Premier League 18/19

[NYCFC_Dan]

Awww, Keith. Rough morning?

BTW, doesn't the fact that it came off the defender nullify him being offside anyway? See one of Kane's bunk ass goals last year vs. Liverpool.

Don’t see anyone on west ham making contact with the ball there.
Either way, you made a post a few days ago in regard to bad decisions going against you and costing you the league by a mere 15 points. EPL NEEDS Var. I think they actually would have competent people heading it and getting the calls right.
I understand this one would have no impact on the game but it sure as hell impacted my fantasy matchup.

https://twitter.com/x/status/1028638590438395904

 

[Keith Putnam]

it came off the defender

Did it? It looked like a clean through-ball to me. But maybe.

I did enjoy how incredibly happy Shaqiri looked when Klopp had him on the touchline right before his sub.

And hell, man, I can't hate on how fun Liverpool are to watch. All I can do is wish for Everton to improve.

 

[Midas Mulligan]

Don’t see anyone on west ham making contact with the ball there.
Either way, you made a post a few days ago in regard to bad decisions going against you and costing you the league by a mere 15 points. EPL NEEDS Var. I think they actually would have competent people heading it and getting the calls right.
I understand this one would have no impact on the game but it sure as hell impacted my fantasy matchup.

https://twitter.com/x/status/1028638590438395904

They do need VAR. They also need better officials. Just a little banter for one of our bluenose neighbors.

Did it? It looked like a clean through-ball to me. But maybe.

I did enjoy how incredibly happy Shaqiri looked when Klopp had him on the touchline right before his sub.

And hell, man, I can't hate on how fun Liverpool are to watch. All I can do is wish for Everton to improve.

Naby Keita is amazing. He was great to watch at Leipzig, but in this team, he's going to go up another level. I'll be more surprised if he doesn't make the PFA team of the year than if he does.

I think Liverpool just has to aim for 90 points. If you get that or near that and don't win the league, which isn't a stretch to see happening, you just tip your hat to City.

 

[Davo15]

I think these city away kits are putrid and there’s no need to be wearing them when sky blue doesn’t clash with red but at least they don’t have visit Rwanda on the sleeve !

 

[Shwafta]

I think these city away kits are putrid and there’s no need to be wearing them when sky blue doesn’t clash with red but at least they don’t have visit Rwanda on the sleeve !

I was looking at the chat feed on the stream I was watching and someone said "I want to send Cech to visit Rwana" and I thought that was pretty funny.

 

[Seth]

I think these city away kits are putrid and there’s no need to be wearing them when sky blue doesn’t clash with red but at least they don’t have visit Rwanda on the sleeve !

I kind of agree, but I also kind of want to get one. Going to try to go see a match in Manchester this season and am already thinking of what jersey to wear.

It's possible I may perhaps have a problem though.

 

[Midas Mulligan]

Falastur serious question that’s answer matters none other than serving my own curiousity.

In my experience,Liverpool fans do tend to plump up the team and expect good things, but also understand the hill the club has had to climb to get back to relevance in the absence of extreme cash injections.

From my perspective here and with the Liverpool based media I consume, all of this trophy talk and Klopp having pressure is entirely external. It’s not the large majority of supporters and it’s certainly not club management. Most Liverpool supporters here and in the city seem made up with the team’s direction.

Why does this bug the hell out of so many people that a group of supporters can just be happy enjoying the football they are playing and understanding they are improving and accepting a trophy will come when it comes?

If you don’t take that attitude, doesn’t it make supporting a club a real kick in the labia? I’m serious. I cannot and will not ever understand why it pisses other people off so much that Liverpool supporters are just enjoying the journey. That’s not to say it’s a Liverpool thing.

I’m saying it’s some weird English thing against any supporters trying to enjoy the progress and journey.

I do tend to see it manifested more among City, but it’s error margin with United, so maybe it’s a city/region thing. Who knows. It’s all so weird, and I accept there are things I don’t understand not being native.

But the hate directed at any group of fans over celebrating hope or achievement being pretty much the accepted norm is so fucking weird to me.

I have theories. But I would rather hear from your perspective. What am getting right and where am I wrong in how I perceive this? Where are you (City fans or any fans who have this view) right and wrong?

