Justifiably Proud or hollow victory (1 Viewer)

[Tank Top]

As the manchester city players held aloft the Premiershipr Trophy to their fans yesterday, How high, can this victory, be placed on the satisfaction, scale, is it a great achievement, or rather a hollow victory, and what does it actually mean in football terms.
With approx £234,000,000 spent on assembling some of the worlds best footballers, in one domestic team, any other outcome, seems incomprehensible but with 5 min of added on time left, half of Manchester was in shock, and tears, as it appeared that the title had evaded them, but it hadn't, and, the title was theirs, after two amazing late goals.
Was this the correct result for Football, does it make mancini, a better Manager than Redknapp, or moyse? and do we need legislation to make a more level playing field, for all our teams to play on.
Manchester City, Premiership champions 2011/2012.
"Won or purchased"
Thoughts please....

 

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[Otis]

Putting everything else aside, I'm just pleased someone else has won it for once. The Premier had been getting stale with all the domination of Man U, Chelsea and until a little while ago, Arsenal.

 

[skybluesteve76]

I don't think it matters what it took to assemble the squad. I just think its refreshing to see someone else win it, especially in such dramatic fashion.
It's quite obvious these days that you will have absolutely no chance of winning the title unless your a rich club, so if it wasn't City it would be utd or Chelsea.
I'm more pleased for the Man City fans because not so long ago they were languishing where we are now, so it means more to them than it ever could to utd fans.

 

[Marty]

Won, every team who was won the prem have paid top price for players, paid high wages, In my eyes, man city are no different, they compacted the squad building/buying over 2-3 seasons. Fair play to them.

 

[We'll_live_and_die]

It makes Mancini a better manager than Hughes, given that Hughes had that money at his expense too, but failed to use it effectively. Attempting to bring in the likes of Cisse.

All the best

 

[BenInTurin]

It's the same as when Chelsea won the league. Have to agree it's good to see Man Utd not win the league.

Fergie's face when Man City scored was priceless though!

 

[stupot07]

Give them a couple of years and people will soon forget that they 'bought the title' just like they have with Chelsea since their first title.

I love the notion that everyone accuses man city of 'buying the title' but manu can spend £30m on a player and that doesn't count.

It was interesting that when they played each other a couple of weeks back manu's starting line up cost £169m and Man city's £161m.

Like other have said, it's nice to see someone else win it, and although they bought a lot of players it must be really hard to galvanise a team and manage a lot of big ego's. Buying big brings its own problems.

 

[Brighton Sky Blue]

Man United got rich through decades of on field success which is what makes it different. City and Chelsea have been handed hundreds of millions and bought success with it in a couple of seasons. It's clubs like Man City and Chelski who make it impossible for anyone else to succeed-should we be praising them for that? No way.

 

[We'll_live_and_die]

Man United got rich through decades of on field success which is what makes it different. City and Chelsea have been handed hundreds of millions and bought success with it in a couple of seasons. It's clubs like Man City and Chelski who make it impossible for anyone else to succeed-should we be praising them for that? No way.

No it's Man Utd with their millions of plastic fans that make it difficult for anyone else to compete. This means the only way to emulate them is to buy players or as Barcelona have done, invest in youth and nuture some of the best players in the world, but this takes time.

 

[Brighton Sky Blue]

That's the result of successful merchandising Rich-and if it weren't them, someone else would be capitalising on it. Ferguson and Busby are responsible for getting United where they are, Wenger responsible for Arsenal. Sheikh Mansour got City the title and Abramovich got Chelsea theirs-I just couldn't disagree with you more.

 

[We'll_live_and_die]

Ok tell me how you make a super club in this day and age without major investors? Not a super club to match the likes of Man City, but one to match the likes of united?

 

[Brighton Sky Blue]

The way you've just outlined at Barcelona. Or just look at German football where financial and ownership rules are more stringent-it's the way we run football in this country that encourages stupid overspending and short termism to get success.

 

[We'll_live_and_die]

The way you've just outlined at Barcelona. Or just look at German football where financial and ownership rules are more stringent-it's the way we run football in this country that encourages stupid overspending and short termism to get success.

But it would take over 20 years for someone to Build an academy like Barca and produce a couple of good players. If united have done it the right way how come they have one of the highest debts in world football? (I'm not a financial wizz so may be barking up the wrong tree)

 

[Brighton Sky Blue]

The debts were transferred onto the club by the Glazers-who took out the loan of £800 million needed to buy it. That is where the debts come from.

 

[We'll_live_and_die]

So the Glazers invested more money than Sheik whatshisface or Abramovic then. At the end of the day, Utd have more debt than the rest as a result of owners investments in the club.

 

[Brighton Sky Blue]

Wrong. The Glazers took out a loan of £800 million and used it to buy Man Utd-and then transferred this loan onto the club and are using the club as a means to pay it back. They haven't invested anything.

 

[rob9872]

Teams have always 'bought' the title, albeit on a much smaller scale. Even Liverpool back in the 80's could attract players that we couldn't becasue of tradition, wages and above all the financial clout to be able to bankroll those deals. We lost players to them as did others.

Once you are established its easy to point out that lots of players come through the ranks ala United, but the reason they are able to poach those players and throw away so many on the scrapheap, is in the hope of unearthing a few nuggets. Because of who they are, they have the choice of who to take from under the noses of local clubs with a huge scouting network and can afford the resource that other clubs simply can't compete with.

It's not fair, but it never has been and never will be.

