Cup Final

[Spurs61]

Man City or Watford.

Not who will win as that is pretty obvious but who would you like to win.

For me Watford.
1 Don't want Man City getting the domestic treble.
2 They get a European place which pushes Wolves out - serve them right for December 29th
3 Most of their fans I know hate Ars*n*l

 

[Spurlock]

Watford

I'll always root for the underdog

Plus I'd like to have a massive laugh at how they thought they were winning 4 but manage 2.

That's the League and some no mark cup.

 

[PleaseNotPoll]

Watford. Guardiola's got a big enough ego as it is and Man Utd's Europa League campaign would start some time next week.

 

["Thanks for that Brian"]

Easy, it's Watford. I hate the football they play and Troy Deeney is a prick but City are loathsome.

 

[humanbeingincroydon]

Watford, because if the pundits want to keep bleating about The Magic of the Cup™ that means the final needs to not be a procession for whichever team is looking to wrap up a double/treble - although, sadly, the closest we've come to that recently is those underdogs from Finsbury Park winning the cup, which served to keep their beleaguered manager employed for a couple more seasons as their more gullible fans (read: the vast majority of them) were too busy bellowing something about shadows than pay attention to how obvious it was their club had reached terminal velocity in their fall from grace

 

[Dier Hard]

Watford all day long. Like Gracia as a manager and would be great to see Gomes go out on a high.

 

[The RDBD]

Watford.
Underdog blah blah + do not want a Sugga Daddy FC to be
the first club in England to do the domestic treble.

 

[Rocky blue army]

Watford for me feck the oil rich manx

 

[Spudulike]

Anybody watch the final? Nah, me neither.

But having just seen the score line and goals, I feel terribly sorry for all the Watford fans and neutrals who had to endure such a one-sided affair, that meant an unfairly bankrolled team can literally just walk the treble with only so much as a slap on the wrist as punishment.

I fear for where football is headed if I’m honest. If City can just buy their way to every trophy and say screw the rules, we’re headed to a very dark place.

Hopefully the football authorities will be brave enough to do what’s right. I won’t hold my breath.

Viva Man City. The Destroyers of Football.

 

[The Ides of March]

Anybody watch the final? Nah, me neither.

But having just seen the score line and goals, I feel terribly sorry for all the Watford fans and neutrals who had to endure such a one-sided affair, that meant an unfairly bankrolled team can literally just walk the treble with only so much as a slap on the wrist as punishment.

I fear for where football is headed if I’m honest. If City can just buy their way to every trophy and say screw the rules, we’re headed to a very dark place.

Hopefully the football authorities will be brave enough to do what’s right. I won’t hold my breath.

Viva Man City. The Destroyers of Football.

Whilst you are right, I feel it is good to have City toppling United, Liverpool, Chelsea, Arsenal who are equally bankrolled by their huge fanbases. Let City and Tottenham eat into their fanbases, , and then City won´t need so much financial doping.

 

[Saf]

Whilst you are right, I feel it is good to have City toppling United, Liverpool, Chelsea, Arsenal who are equally bankrolled by their huge fanbases. Let City and Tottenham eat into their fanbases, , and then City won´t need so much financial doping.

I'm seeing the sourest of grapes on here. Man City had a net spend of minus 10 million, this season. Liverpool had a surplus net spend of about 133 million. Where's the outrage at them? That's right there's none because they haven't won anything and maybe might not win anything at all.

The fact is the teams at the top have generally been the big spenders. Leicester were the exception. Blackburn in the 90's bought the title. Then it was Chelsea's turn. Money doesn't guarantee jack ****. The previous Man City managers are testament to that. I love watching Man City playing, Guardiola is the king of managers, his style of play and how he improves players is a joy to watch for the neutrals.

 

[The RDBD]

Whilst you are right, I feel it is good to have City toppling United, Liverpool, Chelsea, Arsenal who are equally bankrolled by their huge fanbases. Let City and Tottenham eat into their fanbases, , and then City won´t need so much financial doping.

https://www.transferleague.co.uk/manchester-city/english-football-teams/manchester-city-transfers

So you are prepared to accept the proven financial doping in Citeh since 2009
(and the competitive advantage it has irrefutably bought) . on the basis that :

1. it damages the success of other clubs, who although not being paupers have
effectively earned their revenues due to their on-pitch successes (past and present)

2. Citeh won't need "so much" financial doping from here onwards


Nice.

 

[Spurs61]

The expected walk over.
The rest of the league should be grateful to us for ensuring Money City did not win four trophies.

 

[The Changing Man]

I'm seeing the sourest of grapes on here. Man City had a net spend of minus 10 million, this season. Liverpool had a surplus net spend of about 133 million. Where's the outrage at them? That's right there's none because they haven't won anything and maybe might not win anything at all.

The fact is the teams at the top have generally been the big spenders. Leicester were the exception. Blackburn in the 90's bought the title. Then it was Chelsea's turn. Money doesn't guarantee jack ****. The previous Man City managers are testament to that. I love watching Man City playing, Guardiola is the king of managers, his style of play and how he improves players is a joy to watch for the neutrals.

Over a 5 season period their total spend on transfers and wages is over £1550,000,000 so each match won in the league in that 5 year period has cost over £12,000,000 so lets not pretend that they are not spending plenty of dosh

Not sure about a net minus spend Mahrez cost £60m and no one of note left I know that they got money for Gunn and Hart, and the lad that joined Real but I am sure that didn't raise £70m! as for previous managers Mancini and Pellegrini both won the league and cups.

When Pep manages club that are not the richest in their league and achieves similar results then he may prove himself to the genius that media make him out to be.

Would love to see yesterdays managers swap clubs for a season , and with no changes to the playing squads it would interesting to see how they got on, my guess would be that the results would be similar for both clubs.

