Sportswash! - Let’s oil stare at Manchester City!

[Keyblade]

58 minutes ago, May-Z said:

I was having this discussion with a colleague recently. Man City's core fans, the legacy fans if you will, would put them in line with Sunderland in terms of this club size imo.

I think that's their natural stature in the game. The money has elevated them higher than that success-wise but hasn't generated a larger core group of fans.

My issue with this logic (not you specifically, just football in general) is that City fans have to be happy with their "allotted" stature in the game because that's what history dictates. Where's the upward mobility? Why should they have to accept they'll always be a top half team at best and their rivals will dominate forever because they got lucky with an insane crop of kids in the 90's? The way football is unfortunately set up is, in order to compete with the best, you have to spend the most money. That's just how it is, and that's exactly what they've done. Setting aside the alleged dodgy clever accounting to get around FFP etc, how else were they supposed to reach the top? Football itself is broken. They're just playing the game. We're doing it too at a smaller scale.

[blandy]

4 minutes ago, Rugeley Villa said:

they have several huge clubs close by where as we don’t . Birmingham is also a bigger city than Manchester. 

what's that got to do with them having "historically larger support"? Ruge - I mean it looks to me like that's a kind of factor for the opposite to be possible?

I looked here http://european-football-statistics.co.uk for various club stats.

[Phil Silvers]

11 minutes ago, Rugeley Villa said:

Definitely not, but we all perceive things different .

Someone might be able to find this, not me sorry, but some company made a moving timeline graph from the 1870s I presume to last year, showing the top 20 clubs, ill stand correcting as always but I'm pretty sure villa have never been out of the top6 and until 2008, City were never in the top6. Its quite interesting if someone knows how to dig it up.

[Rugeley Villa]

2 minutes ago, blandy said:

what's that got to do with them having "historically larger support"? Ruge - I mean it looks to me like that's a kind of factor for the opposite to be possible?

I looked here http://european-football-statistics.co.uk for various club stats.

They have averaged higher crowds more seasons than we have and by a fair few years too. I’m not saying they actually have more fans , but more match going fans . More consistent than we have been over the years 

[Phil Silvers]

8 minutes ago, Keyblade said:

My issue with this logic (not you specifically, just football in general) is that City fans have to be happy with their "allotted" stature in the game because that's what history dictates. Where's the upward mobility? Why should they have to accept they'll always be a top half team at best and their rivals will dominate forever because they got lucky with an insane crop of kids in the 90's? The way football is unfortunately set up is, in order to compete with the best, you have to spend the most money. That's just how it is, and that's exactly what they've done. Setting aside the alleged dodgy clever accounting to get around FFP etc, how else were they supposed to reach the top? Football itself is broken. They're just playing the game. We're doing it too at a smaller scale.

You can't set aside the dodgy dealing though can you, they could not achieve it by spending alone.

[villa4europe]

1 hour ago, Rugeley Villa said:

I think we’ve always been the bigger club until recently . We’ve been a much bigger club than Sunderland for the most part . There’s only so long you can keep harping on about trophies won pre war and a European cup won nearly 40 years ago . The facts are city have bypassed us now like Chelsea have . 

Modern football you're only as big as your revenue

Man City are miles ahead of us 

[Keyblade]

Just now, Phil Silvers said:

You can't set aside the dodgy dealing though can you, they could not achieve it by spending alone.

They could and they did. FFP was brought in to just stop another Man City/PSG from appearing. But they won their first trophies before that.

[Rugeley Villa]

3 minutes ago, Phil Silvers said:

Someone might be able to find this, not me sorry, but some company made a moving timeline graph from the 1870s I presume to last year, showing the top 20 clubs, ill stand correcting as always but I'm pretty sure villa have never been out of the top6 and until 2008, City were never in the top6. Its quite interesting if someone knows how to dig it up.

Top 6 clubs in terms of what? 