I actually love watching football for fun. No one is mailing my ass a trophy for anything. I’d rather watch amazing ass football that gives me hope every season and every cup competition and enjoy it as long as possible than to watch dire ass pragmatism. Both would be ideal, if course. But give me fun, give me exciting, give me a narrative. Again, no one is mailing me a trophy either way. But winning “big” matchups lasts as long as the joy of any pot, personally. So why the fuck do any of us care? Except for NYC. Or CFG. Or something. Because we (full NYC hat on now) Dont seem to deliver in these ways?

The whole thing is interesting to me from a sociological and psychological perspective.

I’ll admit, NYC doesnt make me happy when we don’t win. But I can still be happy with LFC when they lose. It’s weird as fuck. I’d like to hear your response to my rambling, stream of consciousness thoughts.

Eta: with the understanding you may need clarification. Hopefully, I conveyed the gist of it.

 

[NickFromAstoria]

Falastur serious question that’s answer matters none other than serving my own curiousity.

In my experience,Liverpool fans do tend to plump up the team and expect good things, but also understand the hill the club has had to climb to get back to relevance in the absence of extreme cash injections.

From my perspective here and with the Liverpool based media I consume, all of this trophy talk and Klopp having pressure is entirely external. It’s not the large majority of supporters and it’s certainly not club management. Most Liverpool supporters here and in the city seem made up with the team’s direction.

Why does this bug the hell out of so many people that a group of supporters can just be happy enjoying the football they are playing and understanding they are improving and accepting a trophy will come when it comes?

If you don’t take that attitude, doesn’t it make supporting a club a real kick in the labia? I’m serious. I cannot and will not ever understand why it pisses other people off so much that Liverpool supporters are just enjoying the journey. That’s not to say it’s a Liverpool thing.

I’m saying it’s some weird English thing against any supporters trying to enjoy the progress and journey.

I do tend to see it manifested more among City, but it’s error margin with United, so maybe it’s a city/region thing. Who knows. It’s all so weird, and I accept there are things I don’t understand not being native.

But the hate directed at any group of fans over celebrating hope or achievement being pretty much the accepted norm is so fucking weird to me.

I have theories. But I would rather hear from your perspective. What am getting right and where am I wrong in how I perceive this? Where are you (City fans or any fans who have this view) right and wrong?

I actually love watching football for fun. No one is mailing my ass a trophy for anything. I’d rather watch amazing ass football that gives me hope every season and every cup competition and enjoy it as long as possible than to watch dire ass pragmatism. Both would be ideal, if course. But give me fun, give me exciting, give me a narrative. Again, no one is mailing me a trophy either way. But winning “big” matchups lasts as long as the joy of any pot, personally. So why the fuck do any of us care? Except for NYC. Or CFG. Or something. Because we (full NYC hat on now) Dont seem to deliver in these ways?

The whole thing is interesting to me from a sociological and psychological perspective.

I’ll admit, NYC doesnt make me happy when we don’t win. But I can still be happy with LFC when they lose. It’s weird as fuck. I’d like to hear your response to my rambling, stream of consciousness thoughts.

Eta: with the understanding you may need clarification. Hopefully, I conveyed the gist of it.

Maybe the only caveat I'd add is in the universe that is European soccer, where the force of gravity seems to inevitably pull towards Madrid and Barca, I worry about more of our stars having their heads turned and moving on if they don't have trophies to show for their time. So being on the clock with, say, Sadio Mané is a bit of a concern. But as for me personally, agreed 100%. Someone asked me if I'd look back on the CL run fondly and was shocked when I said "Of course!" without hesitation. Like losing one game negates the theatrics against Porto or Ox's banger against City.

Either way, allez allez allez.

 

[Seth]

Not confirmed yet, but still…

https://twitter.com/x/status/1029743904470515712

 

[Midas Mulligan]

Not confirmed yet, but still…

https://twitter.com/x/status/1029743904470515712

Not liked because he's injured. That's a thanks for sharing like. That totally sucks. I love watching him play.

To be efficient, I'll multipurpose my post and say that it's totally random that this article that's sort of related to my ramblings appeared today. Weird.
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/08/15/opinion/revelation-of-a-liverpool-soccer-fan.html

 

[Falastur]

Falastur serious question that’s answer matters none other than serving my own curiousity.

In my experience,Liverpool fans do tend to plump up the team and expect good things, but also understand the hill the club has had to climb to get back to relevance in the absence of extreme cash injections.

