today do you think the average football fan believes he was?

Correct.
Mr Pigeon and Dagenham Dave seem totally unable to get their heads around how the effect of negative City articles helps our rivals, destabilises our club and increases sales/internet clicks due to the bigger fan base of our rivals.

 

[Didsbury Dave]

We can go on all day mate, it's no skin off my nose. I know it's not about one match, you have been clear on that forever. Today was discussed as one match - yesterday's match, then we entered old ground and expanded on your so called bigger picture.

Judging by your posts you are so adamant that negative press should be ignored.

Question please, do you believe Mancini was sat in the stands during Mark Hughes's last game at the Etihad before he was sacked and even today do you think the average football fan believes he was?

Correct.
Mr Pigeon and Dagenham Dave seem totally unable to get their heads around how the effect of negative City articles helps our rivals, destabilises our club and increases sales/internet clicks due to the bigger fan base of our rivals.

I love it when you clowns throw 'destabilised' into your daft pontificating, as though it actually means something.

Check out the big brain on you.

 

[tonea2003]

We can go on all day mate, it's no skin off my nose. I know it's not about one match, you have been clear on that forever. Today was discussed as one match - yesterday's match, then we entered old ground and expanded on your so called bigger picture.

Judging by your posts you are so adamant that negative press should be ignored.

Question please, do you believe Mancini was sat in the stands during Mark Hughes's last game at the Etihad before he was sacked and even today do you think the average football fan believes he was?

Correct.
Mr Pigeon and Dagenham Dave seem totally unable to get their heads around how the effect of negative City articles helps our rivals, destabilises our club and increases sales/internet clicks due to the bigger fan base of our rivals.

4 trophies in 4 seasons plus champions league qualification in each - some destablisation

 

[kaz7]

I have seen the sun and the mirror today both match reports are entirely about how good wiltshire was and no mention of the handball and them hanging on at the end or indeed barely a mention of our boys at all.Bias and agenda in one,lets plug wiltshire to the cost of a match report that involved the champions and was after all a draw

 

[Bodicoteblue]

Watched in the pub with an arse fan.
As the teams were announced , he raised an eyebrow and said " Lampard eh? well , that's cheating for a start .
When I asked him to expand on that view he replied that since he was on loan from a club "owned" by City then it was obviously a way round FFP, as it meant we got a class player for free!
When I pointed out that he was released by Chelsea,signed for free by NYCFC, then loaned to us for the reasons of timing of the MLS season and no money had changed hands,and never would, he shook his head and repeated that it must be a cheat, why else would our owners own another club?
He then admitted that he had arrived at this view because he had read it in the papers, and had just accepted it because like fans of most other clubs, he really wasn't interested in exploring the actual facts of a story about another club that wasn't his own , but was quite happy to believe it , because there it was in black and white in the papers so it must be true!

 

[Len Rum]

Judging by your posts you are so adamant that negative press should be ignored.

Question please, do you believe Mancini was sat in the stands during Mark Hughes's last game at the Etihad before he was sacked and even today do you think the average football fan believes he was?

Correct.
Mr Pigeon and Dagenham Dave seem totally unable to get their heads around how the effect of negative City articles helps our rivals, destabilises our club and increases sales/internet clicks due to the bigger fan base of our rivals.

I love it when you clowns throw 'destabilised' into your daft pontificating, as though it actually means something.

Check out the big brain on you.

Ah, DD you're back giving it out with the insults as per (no probs).
Some time earlier in this thread I asked if you would distinguish between bias and agenda in the media. Unsurprisingly and (as is your right) you didn't reply.
However more recently you entered into a very interesting debate with Chris in London (with whom you seem to have a better rapport), but again you failed to reply when he asked you to 'define the agenda that you say doesn't exist'.
On behalf of many interested forum members, could I request that you ( as one of the most outspoken and prominent non agendistas on the forum) take this debate forward by replying to Chris' question.

 

[remember arthur mann]

Watched in the pub with an arse fan.
As the teams were announced , he raised an eyebrow and said " Lampard eh? well , that's cheating for a start .
When I asked him to expand on that view he replied that since he was on loan from a club "owned" by City then it was obviously a way round FFP, as it meant we got a class player for free!
When I pointed out that he was released by Chelsea,signed for free by NYCFC, then loaned to us for the reasons of timing of the MLS season and no money had changed hands,and never would, he shook his head and repeated that it must be a cheat, why else would our owners own another club?
He then admitted that he had arrived at this view because he had read it in the papers, and had just accepted it because like fans of most other clubs, he really wasn't interested in exploring the actual facts of a story about another club that wasn't his own , but was quite happy to believe it , because there it was in black and white in the papers so it must be true!

Sounds like a rag masquerading as an Arsenal fan, same mentality, same location.

