legov Posted July 24, 2010 Share Posted July 24, 2010 Teehee, even though they were without 'their big guns' Man City lost 2-0 to Sporting CP today in the New York Challenge. FFS look who we lost to today. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Damocles Posted July 24, 2010 Share Posted July 24, 2010 We were crap against Sporting Don't think it particularly matters as Sporting had to contend with the mighty strikeforce of Bellamy and Jo, which was later replaced by Guidetti and Nimley. We had a good few players who are at least in contention for the first team though, and our back triangle of Hart, Lescott and Kompany is expected to be our first choice next season. Either way, it was a horrific game to watch, against opposition who were fitter, stronger and played far better football. I can barely remember us stringing two passes together. The players and management are pretty much blaming the lack of fitness and sweltering heat. The only friendly which I'm particularly bothered about so far is Dortmund in a few weeks time, as our team should be pretty much solid by then, in a normal climate, with all of the World Cup players/new signings back. Next game is on Sunday night. Not a bad footy night Sunday; it's Spurs first, us after them, then United after them all in a line. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LondonLax Posted July 24, 2010 Share Posted July 24, 2010 Friendly results mean nothing and anyone who reads anything into them is being foolish... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Damocles Posted July 24, 2010 Share Posted July 24, 2010 This is the City that I wish the rest of the world could see. It's the same one that us fans see regularly, with things such as the Hyde fundraising, the Manchester redevelopment projects and the community work. http://www.mcfc.co.uk/Video/Features/US-Tour-Spanish-Harlem Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
YankeeinMadrid Posted July 24, 2010 Share Posted July 24, 2010 Lots of respect for building the football pitch on the rooftop. I dislike them a bit less now. I read an article on ESPN about it, with some quotes from Garrido. Impressive Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Troglodyte Posted July 24, 2010 VT Supporter Share Posted July 24, 2010 Tell you what, their website looks a lot better than ours! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
briggaman Posted July 24, 2010 Share Posted July 24, 2010 Just Man City using their money to gain more publicity.... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Troglodyte Posted July 24, 2010 VT Supporter Share Posted July 24, 2010 Like we did in forgoing shirt sponsorship because we could afford it and having Acorns on our shirt? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ml1dch Posted July 24, 2010 Share Posted July 24, 2010 We had a good few players who are at least in contention for the first team though, and our back triangle of Hart, Lescott and Kompany is expected to be our first choice next season So where will your £150k per week captain be playing? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AngelGabriel Posted July 24, 2010 Share Posted July 24, 2010 Teehee, even though they were without 'their big guns' Man City lost 2-0 to Sporting CP today in the New York Challenge. FFS look who we lost to today. Bohemians are a good team, why are they meant to be shit because its the League of Ireland? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Troglodyte Posted July 24, 2010 VT Supporter Share Posted July 24, 2010 I don't think they're quite as good as Sporting! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AngelGabriel Posted July 24, 2010 Share Posted July 24, 2010 The same Sporting that lost 12-1 to Bayern Munich? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Troglodyte Posted July 24, 2010 VT Supporter Share Posted July 24, 2010 Yes, compared to the same Bohemians that have never even reached the third qualifying round of the Champions League? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CarewsEyebrowDesigner Posted July 24, 2010 Share Posted July 24, 2010 Bohemians are a good team, why are they meant to be shit because its the League of Ireland? Nah they are shit. Certainly no Finn Harps. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Damocles Posted July 24, 2010 Share Posted July 24, 2010 We had a good few players who are at least in contention for the first team though, and our back triangle of Hart, Lescott and Kompany is expected to be our first choice next season So where will your £150k per week captain be playing? Do you honestly believe that Kolo Toure is on £150k a week? Anyway, most City fans don't rate Toure which is why I said it is expected, not that it's what we will play. Personally, he's my second favourite player at the club (behind Adam Johnson), and I rate him very highly. He'll be there or thereabouts. The stated aim is that we have two quality players for every position, so that would mean 4 CBs of which we have Toure, Kompany, Lescott and Onuhua. Bridge/Kolarov at LB, Richards/Boateng at RB with Zabaleta filling in where he is needed. Underrated is Zab, he can play anywhere in defence or midfield and does his job efficiently. Bit of a dirty bastard but some games you need a strong tackler in there with the Toure's of this world. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
carew_villa Posted July 25, 2010 Share Posted July 25, 2010 I've always thought Kolo Toure was an average CB. I'd say Toure should be your 4th choice CB out of the 4 you mentioned but I'm sure Toure will probably play because he's a bigger name than the other 3. Looks like you'll be selling Boyatta or whatever his name is. I wouldn't mind him at Villa in a few years time. I'd like Villa to rip City off with all your players who won't get a look in. A bit off topic maybe but Citeh fans piss me off when they scoff at Villa asking £30 million for Milner yet they've paid £15 million for Toure, £24 million for Lescott, £25 million for Adebayor..... I could go on and on. You'd think Citeh fans don't care about what price is being paid because Citeh don't have a budget whatsoever, the Arabs probably earn £30 million in one day! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mark8691 Posted July 25, 2010 Share Posted July 25, 2010 Perhaps they'll go on and spend more than all the rest of the premier lge this transfer window? Death of football.. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The_Rev Posted July 25, 2010 Share Posted July 25, 2010 You'd think Citeh fans don't care about what price is being paid because Citeh don't have a budget whatsoever, the Arabs probably earn £30 million in one day! Its hard to say what the consortium who own City are worth. I think you reach a point where you just stop counting, but conservative estimates put it way north of $500 billion. To put that into perspective, Roman Abramovich is worth about $10 billion. Randy Lerner is worth about $1.5 billion. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Damocles Posted July 25, 2010 Share Posted July 25, 2010 Perhaps they'll go on and spend more than all the rest of the premier lge this transfer window? Death of football.. I can never take people seriously who say this (nothing personal). It shows a complete and utter lack of knowledge about the history of the game in all of its forms. Want to know who ruined football? Preston, Billy Meredith (ex-City but at United at the time), and Middlesborough. Man United and Liverpool didn't help (neither did Jimmy Hill), but we'll forget them for a bit. Preston (and many other clubs) used to engage in a trade known as shamatuerism. This is at a time where all footballers were gentlemen amateurs and the FA had declared paying players illegal and against the spirit of the game. Local teams for local gents, so to speak. Unfortunately, the Northern clubs at the time were trying to compete with the dominance of the Oxbridge set and engaged in this shamatuerism. This was the practice of inviting excellent players (most of whom were Scottish) to live within the certain radius of the clubs, and find them 'jobs' at the club to pay them. They would be paid several quid a week for doing nothing and hold a pretty title to get around the ruleset. I seem to recall reading that it was Preston who got caught out doing this, though the practice was fairly widespread; so widespread in fact that the FA finally relented and declared it legal to trade players despite a lobby from a huge group of people who declared it human trafficking. Billy Meredith was a legendary winger in Manchester, as he played for both halves of the City to great success. He was actually born in Wales, started at City, was a winger with the "Welsh Wizard" nickname, was a very highly respected pro and one of the first football superstars who moved to United. He was basically Ryan Giggs of his day. Meredith was accused of match fixing whilst playing for City after he tried to bribe a Villa player £10 to lose the match. Subsequently, the FA banned him from playing for City. After Meredith left, he spoke out of a practice that was going on at City which was, again, widespread in football and was putting additions on to the £4 weekly wage of players. It was actually the first performance related bonus of it's time. Anyway, Meredith moved over to United, and as City had just been nailed to the wall, had their team disbanded, their whole board banned and being relegated, everybody soon stopped with the performance bonuses. However, Meredith was always a standout performer so took his bonus for granted. He had gone from earning around £5 a week, to earning £4 (the max wage at the time). Due to this, he and a group of UNited players banded together, called themselves "The Outcasts" and went on strike. This was actually an early precursor to the PFA, and it's single issue was the removal of the £4 a week wage cap. Just a quick thing actually, when the FA banned players from being able to join this Union, every Villa player immediately resigned and wrote a public letter stating that they wouldn't rejoin until given permission by the FA to do so. The Outcasts were eventually victorious in changing the wage structure and the FA allowed the Union to be a part of the game. This was mainly down to the influence of both Meredith as it's Chair and John Davis who was United's 'sugar daddy' at the time. John Davis ran a few breweries in Manchester and had originally watched the precursor to United (Newton Heath) fall flat into bankruptcy, despite a hefty donation at the time from Man City (who pre '58 were the bigger club). Out of Newton Heath came United, and Davis set about buying all of the top players in Britain before they were even admitted to the Football League. A good comparison, would be Burton Albion paying £150m for Wayne Rooney now. Anyway, thanks to Davies and Meredith, the concept of the power being in the hands of the FA dissolved in front of them. Due to this incident, the power was now in the hands of the Chairmen and players of the clubs. The Middlesborough link is a fairly short aside. Despite facing relegation and being nowhere near the top clubs in England, Boro went out and became the first club to pay £1000 for a player in Alf Commons. Funnily enough, people used to complain that Boro had no prestige and the transfer shouldn't have been allowed as it was ruining football. This was in 1905, how much we have evolved over the past century. So, if you believe that player power and wages have ruined the game, blame Meredith, if you believe that Sugar Daddies have ruined the game, blame Davis/United, if you believe that transfer fees have ruined the game, blame Preston or Middlesborough. Personally, I don't believe that football is ruined or dead at all, and it's a bit funny that you see old articles from the 20's about the exact same subject, with the same melodramatic headlines. With the money that has come into City, absolutely nothing has changed apart from the fact that an extra club is in or around the battle for the CL spots. Football runs in cycles, as Villa fans should know all too well, and eventually every empire crumbles. The natural order of this was to be beaten by a better team, though the payments and gates from the CL places has stopped this and allowed some of them to consolidate a powerbase. It seems that though other teams used to crumble empires, they will now do it themselves with debt. There's also the issue of FIFA or UEFA ruining football through their eventual plans for the homegrown rule. This makes it possible that English players are hugely more expensive than their foreign counterparts and only the richest clubs can afford to take that hit. Therefore, outside the big four you can either spend money to buy English to meet their rules, or you can buy foreign, save yourself some money and have to sell your best players when it comes to registering your squad. As I say, all of these melodramatic "death of football/ruining football" talk is a little bit shortsighted, and actually quite funny. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mark8691 Posted July 25, 2010 Share Posted July 25, 2010 As I say, all of these melodramatic "death of football/ruining football" talk is a little bit shortsighted, and actually quite funny. Man Cty fan right? No surprise there then! Each to their own mate. I Don't just blame City for the current state of affairs. Just find the money in football ridiculous now, and it's just killing the love for the game i had. We're seeing more 150-200k a week wages. Yaya Toure will earn as much in a week as many people will in 10 years! Personally, I just cant justify to myself spending my hard earned money in the game when it comes to paying these 'sporting' mercenaries in a climate where more and more are losing jobs/homes and cutting back. No, your right. It's over the top to call it the death of football. But i think it will be for a few fans the way its heading. Each to their own. We each live different lives and learn different values. How much will City have spent on transfer fees/wages by the time the window shuts? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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