From my perspective here and with the Liverpool based media I consume, all of this trophy talk and Klopp having pressure is entirely external. It’s not the large majority of supporters and it’s certainly not club management. Most Liverpool supporters here and in the city seem made up with the team’s direction.

Why does this bug the hell out of so many people that a group of supporters can just be happy enjoying the football they are playing and understanding they are improving and accepting a trophy will come when it comes?

If you don’t take that attitude, doesn’t it make supporting a club a real kick in the labia? I’m serious. I cannot and will not ever understand why it pisses other people off so much that Liverpool supporters are just enjoying the journey. That’s not to say it’s a Liverpool thing.

I’m saying it’s some weird English thing against any supporters trying to enjoy the progress and journey.

I do tend to see it manifested more among City, but it’s error margin with United, so maybe it’s a city/region thing. Who knows. It’s all so weird, and I accept there are things I don’t understand not being native.

But the hate directed at any group of fans over celebrating hope or achievement being pretty much the accepted norm is so fucking weird to me.

I have theories. But I would rather hear from your perspective. What am getting right and where am I wrong in how I perceive this? Where are you (City fans or any fans who have this view) right and wrong?

I actually love watching football for fun. No one is mailing my ass a trophy for anything. I’d rather watch amazing ass football that gives me hope every season and every cup competition and enjoy it as long as possible than to watch dire ass pragmatism. Both would be ideal, if course. But give me fun, give me exciting, give me a narrative. Again, no one is mailing me a trophy either way. But winning “big” matchups lasts as long as the joy of any pot, personally. So why the fuck do any of us care? Except for NYC. Or CFG. Or something. Because we (full NYC hat on now) Dont seem to deliver in these ways?

The whole thing is interesting to me from a sociological and psychological perspective.

I’ll admit, NYC doesnt make me happy when we don’t win. But I can still be happy with LFC when they lose. It’s weird as fuck. I’d like to hear your response to my rambling, stream of consciousness thoughts.

Eta: with the understanding you may need clarification. Hopefully, I conveyed the gist of it.

OK. How to approach this...

First of all, I know a number of Liverpool fans (and I don't live remotely near Liverpool...) and I would have to say that it may be different outside of the UK but in this country the stereotype of "this is our year" - i.e. that Liverpool fans tend to start every campaign convinced that their team is going to win the league (and win it convincingly) is not necessarily overstated. There's one guy in my office who admittedly is very much glass-half-full but is otherwise a very smart guy, and he is really hyped up for how well Liverpool are going to do this season.

I hate to say it because I know it's not really the answer you're looking for, and I know that you will be able to find British 'Pool fans who are entirely cautious about their chances, but I think the reputation of Liverpool fans for always believing they will win things is entirely warranted by the actions of the fans over here.

The other thing about Liverpool fans which makes them a particular target among British fans (obviously not in the media as it would be career suicide) is the Hillsborough thing. Now Liverpool suffered a massive tragedy, and the actions of the police were inexcusable, and in this case I would definitely argue that it's only a select group of Liverpool fans who make this a serious stereotype, but unfortunately those older fans in the city itself do have a reputation for citing the name "Hillsborough" so many times that they lose any sympathy they should have received from fans of other clubs. If you ever see fans of other clubs use the term "candlelight vigil" mockingly then this is the exact reason why.

I think when you combine these two things together you get the crux of the issue which seems to make Liverpool fans stand out more than most - it's easy to find things to insult or mock about other clubs, but Liverpool's fans seem to stick out a little more than most others by the way that the most vocal of their fans act.

As for the enmity between City and Liverpool fans (it's actually usually the United fans who have the biggest beef with Liverpool, but I guess the changing dynamics of the teams' fortunes mean that City's voices ring louder right now) then yes, you absolutely have a point that the rivalry between the two cities plays a large part. The two city centres are as far apart as Newark is from Long Beach, and they probably have the biggest inter-city rivalry in the country. The two populations are notorious rivals, and when you throw football into the mix it easily spills over into casual hatred.

Give this, you can always guarantee that fans of a Manchester club will always, but always, have negative words to say about a fan of a Liverpool club, and vice versa. To those of us in the south, Liverpool's fans are far less of a Public Enemy Number One, and so you're less likely to get a southern fan kicking off about Liverpool except when responding to something. I will also point out that teams tend to get mock/insulted in rough proportion to how notable they are at the time, too. I suspect that if Liverpool were where Arsenal are right now, and were looking like they were going to struggle to break into the CL places, then they would be far less of a target to other fans.