 

[cibaman]

As I said, it's not about one match. I understand why you want to carry on making it about one match and why you are reluctant to discuss the issue of sustained press coverage but I can't be any clearer than I have been.

We can go on all day mate, it's no skin off my nose. I know it's not about one match, you have been clear on that forever. Today was discussed as one match - yesterday's match, then we entered old ground and expanded on your so called bigger picture.

Judging by your posts you are so adamant that negative press should be ignored.

Question please, do you believe Mancini was sat in the stands during Mark Hughes's last game at the Etihad before he was sacked and even today do you think the average football fan believes he was?

Its undoubtedly true that we received some terribly bad press from 2008-10. But surely it cant be denied that the media of coverage of City has improved dramatically since then? It could be argued that the sacking of Mancini, effectively announced on the eve of the Cup Final, was handled just as badly by the club as the sacking of Hughes. But it didn't attract a fraction of the criticism in the press.

Media coverage of City started to turn round after the FA Cup win. Its steadily improved since then. Its a lot better now than it was 4 years ago. Its better now than it was 2 years ago. At times its been a case of two steps forward, one step back after some often self inflicted problems. But the general trend is positive.

Sure there are press articles about City that I don't like. There always will be. Fans of all clubs feel that way, even United's.

 

[Wilf Wild 1937]

He then admitted that he had arrived at this view because he had read it in the papers, and had just accepted it because like fans of most other clubs, he really wasn't interested in exploring the actual facts of a story about another club that wasn't his own , but was quite happy to believe it , because there it was in black and white in the papers so it must be true!

Sums up well what the problem is. The average fan of the other clubs believes that we are totally in the wrong over FFP,
have inflated transfer fees and wages, don't give English players a chance, won the league because of biased referring in our favour
(I know, I know) and are overly physical and cynical given the number of red and yellow cards that we accumulate.
The press are trying to make us as unpopular as Leeds were under Revie and they are succeeding. This matters.

It matters because it subconsciously makes referees give the majority of 50/50 decisions against us.

It matters commercially because it makes kids in non football areas of the country support the Scum & the Red Dippers ahead of us.

People have commented in this thread that it is noticeable how much better we are treated by the media outside of our own country.

 

[BobKowalski]

On a day when the media do seem to have been gripped with a collective frenzy over ManU's mighty demolition of that most obliging opponent QPR, Daniel Taylor is at least pointing out that its too early to judge and summarised the capture of Falcao as "visting a hospital for open heart surgery and coming out with a boob job" which pretty much nails it as to the cosmetic nature of ManU's transfer business to date.

But the collective relief/mania/hysteria (delete as applicable) that has gripped the nation's scribes at the return of ManU to "title winning form (c) Messrs. Ogden, Herbert & Co" struck me as something more than just agenda or whatever you wish to call it. Perhaps its some sort of involuntary pavlovian response. Can they actually cope with the established order being so much out of kilter? We saw it with Liverpool last season. A yearning that the sporting universe rights itself and we go back to the old order of ManU, Arsenal & Liverpool vying for the top spots. Chelsea are still regarded with some suspicion but the established order has room for one outsider. But two is one too many and more than two well fuck it lets change the rules and lo and behold we have FFP and its curtailment of outside investment. Unless you want to spend money on academies and youth so that your investment can be filleted by the big boys some years down the line in which case carry on spending - after all we all love a Southampton don't we chaps?

So can our journo's cope with a new world order? Can we they comprehend a world where the once mighty teams are not quite so mighty? I'm not sure they can and I will cite the case of Fernando Torres. There was a time when the pundits would hail him as the best striker in Europe and to be fair he was very good. Yet that period of being very good vanished about 3 years ago. But despite this, and despite the bleeding fucking obvious staring them in the face, they hailed the return of Torres every time he actually scored a goal. For 3 odd years according to collective wisdom he was 'turning a corner' and on the verge of being 'back to his best'. Yet it was a mirage. But like good faithful pavlovian dogs the sporting opinion makers clung to the belief that it just needed a change in system/manager/more love/less love/different hairstyle to get him back to his best. For 3 long years we endured 'Torres is Back!' chatter. It seemed almost as if the truth, namely that Torres was broken beyond repair, was too much for our media to accept and thus they clung to the past and the fantasy that Torres is a world class striker.

The same is true of ManU. Beat QPR? ' ManU are Back!'. The media cannot help themselves. Its a reflex response. The media, despite the protestations, like the established order. They liked Taggart kicking their arses and they wet themselves at the prospect of Van Gaal doing the same. They need ManU back. They cannot comprehend a football world that does not have at its apex the ManU, Liverpool, Arsenal trinity and they view football through the distortions of this prism.

Yaya Toure? Mercenary. Falcao? Gaalactico. Says it all really.