 

[Spurs61]

Would love to see yesterdays managers swap clubs for a season , and with no changes to the playing squads it would interesting to see how they got on, my guess would be that the results would be similar for both clubs.

Wouldn't that be fun?
Guardiola could get Watford to 7th - maybe 6th - they were heading for that until they reached the final this year.
Gracia does not have the pedigree to win things but would get them to at least 4th/3rd in my guess.

 

[remembercolinlee]

I'm seeing the sourest of grapes on here. Man City had a net spend of minus 10 million, this season. Liverpool had a surplus net spend of about 133 million. Where's the outrage at them? That's right there's none because they haven't won anything and maybe might not win anything at all.

The fact is the teams at the top have generally been the big spenders. Leicester were the exception. Blackburn in the 90's bought the title. Then it was Chelsea's turn. Money doesn't guarantee jack ****. The previous Man City managers are testament to that. I love watching Man City playing, Guardiola is the king of managers, his style of play and how he improves players is a joy to watch for the neutrals.

Guardiola inherited Kompany, Stirling, Aguero, De Bruyne and Silva. He then spent just under £200m in his first season...and won nothing and the football they played weren't all that yet he received very little criticism.
The next sext season he spent just under £300m and won the league cup and title. This season he spent a further £60m.
That's well over HALF A BILLION spent in 3 summers...yet in that time he has fsiled to get past the CL quarter finals and has been knocked out of the fa cup by league 1 Wigan and needed appalling refereeing decisions to beat swansea.

City play brilliant football but the constant claims that those who criticise Guardiola are bitter are missing the point.

To have inherited those 5 players and then be given a further £540m kind of negates the "it's all about pep being a genius" narrative imho.

 

[vimhawk]

Guardiola inherited Kompany, Stirling, Aguero, De Bruyne and Silva. He then spent just under £200m in his first season...and won nothing and the football they played weren't all that yet he received very little criticism.
The next sext season he spent just under £300m and won the league cup and title. This season he spent a further £60m.
That's well over HALF A BILLION spent in 3 summers...yet in that time he has fsiled to get past the CL quarter finals and has been knocked out of the fa cup by league 1 Wigan and needed appalling refereeing decisions to beat swansea.

City play brilliant football but the constant claims that those who criticise Guardiola are bitter are missing the point.

To have inherited those 5 players and then be given a further £540m kind of negates the "it's all about pep being a genius" narrative imho.

There's a serious point to me made here about what happens if Citeh continue to do the treble every season, which they are well capable of. They might well destroy competition on this country, which would make the PL a much less interesting league to watch. Sure they are under financial investigation but that seems to be restricted to certain transactions and even if guilty will only lead to a one-year CL ban, whilst you could easily argue that they still have benefited to a greater extent than that since they haven't won the CL as a result of their misdeeds anyway! The problem seems to be that they haven't tackled the main point of Citeh and Emirates being more or less the same company and therefore all sponsorship is dodgy, not just the examples that have been highlighted (unless I've understood the charges wrongly - please let me know if I have). If they are banned from the CL they'd actually have an even bigger chance of winning the rest of the competitions! Also the pundits keep saying that we need to win a trophy, and mention the FA Cup and League Cup. Yet how is anyone supposed to beat Citeh when (1) they've got the depth of squad to compete in everything and (2) they keep getting ludicrously easy draws in these competitions. And there is suspicion that the League Cup draw is fixed anyway. Didn't they avoid any PL teams in the League Cup until they reached the final, and in the FA Cup they only beat Burnley and Brighton (whilst having significant "luck" against Swansea. Perhaps these pundits should remember this when saying that other teams should be winning these "lesser" trophys".

There is a further comment to be made on the "brilliance" of Guardiola. As others have mentioned, how can he possibly be properly assessed when he has almost unlimited funds? In his first season in the PL, despite having a team worth hundreds of millions he did quite badly, but this seems to have been forgotten. Instead, the pundits have given him credit for "identifying the weaknesses" and addressing them. Well wooppy do! A lot of managers can identify the weaknesses of their team, but few (none) get a couple of hundred million to sort them out. Now if Guardiola could keep Cardiff in the PL, then he might be a great manager.

 

[humanbeingincroydon]

Now we've got fawning coverage because Fraudiola's coatigan is being auctioned off to raise money for the City in the Community tax write-off charity

Just a thought: how about raising some real money for charity, for example asking the squad to give 1% of their weekly salary to that same charity? That would generate far more money that auctioning off a cardigan - especially as the exact same gesture can be made by the numerous other franchises owned by Mansour Ltd dotted around the US, Australia, Spain, Japan, China, and that supremely dodgy enterprise in Uruguay

 

[The RDBD]

There's a serious point to me made here about what happens if Citeh continue to do the treble every season, which they are well capable of. They might well destroy competition on this country, which would make the PL a much less interesting league to watch.

The question is if Citeh are now capable of taking 100odd PL pts every
season, is there at least one team in any given season, whoever they may be,
who are capable of doing what the Poool did in the PL this season ??

If not, then it gets like with the Poool empire in the 80s, where supporters of
rival clubs celebrated the "small victories" (stopping them winning domestic/
UEFA trophies when they could not be thwarted in the league) .

Arguably tis already so (the joy over their CL exit the past two seasons at
the hands of PL clubs) .

 

[Dier Hard]

I think that despite coming up short in the end, Liverpool have shown that City can be challenged, you just need to make sure you have the right team/ management in place and add the right signings.

I've long said that had Spurs managed a good couple of signings last summer we could've well been in that title mix this season and even though we need a lot more work this summer, we still have the potential to do so for next season but it's crucial we make the right signings. The right signings can take us to that next level, the wrong or no signings can see us seriously fall behind.