Anyway, that's my take on it. As with most things, there are likely things I've missed and things I've overplayed, but that would be how I see it.

 

[Midas Mulligan]

OK. How to approach this...

First of all, I know a number of Liverpool fans (and I don't live remotely near Liverpool...) and I would have to say that it may be different outside of the UK but in this country the stereotype of "this is our year" - i.e. that Liverpool fans tend to start every campaign convinced that their team is going to win the league (and win it convincingly) is not necessarily overstated. There's one guy in my office who admittedly is very much glass-half-full but is otherwise a very smart guy, and he is really hyped up for how well Liverpool are going to do this season.

I hate to say it because I know it's not really the answer you're looking for, and I know that you will be able to find British 'Pool fans who are entirely cautious about their chances, but I think the reputation of Liverpool fans for always believing they will win things is entirely warranted by the actions of the fans over here.

The other thing about Liverpool fans which makes them a particular target among British fans (obviously not in the media as it would be career suicide) is the Hillsborough thing. Now Liverpool suffered a massive tragedy, and the actions of the police were inexcusable, and in this case I would definitely argue that it's only a select group of Liverpool fans who make this a serious stereotype, but unfortunately those older fans in the city itself do have a reputation for citing the name "Hillsborough" so many times that they lose any sympathy they should have received from fans of other clubs. If you ever see fans of other clubs use the term "candlelight vigil" mockingly then this is the exact reason why.

I think when you combine these two things together you get the crux of the issue which seems to make Liverpool fans stand out more than most - it's easy to find things to insult or mock about other clubs, but Liverpool's fans seem to stick out a little more than most others by the way that the most vocal of their fans act.

As for the enmity between City and Liverpool fans (it's actually usually the United fans who have the biggest beef with Liverpool, but I guess the changing dynamics of the teams' fortunes mean that City's voices ring louder right now) then yes, you absolutely have a point that the rivalry between the two cities plays a large part. The two city centres are as far apart as Newark is from Long Beach, and they probably have the biggest inter-city rivalry in the country. The two populations are notorious rivals, and when you throw football into the mix it easily spills over into casual hatred.

Give this, you can always guarantee that fans of a Manchester club will always, but always, have negative words to say about a fan of a Liverpool club, and vice versa. To those of us in the south, Liverpool's fans are far less of a Public Enemy Number One, and so you're less likely to get a southern fan kicking off about Liverpool except when responding to something. I will also point out that teams tend to get mock/insulted in rough proportion to how notable they are at the time, too. I suspect that if Liverpool were where Arsenal are right now, and were looking like they were going to struggle to break into the CL places, then they would be far less of a target to other fans.

Anyway, that's my take on it. As with most things, there are likely things I've missed and things I've overplayed, but that would be how I see it.

That’s all reasonable, and it reflects what I’ve pieced together about it.

Probably best you didn’t explore my psychology. That’s a real black hole.

Anyway, the thing I find weird is that thinking that “this is our year” is such a bad thing. I’m admittedly a person with measured expectations. So I’m always just “we’ve got a shot”.

Maybe it is really simple and Liverpool fans are pretty much the Yankees fans of England, if Yankees fans thought Yankees were winning.

But we still didn’t really cover the weirdness that I am talking about regarding trophy pressure. It’s inconceivable to me that anyone for one second would think Klopp has some sort of job ultimatum. The club is so far beyond where it was when he took over.

I didn’t follow Liverpool religiously until after I fell in love with football. I didn’t even know about Hillsborough more than maybe a vague recollection of a news snippet. I just liked the way those late 2000 teams played initially. Everything grew from there. So I’ve never enjoyed a major trophy win as a supporter. And I’ve seen more bad than good.

But I still don’t think there’s any “pressure” from anywhere except external or total idiots.

From my totally limited perspective, I think Liverpool fans are about the best in the world at enjoying good football and “the journey” as we’ve called it intra. Maybe that’s out of necessity. But I still think it’s true.

