2013-2014 Season

[Tes]

Carra talks too muc sense, he's wasted on Sky.

[the dude abides]

yes, patience.

man against boy.

[Martinmarx]

Don't like the sniping remarks aimed at Rodgers. City's had Everything going for them the last few weeks. Nothing, absolutetly nothing, has gone against them - Gerrard's slip; West Ham beating Spurs leaving Everton with nothing to play for having lost 4th the preceeding weekend; an indifferent Crystal Palace (to which even Pulis admitted), Weimann's header in the bar with 9 minutes to go. So it's easy to look at the result and conclude our manager doesn't have a clue. At least he did what no other manager did in 24 years and I think no manager has done in the PL era - taking us from 7th to at least 2nd in one season.

This ain't over!

Come on you redmen!!!

[Tes]

Don't like the sniping remarks aimed at Rodgers. City's had Everything going for them the last few weeks. Nothing, absolutetly nothing, has gone against them - Gerrard's slip; West Ham beating Spurs leaving Everton with nothing to play for having lost 4th the preceeding weekend; an indifferent Crystal Palace (to which even Pulis admitted), Weimann's header in the bar with 9 minutes to go. So it's easy to look at the result and conclude our manager doesn't have a clue. At least he did what no other manager did in 24 years and I think no manager has done in the PL era - taking us from 7th to at least 2nd in one season.

This ain't over!

Come on you redmen!!!

Martin, nobody's 'sniping' as you put it - so before you accuse anyone, mate, go through the comments you make during and in the immediate aftermath of the matches. When you're not overflowing with positivity in your remarks, no-one accuses you of sniping, however, as soon as Dude or I are anything but uber complimentary then the accusations begin.

We've both complimented the manager multiple times during the season, but I'm damned if I'm ignoring or living in a state of denial over things that are obviously wrong or have not measured up to the level required for us to be back challenging for silverware across all competitions.

Complimenting others, is also not sniping.

Living in a state of denial may be a utopian existence for some, but some of us prefer the 'ups and downs' of living in the 'real world', no matter how bad it can seem at times, and highlighting obvious deficiencies, is neither 'sniping', 'being negative', 'disloyal' or 'unsupportive'.

[Martinmarx]

I did what you asked and went back a few pages and you caught me in the wrong. I apologize if you felt I accused you and Dude of sniping at our manager. Soz!

I maintain though, Man City is due some good old bad luck.

[the dude abides]

Rafa would have drawn (or beat) Chelsea; beat Palace; and hammered Newcastle.....to take the title.

[Edward224]

Rafa would have drawn (or beat) Chelsea; beat Palace; and hammered Newcastle.....to take the title.

Rafa would have also drawn at home to West Ham, Fulham, Sunderland, Stoke, Swansea etc. Therefore not even being in the race.


Two can play that game Dude 

[the dude abides]

 

[the dude abides]

Another trophy this week, for Rafa.

The Italian Cup.

Well played, Rafa.  YNWA.

[the dude abides]

Mind you, in recent times, Rafa's weight seems to have ballooned.  Worrisome fat.

He needs to cut down all that spaghetti bolognese, and get back home to the chips and gravy, mushy peas, and bread and butter.

[Tes]

I did what you asked and went back a few pages and you caught me in the wrong. I apologize if you felt I accused you and Dude of sniping at our manager. Soz!

I maintain though, Man City is due some good old bad luck.

No probs, Martin. I enjoy a different option as it gives me something to think on.

I agree with you re City. Chelsea used to enjoy the same. I wonder how many deflected goals Lampard has scored. Whilst we entirely caused our own downfall against Palace, there was a markedly different build up from Pulis for their last home game, than there was for their penultimate one, against City, and the two performances would have them diagnosed as bi-polar or of split personality if they were a person.

 

[the dude abides]

Arsène Wenger says Manchester City should be excluded from Champions League after breaking FFP rules

Arsène Wenger believes Uefa need to clarify punishments and that there is 'something wrong' that a team breaking rules can win the Premier League

By Jeremy Wilson, Deputy Football Correspondent, Daily Telegraph

Arsène Wenger has called on Uefa to clarify its punishments for breaches of Financial Fair Play and suggested that clubs such as Manchester City should simply be excluded from the Champions League.   “You would think you accept the rules and you’re in the competition or you don’t accept the rules and you’re not in the competition – then everybody would understand it,” the Arsenal manager said.

City, along with Paris St-Germain, are among nine clubs to have failed the new Uefa regulations that limited the financial losses between 2011 and 2013 to £37.2 million.    Uefa’s proposed punishment is a £50 million fine plus a reduction in the size of City’s squad for next season’s Champions League from 25 to 21 players, of whom eight must be locally trained and four club-trained.

Wenger has been encouraged this week by Uefa’s willingness to sanction major clubs but would still like the punishments to be simplified. He also said there was “something wrong” when a club who have breached the Financial Fair Play rules are also likely to win the Premier League.

 “I’m a complete supporter of Financial Fair Play because I think that every business should live within its own resources like in any other activity,” Wenger said.    “For the punishment I think it’s a sophisticated punishment. I would like a more simple one that makes more sense but they have studied that for a very long time certainly to be in accordance with the legal side of it."

“There are rules. You respect them or you don’t respect them. If you don’t respect them you have to be punished. When Uefa doesn’t want to kick the clubs out of the Champions League they have to find a more subtle punishment. To me, and from all of us on the outside, it looks a complicated punishment.”

When it was put to him that it would be “odd” for City to be English champions after breaching Uefa rules, Wenger said: “Of course there is something wrong but I plead for that for years. There’s two ways of thinking about the whole process. You can say, ‘We don’t care, we want the billionaires to buy the big players, they spend what they want’, or you say, ‘We want to keep things fair’.

“Basically if you say to me tomorrow we give everybody £100 million in the 20 Premier League clubs, I say, ‘OK, I’ll take the gamble’. That is a fair competition.  The unfair thing is the inflation can be too big and it can put too much pressure on the clubs who do not have these resources to overpay their players.”

Asked if the answer would be to publish the salaries of players, Wenger said: “Basically it comes to that.”

[the dude abides]

Arsene makes a lot of sense.

I was reading the other day, that Man City's total salary payments is almost DOUBLE what Liverpool pays it's staff!

[Tes]

Rafa would have also drawn at home to West Ham, Fulham, Sunderland, Stoke, Swansea etc. Therefore not even being in the race.


Two can play that game Dude 

Liverpool 0 - 0 West Ham 07/04/2013
Liverpool 0 - 0 Stoke 07/10/2012
Liverpool 1 - 1 Newcastle 04/11/2012
Liverpool 2 - 2 Aston Villa 18/01/2014

Have I got the hang of this game? 

[Tes]

Arsene makes a lot of sense.

I was reading the other day, that Man City's total salary payments is almost DOUBLE what Liverpool pays it's staff!

If it had come from someone else but Whinger than it may have carried some weight, but the point he makes is a good one. The rules are laid out clearly. City and PSG could have spent less last Summer but chose to not to and both look like winning their domestic leagues so have definitely benefited from their 'overspend'.

A fine is pointless. A £50M fine has a massively disproportionate affect from team to team. Being banned from the CL for a season is the same level of punishment across all teams.