[Phil Silvers]

1 minute ago, villa4europe said:

Modern football you're only as big as your revenue

Man City are miles ahead of us 

Sadly this is true now.

[Phil Silvers]

Just now, Rugeley Villa said:

Top 6 clubs in terms of what? 

Across the broad scale I think it was, games won lost, years in top flight, avg att, trophies won etc, wish I knew how to find it as it may just be one thing, like games won or one of the others.

[villa4europe]

1 hour ago, May-Z said:

I was having this discussion with a colleague recently. Man City's core fans, the legacy fans if you will, would put them in line with Sunderland in terms of this club size imo.

I think that's their natural stature in the game. The money has elevated them higher than that success-wise but hasn't generated a larger core group of fans.

I think you then have to look at where the biggest clubs in the country get their core group of fans from, Liverpool and Utd being the obvious ones that don't get it solely from their own city

Man city's problem is the footballing landscape has changed thanks to sky, the CL and streaming, Perez and him from juve was right, kids are no longer glory hunting teams they're following players, barca, psg, real Madrid and juve are all viable alternatives to man City and ones that dad's will happily push for as long as their kid supports villa too for example 

That's why this "man City don't even need grealish" doesn't ring true, they really need him

They'll see steady growth for years abroad but in the UK I don't think they'll ever be that big a fan base 

[Phil Silvers]

3 minutes ago, Keyblade said:

They could and they did. FFP was brought in to just stop another Man City/PSG from appearing. But they won their first trophies before that.

They paid some huge fines and got away with a euro ban from memory, so they must have been bending the rules, I can only assume a few brown envelopes were handed out. I agree with your sentiment though that the only way was to do what they did, makes it worse knowing that it's sportwashing a horrible regime. 

[Keyblade]

2 minutes ago, Phil Silvers said:

They paid some huge fines and got away with a euro ban from memory, so they must have been bending the rules, I can only assume a few brown envelopes were handed out. I agree with your sentiment though that the only way was to do what they did, makes it worse knowing that it's sportwashing a horrible regime. 

That was quite recent. When they were winning their first FA Cup and League title in the new era, there weren't any FFP restrictions and they did all that by simply being bankrolled to the hilt, which was fine back then. As a City fan, why would you have a problem with that if that's the only way to attain success? Unless they're some type of hipster who get joy from being a midtable team and not having a "sugar daddy" like everyone else.

[Phil Silvers]

3 minutes ago, Keyblade said:

That was quite recent. When they were winning their first FA Cup and League title in the new era, there weren't any FFP restrictions and they did all that by simply being bankrolled to the hilt, which was fine back then. As a City fan, why would you have a problem with that if that's the only way to attain success? Unless they're some type of hipster who get joy from being a midtable team and not having a "sugar daddy" like everyone else.

I haven't said that, they're obviously the opposite, they've won the lottery. I can understand them having the money to do what they've done and fair play to their hardcore fans who have had to live in shadows, but I don't get the admiration people have for that organisation, when it comes down to it, it stinks and always will, I do not need converting either, I'm happy with the way I see them and if you admire them then good luck to ya.

[Zatman]

2 hours ago, villa4europe said:

I say that when they don't sell out the charity shield, you can't do everything, a couple of trips to Wembley a year, champions league away games, champions league home games, home league games, away league games, something has to give 

When we were last in europe fans will obviously fondly remember the night vs ajax but I doubt they think about the group game vs zilina when MON played the B team from memory it was something shit like a 6pm kick off and we lost... We didn't sell out VP that night

After 10 years of European football I'm not sure we would sell out a dead rubber game vs brugge either 

30000 that game for a below average opponent

[Keyblade]

1 hour ago, Phil Silvers said:

I haven't said that, they're obviously the opposite, they've won the lottery. I can understand them having the money to do what they've done and fair play to their hardcore fans who have had to live in shadows, but I don't get the admiration people have for that organisation, when it comes down to it, it stinks and always will, I do not need converting either, I'm happy with the way I see them and if you admire them then good luck to ya.