 

[NYCFC_Dan]

One thing I’ve gathered from every Liverpool fan I’ve ever had an encounter with is a need for affirmation.
It’s funny because me and a coworker were just talking about this. He’s from England as well and a united fan and I’m obviously city and we both have a similar disdain for Liverpool fans. We both also have a respect for Liverpool the club. I don’t think anyone would deny that what they’ve had going on the last 2 year with Klopp has been special.
We both agreed that Liverpool fans seem to go out of their way to tell everyone else how great their club is and players and so on and it’s just obnoxious.

 

[Midas Mulligan]

One thing I’ve gathered from every Liverpool fan I’ve ever had an encounter with is a need for affirmation.
It’s funny because me and a coworker were just talking about this. He’s from England as well and a united fan and I’m obviously city and we both have a similar disdain for Liverpool fans. We both also have a respect for Liverpool the club. I don’t think anyone would deny that what they’ve had going on the last 2 year with Klopp has been special.
We both agreed that Liverpool fans seem to go out of their way to tell everyone else how great their club is and players and so on and it’s just obnoxious.

That’s because we are the greatest of clubs with the greatest of players. And particularly for City, y’all got no one to point to who could compare. (I kid here but not without reason)

I don’t give a shit about validation. But I think it’s because City, while winning more lately, still isn’t a global club. It’s just not. They don’t come close to the support of Liverpool or United. And it will be a decade of straight winning trophies before they even could (so they won’t). So there’s a jealousy among a lot of city fans who are looking to press their team into a status that hasn’t yet been earned. Don’t blame the club for that. Blame the hipster city fan who screams City “demands” respect. When they’ve never a single time one the biggest of the big cups.

Liverpool and United will always have beef. They are the two biggest and most successful clubs with the most historic players in England. City is the best team these days. Chosen and lifted from lower league obscurity mostly due to their proximity to United and Liverpool. That’s market research and smart investing, no question. But it’s ceetaiy pissing all over GE romantic notions of football that a lot of folks still love.

I mean, if you want to get really real, that’s really real. Your boys are nouveau riche sovereign-funded bitches (the view of the world, not me). The other clubs at least pretend to play the game of matching revenue to expenditures.

ETA:
I don’t necessarily think there’s anything wrong with CFG attempting what they are. I also think they will not engender a particularly loyal brand of fan after the old timers bail. CFG owns a club in NYC. They play a game here in the metro area with their record
setting title team. The stadium plays YNWA before the game. You think that’s because City outsold Liverpool? Because I guarantee you it is not.

Does that say anything about how good the teams are? Fuck no.

But it tells you a shit load about how people perceive CFG.

ETA: I’m exhausted. Long day. It may tak me a minute to get my suit together. Happy hour hasn’t changed.

 

[Seth]

That’s because we are the greatest of clubs with the greatest of players. And particularly for City, y’all got no one to point to who could compare. (I kid here but not without reason)

I don’t give a shit about validation. But I think it’s because City, while winning more lately, still isn’t a global club. It’s just not. They don’t come close to the support of Liverpool or United. And it will be a decade of straight winning trophies before they even could (so they won’t). So there’s a jealousy among a lot of city fans who are looking to press their team into a status that hasn’t yet been earned. Don’t blame the club for that. Blame the hipster city fan who screams City “demands” respect. When they’ve never a single time one the biggest of the big cups.

Liverpool and United will always have beef. They are the two biggest and most successful clubs with the most historic players in England. City is the best team these days. Chosen and lifted from lower league obscurity mostly due to their proximity to United and Liverpool. That’s market research and smart investing, no question. But it’s ceetaiy pissing all over GE romantic notions of football that a lot of folks still love.

I mean, if you want to get really real, that’s really real. Your boys are nouveau riche sovereign-funded bitches (the view of the world, not me). The other clubs at least pretend to play the game of matching revenue to expenditures.

ETA:
I don’t necessarily think there’s anything wrong with CFG attempting what they are. I also think they will not engender a particularly loyal brand of fan after the old timers bail. CFG owns a club in NYC. They play a game here in the metro area with their record
setting title team. The stadium plays YNWA before the game. You think that’s because City outsold Liverpool? Because I guarantee you it is not.

Does that say anything about how good the teams are? Fuck no.

But it tells you a shit load about how people perceive CFG.

ETA: I’m exhausted. Long day. It may tak me a minute to get my suit together. Happy hour hasn’t changed.

