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English Premier League thread

Listen, this is my final post on money.

City as a club won the league today because they won the sugar daddy lottery. That is a fact. It could have just as likely been QPR, or Wolverhampton or Nottingham Forest for that matter. The only reason that Manchester City had a shout of winning the league is because some random rich family with no association with Manchester or the football club decided they want to show how big their bank account was. That is the one reason.

City as a football team - ie the collection of professional players and coaching staff - deserve to win the league because they are the best squad in the league, and have played the best football. All bar possibly Hart have chosen to come to City for two reasons: 1 first and foremost because City offer more money than anyone else and 2 because knowing that City offer more money than anyone else, eventually they'd be successful. Let's get something straight - winning the league is not easy. Getting 89 points is not easy, no matter what your squad looks like. Those players still had the balls to win when they had to today, and so they deserve it.

That's the difference for me. If any City fan tries to claim that they've 'earned' this title - that's patently not true, they just happened to win the lottery. But that team, those individual players - they most certainly have earned it.
 
info0 said:
In how many seasons? ;)

Man City spent like 400mln Euros in 3 seasons to buy current team. All team is based on mercenaries not home grown players (maybe except one player in whole squad?).

They still ended the season on minus, ie deficit. I want Financial Fair play to kick in now! No more spending 200mln in a season when you didn't even earn such money. It's crazy...

But yeah, be happy about it. You bought your title for the first time in EPL. Now you need only 18 more to match United :P.
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Still Man United fans having a go at other clubs for spending money is LAUGHABLE!

Anyway no amount of crying from Man Yoo supporters and glory hunters from around the world will take this great day away from Citeh!!! :BOP::BOP::BOP:
 
How is it laughable?

United earnt their money to spend on the best players.

City (and Chelsea) suddenly had some bloke spending his own money without them earning it.

Bit of a difference.

If FFP actually worked and clubs could only spend what they earnt, City would be nowhere near winning the league.
 
matherto said:
How is it laughable?

United earnt their money to spend on the best players.

City (and Chelsea) suddenly had some bloke spending his own money without them earning it.

Bit of a difference.

If FFP actually worked and clubs could only spend what they earnt, City would be nowhere near winning the league.
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I do think it would make things more competitive - mainly because teams like Villa, Spurs and (whisper it) Arsenal wouldn't have to sell their best players every couple of seasons. City swooped up a ton of talent (as did Chelsea) when they first came into the league - whereas dominant teams like United, Liverpool and Spurs tend to just buy 1 or 2 players each season.
 
Flaw3d Genius said:
LOL United spend more money than the majority of teams in the world. 30 million you's spent on a single player!!!!
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Not me, I'm no United fan, no need to call me names! :P

I think beachryan's post pretty much sums it up. I still can congratulate Mancini for having his team playing a positive style and the players who actually did it. Aguero and Silva are fantastic, right up there with the best players of the league.

But as a Club, it's down to lottery winning. And it's not as if the resources were spent wisely over there. It's a hit and miss kind of thing - someone pointed out the absurd amount of money spent on players who became surplus to requirements. So suddenly you have a guy like Adebayor being a central figure at Tottenham with half his salary being paid by the Sheiks.

I don't think it's a pretty thing to see. But I doubt we will see any change. FFP and UEFA are a joke anyway.
 
Flaw3d Genius said:
Still Man United fans having a go at other clubs for spending money is LAUGHABLE!

Anyway no amount of crying from Man Yoo supporters and glory hunters from around the world will take this great day away from Citeh!!! :BOP::BOP::BOP:
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Enjoy your jelly and ice cream. :BYE:
 
Rentboy said:
I was kinda hoping United would win because I'm sick and tired of seeing sugar daddy sustained clubs triumph. Sort of reinforces the behaviour. More crazy £50m signings to come, it seems. It works after all.
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How the hell can you say that when it´s the same story in our team? Or do you think that Celso Barros is much different from Abramovich or Mansur?????


