manc-mag

Beautifully well observed and why the argument is so badly served by reducing it to the simplistic levels it's often taken to on here. It's so much more than just paying top dollar alone; it's far more to do with ensuring that where top dollar is paid (if indeed it can be paid) that it has to be earned. Achieving that dynamic definitely needed a sea change at this club. At least we're moving in that direction.

I think quality is Well summarised really. I also think theres more chance of getting that quality too if we acquire at the rate you're referring to. ie How we've done recently, with intense research and planning. What I would say is that I think positions need to be prioritised this time around given where we know we're thinly spread after two seasons up. ie the playing position of the target determines we move for the player now, rather than a clause in a contract sending a target to the top of the list irrespective of their position. I think that's the tweak needed this window in order to progress again.

I'm grassing yous all up.

I'm not saying we're not a bigger club than City. We are in my view and I think we're considered bigger by most of football too. The identity of NUFC is in a different stratosphere to MCFC at the very least, but I just don't think it's worth getting het up about these days. John Hall made loads of money out of NUFC as you rightly say, but that equation is all about acquiring the club at the right price, and that's true irrespective of the club in question. Thus if he'd bought it for £300,000,000 instead of £1,000,000 he'd have probably made massive losses and wouldnt have been very happy. He didn't though, he got it for buttons and turned us big shortly after. All credit to him for that. The clock doesn't stop there though and begin again, ie the next owner bought subject to massive debts, thus it doesnt matter what Hall had pocketed personally, the club itself was still a loss maker. Thus it was buying players it couldn't ultimately afford. At different points and at different times it arguably could have 'afforded' them but not overall, given it's ultimate trajectory or lack of success. If it was the case it was us who'd tried to compete with Chelsea with the Mansour's at the helm, we'd have also had to be bankrolled in a way that bore absolutely no relationship to our natural resources, so it's a pyrrhic victory flagging that up to the blues as though it's going to take the gloss off for them. It's just where football is now.

I make the comparison based on the popular refrain of the time, which was: "You're buying all the best players". Which was true, we were accumulating lots of big players in a very short space of time. It was mint but you can't get away from that very basic truth. It just costs inordinately more now. Down the tracks we also became a significant, loss making outfit as this model continued without "success" It's daft for anyone to get on their high horses, it's just what the game has become. City are entitled to enjoy it and we'd be absolutely no different if it was us.

what a daft cock.

Shatner's bassoon.

Fred's a right bell end mind.

I think it's the draw to win conversion that's traditionally let us down. When we've been behind we've sometimes managed to pull it level again but as for going on to win it you can pretty much forget about it. Which is a sad indictment really. Would be a massive one to add to the armoury if we could make it part of our mindset.

Aye, rub their faces in it please. I'd like to see the city centre blue and white for a change all over the news.

Nah, I'm glad we've consolidated our losses into a few easy tonkings tbh. Overall, mentally when we've got the prep right we've been very hard to beat. Traditionally we're really quite easy to beat taking account of the 'named' players we've had on our books.

Aye. Was gonna say we had some momentum under SBR and that's the only real time I can remember feeling that if we conceded first we weren't automatically out of the game. We didnt even have it under Keegan sadly, and it's practically impossible to win a league title if you can't do that. When we went behind, that was us done. As you say, Man U are the absolute benchmark 1,2, 3 down and they're still in it (to the point where they might even go on to win). The fans know it too...they'll just keep going and going til the last kick of the game. That's why you can't knock their paying top wages. The players are on silly money but they realise what's expected of them to earn that. I think we've come on leaps and bounds in starting from a position where we think first and foremost about not getting beaten first. It's galvanized us as a team and our fighting spirit has been immense to see. It's what's made watching us so mint recently. The next step is to hopefully add that extra resilience so we still believe even when we're behind .I really hope we can because it's a big factor. You only get it with graft, so the building blocks are there at least....