 

[Brighton Sky Blue]

My point was Rob that it's a reflection of the way the English game is run that filthy rich tycoons are able to buy a club then steamroll their way to the title-and that clubs trying to be financially prudent are pushed aside in the process. The Bundesliga is a model example of how the domestic game should be run and anyone saying 'How else is a team supposed to be successful without flashing the cash' should look no further.
Consider this: Next season it will cost more for an adult to watch Coventry v Crawley than it will to watch Borussia Dortmund v Schalke. Says everything in my opinion.

 

[We'll_live_and_die]

Consider this: Next season it will cost more for an adult to watch Coventry v Crawley than it will to watch Borussia Dortmund v Schalke. Says everything in my opinion.

The UK on a whole is an expensive place to live, but I would much rather watch Cov vs Crawley for £40 than watch Dortmund vs Schalke for £2.50, because I have no affiliation to those teams. Supply and demand my friend.

 

[Brighton Sky Blue]

Bundesliga football is much higher quality than League One but is cheaper to watch is my point. City will get 15,000, Borussia 60 odd thousand (with standing areas too). Demand is far greater but still costs less to watch.

 

[We'll_live_and_die]

Bundesliga football is much higher quality than League One but is cheaper to watch is my point. City will get 15,000, Borussia 60 odd thousand (with standing areas too). Demand is far greater but still costs less to watch.

Exactly my point demand for City is low so they have higher prices. A one off always costs more than something mass produced.

 

[kg82]

Give them a couple of years and people will soon forget that they 'bought the title' just like they have with Chelsea since their first title.

I love the notion that everyone accuses man city of 'buying the title' but manu can spend £30m on a player and that doesn't count.

It was interesting that when they played each other a couple of weeks back manu's starting line up cost £169m and Man city's £161m.

Like other have said, it's nice to see someone else win it, and although they bought a lot of players it must be really hard to galvanise a team and manage a lot of big ego's. Buying big brings its own problems.

That was pretty much everything I was going to say! I love that stat about Man Utd's starting line up costing more. But that's the thing that gets me about it, it's as if Utd have always been really conservative spenders but you've got the likes of £30+ million for Ferdinand, £20+ million for Rooney who, at the time, was very young and had only had one season in the Prem, £30+ million for RVN and then the joke ones like Veron (Class footballer, never made it in England) for nearly £30 million, Kleberson for £7 million, Bebe for £7-8 million and of course, Taibi for £5 million! There's obviously loads of other, those are just off the top of my head but even now when you think about how much De Gea, Young, Jones, Berbatov etc etc cost, I have no sympathy for Utd or Ferguson and glad City won it!

 

[Brighton Sky Blue]

Exactly my point demand for City is low so they have higher prices. A one off always costs more than something mass produced.

Doesn't make sense though-surely a lower quality doesn't merit a higher price? If we want to make a like for like comparison then, an adult ticket at Old Trafford is how much-say, £50? At most, adult prices at Bundesliga games are 20-25 Euros (say £15-20). Strange logic that a poorer product should attract higher prices simply because fewer people want it.

 

[Brighton Sky Blue]

That was pretty much everything I was going to say! I love that stat about Man Utd's starting line up costing more. But that's the thing that gets me about it, it's as if Utd have always been really conservative spenders but you've got the likes of £30+ million for Ferdinand, £20+ million for Rooney who, at the time, was very young and had only had one season in the Prem, £30+ million for RVN and then the joke ones like Veron (Class footballer, never made it in England) for nearly £30 million, Kleberson for £7 million, Bebe for £7-8 million and of course, Taibi for £5 million! There's obviously loads of other, those are just off the top of my head but even now when you think about how much De Gea, Young, Jones, Berbatov etc etc cost, I have no sympathy for Utd or Ferguson and glad City won it!

Blegh I give up, I'm moving to Germany!

 

[stupot07]

Doesn't make sense though-surely a lower quality doesn't merit a higher price? If we want to make a like for like comparison then, an adult ticket at Old Trafford is how much-say, £50? At most, adult prices at Bundesliga games are 20-25 Euros (say £15-20). Strange logic that a poorer product should attract higher prices simply because fewer people want it.

I agree with you there. That's down to the premier league and the financial gap between them and the football league and also the champions league and just a normal premier league side. It's crazy that championship clubs get a premier league payment of about £2.5m but promotion guarantees £90m. The price of relegation and promotion makes owners take huge gambles.

I'd be interested to find out how they distribute money in Germany.

I would say that if funding was given out on a sliding scale from the top of the Pl to the bottom of league one, there wouldn't be anywhere near as much debt, high wages and tickets would probably be inline with the German league.

 

[Brighton Sky Blue]

I could go into it in some depth Stu but the basics are that in Germany the TV deals are so lucrative that even the strongest clubs can get away charging less than 20 quid a ticket. The PL must get an absolute fortune from the same revenue streams so there's no reason why we can't negotiate a similar deal to get more affordable prices for regular fans. The German model has a lot to be admired in a lot of ways-and the end result is a domestic system that most fans are happy with that produces well attended games and quality youth players.
I should also add I'm not a United lover in any shape or form-my point's always been that they've been established at the top long before the sugar daddy era really kicked off. City and Chelsea steamrolled their way to the top with an insanely wealthy benefactor-they really aren't comparable.

 

[We'll_live_and_die]

I would like to point you toward this article

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/ar...-efficiency-The-Bundesliga-Martin-Samuel.html


much love

 

[Brighton Sky Blue]

Trust the Daily Mail to bash the way foreigners run their game. Shall respond in more detail when I'm at a computer.

 

[Tad]

Brought and most people know it too. Can't wait for the fair play rule to come in.