If you’re gonna pull off a magic trick you can’t tell the audience how you’re gonna do it ; )
That is a good way of putting it, but we have no way of knowing that it happened without further explanation. As far as I'm concerned, all this "we played a blinder" talk is like a woman who has just been assaulted by the man she loves saying that he did it as an act of love. This can of course be shown to be the situation but we can't just assume that's the case just because we like owners who stick a lot of money into the club. I think we deserve some answers here.
These are the facts:
1) City have never consulted with the fans about a proposed Super League.
2) All we had by way of information was a standard statement put on the club's website very late on a Sunday night.
3) There were no appearances or references made by anyone associated with the club.
4) The club did not put the statement on its Twitter feed. It is unclear why such big news would not appear on all communication mediums.
5) The owner of Manchester United was the person quoted on our club's website in the statement. The reason(s) why nobody from the club commented are unclear.
6) The club resigned from the European Club Association (ECA) along with the 11 other clubs. The reasons for this are unknown.
7) The club had no representation at the ECA's meeting on Monday along with the 11 other clubs.
8) The club were the first to withdraw from the Super League. The reason(s) for this are unknown. It is most likely that the club did not like the backlash but this is still unknown.
Anything else is mere speculation.
So on the basis of the above, I am not inclined to view the club favourably in the absence of any explanation. I am happy to listen to the club but think it's important to hold its custodians to account, whoever they may be. Whether it's Peter Swales or Sheikh Mansour who is the custodian is irrelevant - they should ALWAYS be answerable to the fans and never be given free reign to drag our name through the mud.