We've never really been any good at that in all the time I've been following us and that includes when we briefly challenged for the league so thats nowt new tbh. It needs to be addressed though simply because that's what winners do, but as has been said already...the main point is we haven't gone behind as much as we usually do to start with, so thats the main thing. A habit we need to learn, but not a stat to get alarmed about in and of itself.

Nah you've got to assume Everton will be throwing the kitchen sink at it this weekend come what may. Nice end to the season this. Liverpool winning when the outcome is meaningless, Chelsea losing when the outcome is significant.

You can take a season's snapshot view or a long term view like tbf I spose, it doesnt really make any odds the way I look at it. We've had years when we've outspent anyone and we've had extended periods where we've been run well beyond our means. By the time City mounted their Prem challenge, Chelsea had raised the daft money spending bar year on year so anyone even attempting to compete automatically went outside of anything even resembling an 'own money' model. It'd be the same for us now, which is all the blues mean when they make the point: you'd be happy if it was you. Hard to argue imo.

Aye good list tbf. The key point is about how well a club is run and sides being in the Prem on merit. But what Blackburn fans need to acknowledge (for their own good) is that even if they were run to their absolute maximum efficiency on their own natural resources they'd still be a bottom half club. Survival itself is an achievement. When they lose track of that (because someone bought them the league a few years back) and lose sight of the fact they need to be an unpleasant little place for away teams to visit in Lancashire, they lose their best natural chance of stopping up. They've turned Ewood Park into somewhere their own team doesnt want to play this season, while away teams have been queuing up for their fixture there.

Fail to see how their aspirational attitude has helped them at all tbh. The absolute brutal honest truth is they're not a Prem sized club, ergo just to be in the Prem is an achievement. When theyve done well in the past it's been entirely nothing to do with the club, but the actions of one man. Without him they were nothing and now theyre nothing again (is the reality of it). In which case you've got to absolutely galvanize yourself as fans in a proper Wimbledon like seige mentality, not slag your manager off before and during every game. By doing that they diminish one of the few things they potentially have going for them. It's not to say they should be happy about relegation or accepting of relegation, but it is about facing up to the realities of the Premiership...and once they look at themselves as a club they'd have to say we're an absolute minnow here and we need to maximise everything we've got going for us to stop up each and every year. Generalist arguments about fans and aspirations can be made about any club. We all want more spent etc etc. Once you divorce those thoughts from the actual revenues of the football club we can all say we deserve better. It's meaningless though as a sentiment. In the cold light of day, in Blackburn's case they do very very well to stay up. In going down, they've not underperformed, because the Championship is probably their level in the modern game. Or flitting between the two at best.

Anyway we had a go at 'buying' it too back in the day. We nearly did but we didn't quite. Gutting but there you go.

We had a class game and it was only Yaya Toure that was the difference. If Ben Arfa had had a bigger game I think we'd have got something as it would have pulled their defence about more to give our forwards that bit more space. As it happens they were immaculate at the back, but we contained their forwards nee bother and their midfield too. Just cool headed class from YY Toure that separated us on the day iyam.

Not for me, like. In fact the 'post' button doesn't even post. I have to go through 'more reply options' and then 'add reply'.

Where is the arrogance on the Blue Moon forum regarding the game at St James's. We City fans generally thought that it would be a harder game than United at home and it proved to be that way despite it being 2-0. Newcastle caused us problems whereas United didn't And most City fans are not arrogant. We've suffered years of winning nothing just like Newcastle. We just got lucky. You'd take it wouldn't you ? = the attitude of most City fans I've ever known ever btw. Entitled to enjoy the moment as far as I'm concerned.

Not that I know how to quote the one I'm on about since the formatting's changed.

I think theres a touch of the Jim Branning's going on sadly, when you get up as close as that pic CT's posted.

The fans need a reality check mind, where exactly do they think they should be finishing each season? Just avoiding relegation from the Prem each season is a phenomenal achievement for a club their size. They didn't manage it this season, but that doesnt mean they underachieved per se.

mint