Congratulations to City, they really deserve this title, played a much better football than united during the season.
 
beachryan said:
City as a football team - ie the collection of professional players and coaching staff - deserve to win the league because they are the best squad in the league, and have played the best football. All bar possibly Hart have chosen to come to City for two reasons: 1 first and foremost because City offer more money than anyone else and 2 because knowing that City offer more money than anyone else, eventually they'd be successful. Let's get something straight - winning the league is not easy. Getting 89 points is not easy, no matter what your squad looks like. Those players still had the balls to win when they had to today, and so they deserve it.
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Well I think Micah Richards might not fall into that category. Also were Zabaleta, De Jong and Kompany massive signings at the time? These players were signed from teams like Hamburg and Espanyol, and they were signed when City had a bit less clout. Didn't Kompany sign for around 7m, pretty much the same fee as Bebe? And wasn't he shipped out by HSV over a row for playing with Belgium at the Beijing Olympics? Yes there have been a considerable amount of top dollar signings (Aguero, Tevez, Balotelli, Dzecko, Silva, etc) but some of the spine of the team could easily have been brought by other big PL teams at the time.
 
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Sorry, forgot about Micah Richards. Yes, he and Joe Hart are at City, and would be regardless of the money.

Without a killer, literally, taking over the club (Thaksin) Kompany and Zabeleta wouldn't be there either. Where do you think the money came from to even afford their relatively modest transfer fees?

It's the same thing - Kompany has been wondrous this season - both on and off the pitch - so deserves the credit. But he wouldn't be playing for that club without a sugar daddy.
 
Honome_WEC said:
How the hell can you say that when it´s the same story in our team? Or do you think that Celso Barros is much different from Abramovich or Mansur?????


Congratulations to City, they really deserve this title, played a much better football than united during the season.
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Ah, that's hardly the same thing with Celso Barros! He doesn't own the club, he owns Unimed, which is the main sponsor. The biggest chunk of money comes from the sponsor and I agree it is a thing that seriously boosts the club's spending power, but at least it's not permanent, it could end as soon as the sponsorship deal ends.

We couldn't even begin to compare the Brazilian league with the English. No clubs in Brazil are run in a professional and responsible way. We see very often those suspect partnerships that allow clubs to spend beyond their means - for instance, the Ronaldinho situation at Flamengo, and the whole Berezovski/Kia Joraabchian involvement with Corinthians when they invested abnormal amounts of money to have Tevez and Mascherano, and eventually took its toll on them and led them to relegation. So in the light of that, what happens at Fluminense is not something to be ashamed of.

But in English football, even compared to healthy clubs like Arsenal, the amount of money splashed out by City and Chelsea is ridiculous.
 
matherto said:
How is it laughable?

United earnt their money to spend on the best players.

City (and Chelsea) suddenly had some bloke spending his own money without them earning it.

Bit of a difference.

If FFP actually worked and clubs could only spend what they earnt, City would be nowhere near winning the league.
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well said
 
Rentboy said:
Ah, that's hardly the same thing with Celso Barros! He doesn't own the club, he owns Unimed, which is the main sponsor. The biggest chunk of money comes from the sponsor and I agree it is a thing that seriously boosts the club's spending power, but at least it's not permanent, it could end as soon as the sponsorship deal ends.

We couldn't even begin to compare the Brazilian league with the English. No clubs in Brazil are run in a professional and responsible way. We see very often those suspect partnerships that allow clubs to spend beyond their means - for instance, the Ronaldinho situation at Flamengo, and the whole Berezovski/Kia Joraabchian involvement with Corinthians when they invested abnormal amounts of money to have Tevez and Mascherano, and eventually took its toll on them and led them to relegation. So in the light of that, what happens at Fluminense is not something to be ashamed of.