I wasn't saying you said that, apologies. Just trying to make a general commentary on football discourse. I don't like it much myself, especially since they seem to take our captain every 5 years, but my gripe isn't with them ultimately. They're just a symptom of a larger problem.

[May-Z]

2 hours ago, Keyblade said:

My issue with this logic (not you specifically, just football in general) is that City fans have to be happy with their "allotted" stature in the game because that's what history dictates. Where's the upward mobility? Why should they have to accept they'll always be a top half team at best and their rivals will dominate forever because they got lucky with an insane crop of kids in the 90's? The way football is unfortunately set up is, in order to compete with the best, you have to spend the most money. That's just how it is, and that's exactly what they've done. Setting aside the alleged dodgy clever accounting to get around FFP etc, how else were they supposed to reach the top? Football itself is broken. They're just playing the game. We're doing it too at a smaller scale.

The eternal push for the top is what keeps football so interesting. It's what has made the last couple of years under NSWE so exciting as we seem to be trying to push up as high as we can again. 

My feeling with City, as opposed to, say, Leicester, is that they didn't grow into the role. Leicester had a full reset lower down the leagues and then built over time, had success, and then backed that up with more. They have seemed to have grown organically through good leadership and decision making. Same with Man U and Arsenal in the 90s.

City's route has been that the club's successes have been fast-forwarded whilst the rest of the feeling around it is still catching up. 

I don't really know what point I'm trying to and here...probably that I just don't like City.

[Keyblade]

3 minutes ago, May-Z said:

The eternal push for the top is what keeps football so interesting. It's what has made the last couple of years under NSWE so exciting as we seem to be trying to push up as high as we can again. 

My feeling with City, as opposed to, say, Leicester, is that they didn't grow into the role. Leicester had a full reset lower down the leagues and then built over time, had success, and then backed that up with more. They have seemed to have grown organically through good leadership and decision making. Same with Man U and Arsenal in the 90s.

City's route has been that the club's successes have been fast-forwarded whilst the rest of the feeling around it is still catching up. 

I don't really know what point I'm trying to and here...probably that I just don't like City.

Leicester stumbled upon a miracle among miracles. That team had no right to be in contention for anything, and in fact they had barely survived relegation the previous year with one of the great escapes. It's probably beyond the odds of winning the lottery. They shouldn't be a blueprint.

Regardless even with winning a title, they have yet to break back into the top 4 let alone challenge for another title, which shows you how high the glass ceiling is. It takes a monumental amount of money just to get 4th. It's not like the days of United of Arsenal where you could build organically with some smart buys and good youth players. Those days are long gone.

[May-Z]

7 hours ago, Keyblade said:

Leicester stumbled upon a miracle among miracles. That team had no right to be in contention for anything, and in fact they had barely survived relegation the previous year with one of the great escapes. It's probably beyond the odds of winning the lottery. They shouldn't be a blueprint.

Regardless even with winning a title, they have yet to break back into the top 4 let alone challenge for another title, which shows you how high the glass ceiling is. It takes a monumental amount of money just to get 4th. It's not like the days of United of Arsenal where you could build organically with some smart buys and good youth players. Those days are long gone.

And that, I think, is where the dislike comes from.

They beat the ceiling by winning the lottery and raised it to insane new levels.

And just to touch on the point about growth, maybe Spurs would be a better example than Leicester, albeit without that trophy to back it up.

 

[It's Your Round]

11 hours ago, Phil Silvers said:

Someone might be able to find this, not me sorry, but some company made a moving timeline graph from the 1870s I presume to last year, showing the top 20 clubs, ill stand correcting as always but I'm pretty sure villa have never been out of the top6 and until 2008, City were never in the top6. Its quite interesting if someone knows how to dig it up.

There’s been a few of these made, it really shows how dominant Villa were in winning trophies. We were the leading all the way until 1977. You can see the point when the foreign investment came flooding in, football changed forever.