It's on Sky that Citeh have bid £60m for Aymeric Laporte, the centre back from Athletic Bilbao....still can't fill the stadium they rent off the Council. Financial Fair Play....my arse.
That takes the genius pep up to over £400m in spending ... sorry.... coaching his team to be top dogs in just 18 months. This excludes wages and the fact he inherited a team with Dr Bruyna, Silva, Kompany, Stirling and Aguero already in it. Top coaching if you ask me ... nothing to do with having the deepest pockets...no sireee...move along...nowt to see here folks
And they still can't afford Sanchez. His name should be a synonym for greedy now, the word greedy can be retired.
Yes, the guy's clearly a genius. Will no doubt get manager of the year, but how can you possibly tell how good a manger is with unlimited funds? A better test would be, for example, if he could do as well as Dyche at Burnley. Also FFP continues to baffle me. A few years back Citeh got a rap on the knuckles over this (not much of a punishment really) and the fans really didn't cope with it well (joke). Since then if anything they've accelerated their spending, but has their "income" increased proportionally? And of course that income is a joke, coming effectively from the same source that owns the club. This sort of dealing will kill football eventually, because people are surely going to get bored with Citeh world domination coming from nothing but unlimited funding.
As I said to someone elsewhere a while ago ... I admire the style of play that Pep has Citeh playing, but I have no respect for the financial manner in which that squad has been assembled. "Also FFP continues to baffle me. A few years back Citeh got a rap on the knuckles over this (not much of a punishment really) and the fans really didn't cope with it well (joke). Since then if anything they've accelerated their spending, but has their "income" increased proportionally? And of course that income is a joke, coming effectively from the same source that owns the club." I called UEFA spot-on over this yesrs ago. Specifically I said : 1. The FFP was spite at the PL and the possibility that another Chelsky would emerge to threaten their CL darlings 2. The moment another Euro league got a Sugga Daddy FC that it would collapse in a hypocrisy dichotomy (they could not punish a PL one without punishing all) . 3. It would die the moment one of their existing darlings were caught to the letter. So La Liga darlings did #3 (with all the "creative accounting" that followed) , and the oil money quickly did #2 by buying a club (PSG) in Platinis' home nation.
Grossly simplistic and blatantly overlooking the fact that several that the chronology doesn't go Chelsea-Man City-PSG by any stretch of the imagination. Off the top of my head it goes something like this: Chelsea-Taurine FC Salzburg-Man City-Malaga-Anzhi Makhachkala-PSG-Monaco-Dnipro-Taurine FC Leipzig-Milan - and that's not including teams who simply bought their way into the top tier like Fulham and Hoffenheim did, or clubs that have grossly disproportionate amounts of TV money funneled into them like the Old Firm
The order of becoming Sugga Daddy FC is not as significant or important as to which clubs could threaten the UEFA CL darlings. Citeh already being a PL club just as Chelsky are, were and are far more of a danger than the likes of Anzhi and Malaga could ever be.
Leeds United have a new badge........Hmmmm. Let's just say that I'm not keen. please log in to view this image
Obviously dropped the white rose to avoid negative associations with the Leicester Defence (***) league. *** My apologies : by "Defence" what I really meant was "most attackingest team ... in the" .
The race for top four is back on after the last set of results. 5 points between 4th and 6th with plenty of big games left to play (the next 3 will be really important for you lot) and lower teams starting to get desperate and play for there prem league futures. Still a long way to go and I could see any of Arsenal, Liverpool or Spurs getting that 4th spot.
We need to drag Chelsea back down into the scrap. They are not playing well but just doing enough to keep ahead. A couple of draws/losses and they could sink further.
They still have to play Utd and City (in between there fixtures with Barca) and Liverpool and Spurs. Still time for them to mess up and have to worry about there league position.
Spurs have their harsh block of games first. Chelsky have theirs starting about 3 weeks later. So every chance of the "concertina effect" happening over that duration between both. You / Poool / Man Utd have your top 6 clashes better spread across the remainder of the season so may be able to pounce during the above (of course UEFA + FA cup participation later on, and bastard TV broadcaster schedule demands may affect that) .