But in English football, even compared to healthy clubs like Arsenal, the amount of money splashed out by City and Chelsea is ridiculous.
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Sorry mate, but i really don´t see much difference. Celso Barros was raising the cup today, even before the players, he´s almost the owner of the team since 90% of the players are there because of him, doesn´t matter if it´s through a sponsor. Just imagine what will happen if Unimed left Fluminense, there´s simply no more team, just like that!
 
Honome_WEC said:
Sorry mate, but i really don´t see much difference. Celso Barros was raising the cup today, even before the players, he´s almost the owner of the team since 90% of the players are there because of him, doesn´t matter if it´s through a sponsor. Just imagine what will happen if Unimed left Fluminense, there´s simply no more team, just like that!
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It is a scary prospect, that they end the sponsorship, then the club loses its financial muscle. But still, even if Celso Barros has the final say in everything there and rules the club, you don't see the same thing happening - there's no breaking the bank to fund expensive transfers. Quite on the contrary, when Guangzhou Evergrande offered a shitload of money for Dario Conca, we were "forced" to sell because it was too much money (and the player's rights belonged to Unimed)! So there's a case where the club was pressured to sell a star player and didn't cash in that money.
So you see, I'm not defending this model at all. I'm just pointing out how it's not quite the same to what happens to City and Chelsea in England.
 
Rentboy said:
It is a scary prospect, that they end the sponsorship, then the club loses its financial muscle. But still, even if Celso Barros has the final say in everything there and rules the club, you don't see the same thing happening - there's no breaking the bank to fund expensive transfers. Quite on the contrary, when Guangzhou Evergrande offered a shitload of money for Dario Conca, we were "forced" to sell because it was too much money (and the player's rights belonged to Unimed)! So there's a case where the club was pressured to sell a star player and didn't cash in that money.
So you see, I'm not defending this model at all. I'm just pointing out how it's not quite the same to what happens to City and Chelsea in England.
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I understand your point but i am still not convinced about the difference, both are not good for the club in a long term, the only difference is that in Flu it´s in a smaller scale than City or Chelsea but Unimed surely got a lot of players from other clubs with a bunch of money, just look at Martinuccio, Thiago Neves, Fred, Deco and a lot of young talents like Wagner and Wellington Nem.

The Conca episode was based on that fact that money from europe or mid-east are much higher than here. Also what weigh more on that case was the fact that was an unique opportunity for the player that was going to receive 10 million euros per year!

Also, do you remember that Muricy did not go coach Brasil because of Celso Barros and the contract he had with Fluminense at that time?
 
Look, no offense to Beachryan. He is a good poster and always uses arguments.

But somehow this discussion about sugar daddies is a litle bit hypocritical coming from the traditional big clubs. What have tradiotional giants like Man Utd, Barcelona, Milan, Bayern and other big clubs done the last 20 years?

Litle by litle they have used their influence to make a sort of glass ceiling. As a "new" (in the sense of not being a traditional giant) club it is impossible to compete with all those big clubs.

Well it isn't impossible, there are two ways to compete:

1. a fantastic youth academy like Ajax, they reached two CL finals and won one. Afterwards they lost all their good academy players and some fantastic transfers (Litmanen, Finidi George, Kanu) to clubs with more money (not necassarily bigger clubs, Ajax was the biggest clubs players like Litmanen and Finidi played for).

2. a fantastic tranfer policy based upon an excellent worldwide scouting system like Porto. Porto won an UEFA Cup, won a CL and then all their players similarly left them for richer clubs (other examples to a lesser degree USC Palermo in Italy and Sevilla, Deportivo and Villareal in Spain, look where they are now..).

Both models fail in the long term. Even lesser success leads to failure. Look at Racing Genk: a club that won the title with youth players became the laughing stock in Europe. Is it wortwhile to become champion and then have a nightmare season?