With the giant caveat that I'm not from England or anything and so may possibly have no idea what I'm talking about, I think there are two City versions—there's pre-CFG City and post-CFG City. (Well, I probably shouldn't call it post-CFG because in 15 years when the post-oil CFG sells the team to a long-since-retired Mix Diskerud that will be *truly* post-CFG, but whatevs.) Anyways, City used to be a solid mid table club that had one or two past glories (before my time, mind you) which you were sure were never going to happen again, and you were also quite relieved when they got to 40 points and so were more or less guaranteed were going to stay up. Some seasons that happened earlier than others. They were usually better than that but that was the baseline.

I came in when they were newly back in the top tier and so wasn't aware of the plunge to the bottom and the rise back up through the leagues until afterwards, but in my defense there was also no coverage of the EPL in the US at that time either. So in my era they were always on TV and always in the top division. But with this background this new CFG-era is both wonderful and also weird. This usually-mid-table club can now spend the way the likes of Liverpool and United always have. So instead of folks like Richard Dunne we have Vincent Kompany.

To me, as an American, City and United was always like the Mets and the Yankees. City was always also-rans like the Mets, but then that one time they won it (during a period when the Yankees were awful). But then the Yanks got new owners who had no spending limit and in the past 20 years they've won like 10 championships. So there's people who are in their 30s who've never known the terrible Yankee teams I grew up shaking my head at when I was a kid. Same with City now. It almost feels like it's not quite the same team. I'm happy to be winning but it doesn't quite feel real, sort of like being on vacation and then when you get back home and are no longer splurging there's nobody there who will actually bring your dinner to your door every night.

So yes, having CFG as the owners who are temporarily making City a great team can't quite be real, can it? Dunno, but ask me again in 20 years and we'll see how it turned out. And maybe that year we'll be able to get back to a comfortable 40 points again without having to worry about it.

 

[Falastur]

That’s all reasonable, and it reflects what I’ve pieced together about it.

Probably best you didn’t explore my psychology. That’s a real black hole.

Anyway, the thing I find weird is that thinking that “this is our year” is such a bad thing. I’m admittedly a person with measured expectations. So I’m always just “we’ve got a shot”.

Maybe it is really simple and Liverpool fans are pretty much the Yankees fans of England, if Yankees fans thought Yankees were winning.

But we still didn’t really cover the weirdness that I am talking about regarding trophy pressure. It’s inconceivable to me that anyone for one second would think Klopp has some sort of job ultimatum. The club is so far beyond where it was when he took over.

I didn’t follow Liverpool religiously until after I fell in love with football. I didn’t even know about Hillsborough more than maybe a vague recollection of a news snippet. I just liked the way those late 2000 teams played initially. Everything grew from there. So I’ve never enjoyed a major trophy win as a supporter. And I’ve seen more bad than good.

But I still don’t think there’s any “pressure” from anywhere except external or total idiots.

From my totally limited perspective, I think Liverpool fans are about the best in the world at enjoying good football and “the journey” as we’ve called it intra. Maybe that’s out of necessity. But I still think it’s true.

I think the real reason that "this is our year" is such a bad thing is that Liverpool fans (stereotypically) have more of a pronounced tendency to make that claim more often than not. It's probably just a higher tendency for optimism, but in the tribal world of football fandom if you make too many claims that you are going to win things which don't come off, it paints a target on your chest and leads to people viewing it as unrealistic ambition instead. I mean, if it works for you then that's great, all power to you. But remember that this is football, where most of the time fans of other clubs are going to look for any reason to have a dig at you, and a large part of that is deliberately exaggerating things you know aren't exactly how you claim in order to score points. It's School Playground Politics writ large, let's be honest.

As for people claiming Klopp has some kind of ultimatum, I don't think many people seriously believe that. What people do believe is that Klopp needs to win something soon to justify the comments he has made and the goodwill he has built up, but that's another story.

That’s because we are the greatest of clubs with the greatest of players. And particularly for City, y’all got no one to point to who could compare. (I kid here but not without reason)

I don’t give a shit about validation. But I think it’s because City, while winning more lately, still isn’t a global club. It’s just not. They don’t come close to the support of Liverpool or United. And it will be a decade of straight winning trophies before they even could (so they won’t). So there’s a jealousy among a lot of city fans who are looking to press their team into a status that hasn’t yet been earned. Don’t blame the club for that. Blame the hipster city fan who screams City “demands” respect. When they’ve never a single time one the biggest of the big cups.

