#3295

Neither of those players is a first-team regular, though.

They’d rather play two players whose entire repertoire consists of passing the ball sidesways or backwards - Kovacic and Jorginho .

#3296

Shut the fuck up

#3297

Bit much that, pal. Just expressing my opinion.

#3298

Assurances from the Azerbaijani government that

  • the player is allowed into the country
  • additional security will be arranged to protect the player while staying in the country
#3299

Think i’ve spoke at length on most of the muck that gets slung at City. I don’t particularly have time for the people that now run the club, but ultimately the greed of other clubs over a thirty-year period took us there. I do think they’ve completely fudged the books and should get a ban from Europe, though wouldn’t see that as a negative thing and quite clearly FFP’s flawed and designed to protect a small core of clubs. Definitely think they should be banned from signing players for a time as well due to the illegal approaches for academy players, but people didn’t seem to have a propblem with Ferguson and Clough and Revie bribing parents with stuffed envelopes so there are hypocricies about that clearly. To their credit they’re supposedly doing great things behind the scenes working with those effected by the Bennell stuff, they didn’t have to do that given it’s a completely different club, board, entity, so fair play, but i do think there could have been a bit more general discourse about it still.

As a supporter, i’ve got to be honest, it all has no bearing whatsoever on anything to me, even as a massive lefty. There’s a complete and utter disconnect there and always will be. I’d like them to sort those things out but when the bodies trying to govern are themselves hugely corrupt and proven so beyond all doubt, and the driving factor behind those that aren’t is pure greed it doesn’t feel like there’s any urgent need for a check of conscience. It’s a true heel-versus-heel battle. It’s hard to even really feel too guilty about the most serious stuff when our own government quite literally provide the arms and rely so heavily on the same sort of investment.

For us to have a proper debate about this we have to get away from this weird modern phenomenon of people smugly standing with their arms folded and shouting ‘whataboutery’ whenever precedent is mentioned. Precedent’s fucking important. It’s okay and completely necessary to view charges though the prism of other examples. If Real Madrid are where they are in part due to massive municipal fraud why should City’s owners not prop the club up? If Platini waved through a €200m sponsorship deal at his own club why should City not get Abu Dhabi companies paying them for teabags? If Liverpool can get watered-down bans for illegally signing kids why shouldn’t anyone else do it?

Genuinely think they’re guilty as charged, but you’ve got to cut the head off the snake. Fining or banning City won’t solve the problem. Football’s fundamentally corrupt because society’s fundamentally corrupt.

7 Likes
#3300

Can’t believe Mkhitaryan can’t play in a European final because the hosting country won’t let him in.

I mean, I think he’s pretty shit, but at the same time Fuck UEFA, bunch of corrupt dickheads

13 Likes
#3301

Top level football is a disgusting capitalist hellscape. Clubs are there to be;

  • public relationship vehicle for despotic countries,
  • money laundering operations for the mega rich
  • venture capitalist cash cows
  • a faux religion to fleece the people
  • a gambling billboard and gambling driver
  • a tv soap

If you don’t switch off from all that, it’s impossible to watch and that disconnect is why i’d be alright by being owned by saudi arabia.

Actually think the insidious sky sports > sky sports news > sky bet cycle that happens to be the worst of it all.

1 Like
#3303

£80m asking price for Zaha. Games gone

#3304

Trent Alexander-Arnold (Liverpool)

Dele Alli (Tottenham Hotspur)

Ross Barkley (Chelsea)

Jack Butland (Stoke City)

Ben Chilwell (Leicester City)

Fabian Delph (Manchester City)

Eric Dier (Tottenham Hotspur)

Joe Gomez (Liverpool)

Tom Heaton (Burnley)

Jordan Henderson (Liverpool)

Harry Kane (Tottenham Hotspur)

Michael Keane (Everton)

Jesse Lingard (Manchester United)

Harry Maguire (Leicester City)

Jordan Pickford (Everton)

Marcus Rashford (Manchester United)

Nathan Redmond (Southampton)

Declan Rice (West Ham United)

Danny Rose (Tottenham Hotspur)

Jadon Sancho (Borussia Dortmund)

Raheem Sterling (Manchester City)

John Stones (Manchester City)

Kieran Trippier (Tottenham Hotspur)

Kyle Walker (Manchester City)

James Ward-Prowse (Southampton)

Callum Wilson (AFC Bournemouth)

Harry Winks (Tottenham Hotspur)

#3305

GIL! SCOTT! HERON!

5 Likes
#3306

Surprised Delph and Winks are in there. Thought Winks was injured again. Redmond probably deserves a go with Loftus-Cheek and Hudson-Odoi out.

1 Like
#3307

Both were first team regulars at the time they got injured. Hudson-Odoi had started 4 games straight and Loftus-Cheek is currently our most in form player.

The friendly last night was for an excellent cause (all proceeds going towards fighting anti-semitism, an area where the club are actually taking some positive action despite the frequent attempts of some total cunts in the fanbase to undermine it), but the stupidity of scheduling this game before the Arsenal game is unforgivable. There is no reason it couldn’t have been played in a few weeks, and we would have avoided losing our best attacking midfielder for only the fifth major European final in our history.

7 Likes
#3308

apparently RLC’s Achilles has gone, same as Hudson-Odoi.

ah well.

#3310

Really frustrating to see this happen to young players. Hope it doesn’t derail their careers too much.

4 Likes
#3311

Said it before but Leeds played like a bunch of sugar-addled kids. The moment any one of them bar the goalie got ahold of the ball they were motoring up the other end with the rest of them just trying to keep up. Incredible to watch like, but any team with a modicum of sensibleness (and Perfectly Acceptable Weight Frank has a 20/20 sensible rating) could get behind that. They’d get slaughtered in the PL.

1 Like
#3312

This is doing the rounds again with old Tory lamps’ post match interview last night being a classic of the genre

2 Likes
#3313

No Maddison’s a bit weird innit?

1 Like
#3314

He’s going to be in under 21s, which is probably sensible.

#3315

Wait… Kane?! He’s definitely going to be hobbling around, half fit against Liverpool.

#3316
3 Likes