So the only alternative to see emerge new clubs is a sugar daddy. I have my own thoughts about people like Mansour, Abramovich and the guy behind Anzhi. And surely the fact that they have taken over is not good for football. But the fact that scarcely any league in Europe is competitive is even worse. So the day that football is a fair competition i will join Beachryan in his "crusade" against sugar daddies.

Until then: more please. Every English club should have one. I wonder what for example Arsenal or Spurs fan would have done if Mansour would have invested in their club. They would be celebrating now.


PS: beachryan, this post isn't aimed at you personally, but you have become a litle bit the symbol for the way of thinking i'm countering. I do you unjustice by mentioning you, i appologize.
 
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I'm with you mate, sorry yes they had a huge amount of money to spend, but Man Utd are riddled with £20-30m players.

Congrats to City though, and unlucky Man Utd, I feel their pain as been through the exact same scenario a number of years ago.

It was an absolute breathtaking finish though, one of the best finale's ever to a season. Was funny, had no real team I wanted to win it, possibly swinging slightly to City just for a new name in the fold. But for some daft reason I celebrated the final goal, just getting caught up in the whole emotion of it. My brother said afterwards "Why did we celebrate?" LOL. :p

Fantastic finish though, not going to say it's the best league in the world and that, as I don't personally think it is, but damn that was exciting.


FD
 
Probably the 2 ways financial fairness would ever happen is through:

1- Fifa/UEFA etc impose equal salary caps everywhere.
2- A massive collapse of the current system.

The 2nd one is more likely to happen at some point in the future.
 
I think he meant "taking one out with me" force another player to draw red w/ him. Like he did to Gervinho bait him to send them off. A daft bloke !
 
He's had a screw loose all his life, unfortunately he's one that will never change his spots regardless of how many times he "recovers" and says he's in a better place.
 
Milanista said:
WTF is wrong with Joey Barton? Said he attacked Aguero to "take one of theirs" out before he left the pitch. He shouldn't be allowed to play football ever again.

- http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/fo...undit-blasts-his-assult-on-Sergio-Aguero.html
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What did you expect from a guy who assaults unconscious colleagues on the training ground and put out cigars into the eyes of youth players?

He's a scumbag of the worst kind. It's no surprise to me at all what happened. What really is a big surprise to me is how the FA still allows him to be around. And most importantly, how Premier League sides still sign him?? He's always playing for a side scraping for relegation, there's no coincidence there for me. Newcastle dismissed him for a reason, you know. And now look what a fantastic campaign they had.

Joey Barton has always been and always will be a complete idiot. He's let his team down when they needed the most, by being sent off when they were level. It's just puzzling to see people handing him the captain armband?!
QPR barely made it, despite having Barton. But the truth is they deserved to be relegated. They only didn't because Bolton failed to win. That was a shame, I wanted Muamba's team to stay up, plus they have a very decent man in Owen Coyle.

But I tell you what, I saw Bolton-Stoke highlights on MOTD. They were relegated because of a Peter Crouch dive. Disgusting stuff.
Stoke are largely despicable, but that has made me hate them even more. They didn't have much else to play, but still find it in themselves to cheat and dive. Funny thing is if you ask any of their fans they will say their players don't dive.

I hope Stoke gets the drop next season, the Premier League will be better off.
 
Rentboy said:
What did you expect from a guy who assaults unconscious colleagues on the training ground and put out cigars into the eyes of youth players?

He's a scumbag of the worst kind. It's no surprise to me at all what happened. What really is a big surprise to me is how the FA still allows him to be around. And most importantly, how Premier League sides still sign him?? He's always playing for a side scraping for relegation, there's no coincidence there for me. Newcastle dismissed him for a reason, you know. And now look what a fantastic campaign they had.

Joey Barton has always been and always will be a complete idiot. He's let his team down when they needed the most, by being sent off when they were level. It's just puzzling to see people handing him the captain armband?!
QPR barely made it, despite having Barton. But the truth is they deserved to be relegated. They only didn't because Bolton failed to win. That was a shame, I wanted Muamba's team to stay up, plus they have a very decent man in Owen Coyle.