Liverpool and United will always have beef. They are the two biggest and most successful clubs with the most historic players in England. City is the best team these days. Chosen and lifted from lower league obscurity mostly due to their proximity to United and Liverpool. That’s market research and smart investing, no question. But it’s ceetaiy pissing all over GE romantic notions of football that a lot of folks still love.

I mean, if you want to get really real, that’s really real. Your boys are nouveau riche sovereign-funded bitches (the view of the world, not me). The other clubs at least pretend to play the game of matching revenue to expenditures.

ETA:
I don’t necessarily think there’s anything wrong with CFG attempting what they are. I also think they will not engender a particularly loyal brand of fan after the old timers bail. CFG owns a club in NYC. They play a game here in the metro area with their record
setting title team. The stadium plays YNWA before the game. You think that’s because City outsold Liverpool? Because I guarantee you it is not.

Does that say anything about how good the teams are? Fuck no.

But it tells you a shit load about how people perceive CFG.

ETA: I’m exhausted. Long day. It may tak me a minute to get my suit together. Happy hour hasn’t changed.

Eh, let's be honest, this is a complex topic that we're all making light of. Are City a global club? Well how does one define "global club"? Is there an agreed-upon threshold? I mean, in terms of people who claim they follow the club, I believe that by this point City have easily a good hundred million bandwagoner fans living in God-knows-where, Wherever-land who can name three players and have only a vague idea of what colour the team plays in, just like the other major clubs. Do City has as many "serious" fans as Liverpool or United? Probably not, but do they have more than, say, Spurs? Probably. It's hard to say. So what defines when one becomes "global"? The problem with undefinable labels like these is that they are often little more than easy ways to put other clubs down by saying they aren't as good as your own club.

I think for City fans, the issue is that we have grown up constantly being told "your club isn't as big as mine", while at the same time winning trophies. You only need to hear those arguments so long before you question the very nature of a club "being bigger", and inevitably you end up with the answer "why does a team have to be bigger to be successful?" And it's still a question I haven't got a proper answer to, except that - again - it seems to say that it feels like fans of the other traditional "big" clubs seem to have developed a complex where they think that the only teams that should be able to win things are those who are in their group. It's a large part of why FFPR exists too - try looking up some Martin Samuel articles about FFPR; he directly calls out UEFA and clubs like Liverpool and United as trying to engineer FFPR to prevent other teams that they don't like from even being allowed to be successful.

As for the money argument, all I'm going to say is that Liverpool/United/etc fans like to throw the money argument around but the truth is that if you know your football history well enough, every club at some point has had a sugardaddy, it's just that most clubs had theirs back before Sky pumped enough money into football that success created the money itself for success. In the 1980s, United only were able to afford to break the transfer record several times because a guy called Martin Edwards pumped millions upon millions of his own cash into United's coffers without asking for any back. Liverpool I'm sure had their own, but as I'm not a Liverpool historian I can't name them. Heck, City even had a sugardaddy owner in the 1890s. The difference between Mansour and the others are that Liverpool/United/Arsenal won the lottery by being successful at the right time when external money started flooding in, where the other clubs didn't.

As for City being "lifted from lower league obscurity", let's really not go there. That's a fairly lazy argument which I suspect even you don't believe (I certainly hope not...) and you usually only see when two sets of fans are spoiling for a bit of a verbal scrap and I don't know about you but I'm not really feeling it. I prefer to try to keep my interactions with fans of other clubs fairly stable and placid, these days.

 

[Davo15]

Worked 8.30-6 but watched some in depth highlights a bit ago. Snap judgements Wolves outplayed Leicester despite the 2-0 loss after Leicester outplayed Manure last week and lost 2-1 , It's a funny old game. Richarlison will be this years breakout player.

 

[Midas Mulligan]

Worked 8.30-6 but watched some in depth highlights a bit ago. Snap judgements Wolves outplayed Leicester despite the 2-0 loss after Leicester outplayed Manure last week and lost 2-1 , It's a funny old game. Richarlison will be this years breakout player.

Wrong league, but Thuran is the man for Guingamps. He’s one bad mutha.

 

[Keith Putnam]

Richarlison will be this years breakout player.

Oh please, oh please, oh please let this be true. Especially because it's clear (okay, only two games, sure) that Tosun is a blank area in the striker part of the chart.

 

[JayH]

This now has all the makings of one awful soccer weekend FFS.