About Stoke: they are not playing my kind of football, but in a way i admire them. They are a clever team that does well with modest means. I was sure they would go down immediately. Last season FOURFOURTWO was convinced Stoke would go down, yet they played in Europe. Hats off to them.

But I tell you what, I saw Bolton-Stoke highlights on MOTD. They were relegated because of a Peter Crouch dive. Disgusting stuff.
Stoke are largely despicable, but that has made me hate them even more. They didn't have much else to play, but still find it in themselves to cheat and dive. Funny thing is if you ask any of their fans they will say their players don't dive.

I hope Stoke gets the drop next season, the Premier League will be better off.
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To put it mildly: you have rather outspoken opinions...
I too would have preferred Bolton to stay up, their two best players were out for the most part of the season and last season Coyle was seen as a future big manager...now he is relegated with Bolton.
On top of that, the first Stoke goals was a foul on the GK IMO. But to be honest QPR had also decisons against them. I think they had a remarkable run the last 7 or 8 games. They deserve to stay up. IMO the one team that came away was Villa. This was perhaps the team with the worst football in the EPL. Perhaps the club Villa deserve some credit because they are the team that overachieved most in the EPL era considering their budget. It is very simple: the ranking at the end of the season is decided by the salry mass. There are a few exceptions over the twenty season in the EPL: Arsenal and Villa are the most overachieving teams in relation to their salary mass. So perhaps it is good that Villa stayed up, but they should quickly change manager and take a good one. They never recovered after MON.

I also feel for Newcastle: what a splendid season they had. This season that club was an example how to run a football club. Who would have thought that last season. They made some wonderfull signings: Cabaye (not a surprise for me), Tioté, Ben Arfa, Cisse, Santon. Well done to them.
 
gerd said:
To put it mildly: you have rather outspoken opinions...
I too would have preferred Bolton to stay up, their two best players were out for the most part of the season and last season Coyle was seen as a future big manager...now he is relegated with Bolton.
On top of that, the first Stoke goals was a foul on the GK IMO. But to be honest QPR had also decisons against them. I think they had a remarkable run the last 7 or 8 games. They deserve to stay up. IMO the one team that came away was Villa. This was perhaps the team with the worst football in the EPL. Perhaps the club Villa deserve some credit because they are the team that overachieved most in the EPL era considering their budget. It is very simple: the ranking at the end of the season is decided by the salry mass. There are a few exceptions over the twenty season in the EPL: Arsenal and Villa are the most overachieving teams in relation to their salary mass. So perhaps it is good that Villa stayed up, but they should quickly change manager and take a good one. They never recovered after MON.

I also feel for Newcastle: what a splendid season they had. This season that club was an example how to run a football club. Who would have thought that last season. They made some wonderfull signings: Cabaye (not a surprise for me), Tioté, Ben Arfa, Cisse, Santon. Well done to them.
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Yeah I am a bit of an outspoken fella if you haven't noticed before :D

Playing to your strengths and staying up against the odds is a thing to admire, but I just can't find it in myself to like Stoke. Their fans are disgraceful, booing Aaron Ramsey like that was the last straw for me. Their manager is not likeable either, always chose to field a bunch of brutes and play a negative kind of football, almost the dark side of the Force if you will. But the truth is that you don't need to resort to that to succeed - just look at Swansea, they play very nice footie and they're staying up. Or Norwich, who are a mix of both worlds: I like how they can play fluid attacking football but sometimes they do play dirty. But fair play to them, they're up.

Yeah as for QPR maybe I'm a bit harsh on them... I guess I just wanted them to go down to further highlight the mistake of having a Joe Barton in your squad. I'd love to see their reaction if QPR got relegated because of his antics. But the lucky bastard got away with it in the end.
 
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