The Official Man Utd & Liverpool plus Chelsea, Everton and City Banter Thread!

The problem with buying more Aguero and Silvas is the fact that it's those sort of players where their inconsistancies have cost City so far this season.

Silva has been poor for the most part so far and Aguero simply hasn't scored enough so far. Milner on the other hand as been a fairly consistant good performer whenever I've seen him play.

There's a long way to go yet and we never do things the easy way so this title is FAR from over yet.

 

You spoilt your point with the inclusion of that one. Great ex-player, **** pundit.

 

I'm sorry Eric. I think you're being purposely coy. It's over and done with. End of. I'm dealing with it. You should be enjoying it.

 

It was all over last season too supposedly. We never make it easy on ourselves so I doubt we will start now.

I think this season is far from over.

 

You're four extra points ahead which equates to another 2 games. City were a much better team last season. They are the 2 key differences and the ones that make your position safe. There will be no complacency.

 

What Fergie did yesterday was, for once, the sensible thing. I couldn't decide until I saw the team whether he'd do one of his mental head impressions and just pick a reserve side yesterday and hope for the best but, thank ****, he picked a team to win the match as NOW we can rest key players in more 'straightforward' league games ahead of the cups, both of which I expect us to go full tilt for to win.

I'm not suggesting we've won the league, anything but, but the lead IS comfortable and gives us some excellent breathing space.
As a result of yesterday's side Wednesday will be that bit more difficult (and it would be good if some of you could set aside your differences and accept the ****ing obvious, and that is that Fergie is entirely correct that Sky and the premier league do not help ANY English clubs in the CL) but **** it, the end justified the means.

Definitely, as the premier league is , was and always wil be No.1 priority to win.

 

If anything they need more players like Milner. The ones who will contribute every game, not just blow teams away one week and do nothing the next. The kind of players who will keep making a consistent contribution to the side whether they are in good form or bad, and the ones who actually have a connection to the club, are the kinds of players who win league titles.

Aguero is also having major second season syndrome this year, which has completely done for City. The writing was probably on the wall when he admitted he wanted to join Real earlier this season- now City are out the CL again he seems to have completely lost any motivation and City's season has unravelled from there.

I hope we'll go full tilt to win everything. Competing right to the max in multiple competitions usually triggers one of our best seasons - it's when we start trying to sacrifice one for the others that stuff goes wrong. Just look at 2009 - resting players to win the CL after the league was in the bag and we were **** in the final.

I've said it before - pretty much every season we have gotten to the semi final of the CL or better we have also won the league and if we show the same amount of commitment across the board this season then we'll have a great chance of winning multiple trophies. If we start fannying around resting players needlessly then we won't win a cup and will run the risk of letting City back into the title race.

 

we should hope so

 

well guys i must say you are hilarious... more player like milner. if i suggested you needed more fletchers and less RVPs you'd go mad.. you just want city to be rubbish... city have really just got a bit of quality in each area of the pitch and last year it was enough.

hart, kompany, yaya, silva and aguero.. great players... but milner, barry, even tevez or nasri... they're not up to it.

I do agree with one good point about resting players as it takes the edge off. That is in my experience totally right and ok competing to the max sounds good in in reality i think you mean you'll rotate 2/3 players and keep it fresh while keeping momentum. To win the FA cup and CL you need to first get those games won and so something has to give or that crucial injury comes along. anyway roll on Wednesday for you.

Ferguson might be right that its a whole 24 hours less preparation time but in the end the english clubs gang up to sign their exclusive deal with sky so its the way it is... if you had individual rights like in spain then you could pick and choose on the basics of knowing this game was coming months ago..

but here's the thing... nobodys asking ferguson if when the draw was made did he ask sky to shove the everton game to saturday at 12:30 are they? I mean there's no way back then you'd know city would implode totally and so playing on the sunday after the internationals was an advantage.

Reality check... its a point and a fair one but its not like you have never played sunday wednesday before...

 

Actually I think more Fletchers is exactly what we need right now. If we had Fletch back I reckon we'd have been a lot more solid in defence this season.

City would do fine with more players like Silva and Aguero if they were consistent, but the fact is they haven't been. Silva was great for most of last season, but has played worse than Milner this season. And Aguero's performance levels have definitely dropped off from last season - the fact that Dzeko has scored more than him should speak volumes about how badly he's dropped off. You need the balance between the players like Aguero and Silva who will be great some games and the ones like Milner and Tevez who may not be as good but will contribute and put the work in even when they aren't on form.

But no one needs Barry or Nasri.

As for the individual rights, I think the PL as a whole would need to vote to break the collective rights deal. So we're stuck with doing what Sky tell us just so they can make more profits at the expense of our match prep. I wouldn't mind if we were selling the rights ourselves, as then we'd have to choose between more profits and better match prep, just a bit annoying that Sky gain and we lose out. Still, it's the price of a fairer PL, and like SAF said everyone has been complaining for years and nothing has been done.

Fair comment about the Saturday at 12:30 slot, but ultimately that just emphasises the fact that we have no say in the matter. Sunday at 4pm is the prime slot so that's when we get stuck more often than not, CL or no CL.

 

ok i'll sell you 5 darren fletchers for one RVP... no problem in the world there!

and yes your defence might have conceded less with a fully fit 2009 version of fletcher in front of them.

but no milenr aint that good cos h's not playing work horse he's out wide playing creative and frnakly he's average. you may as well say downing to me I think.. mind you milenr works harder and doesn't play as negatively.

until you've individual rights you've no way of changing the system. we all know utd and others would earn more moeny at the expesne of the wigans of this world. but frnakly the way the game is in england it encourages bad ownership and gross spending so if a gorup of 5-6 teams had all the tv moeny it might get spent better... doubt it mind but it might.

I'd like to see the rpem reduced to 18 teams and the likes of wigan long forgotten. It'd improve the football played and also the teams chance sin europe... again is 24 hours all that vital now or is it the constant week in week out games thats coming while us LFC fans tune in to one game per week and sometimes none around fa cup weekends?

I think the 24 hours is a red herring really. its so minor compared to the fact you fly to madrid... you can damn well bet madrid will rest everyone next weekend... you had the choice to do the same... ferguson should have done that and not moaned about whats never in his control...

oh and if utd do beat madrid and get mourinho the sack and make ronaldo cry i'll be happy too. best of both worlds for me this midweek.

 

You are completely right Swarbs, the Fletcher's, John O Shea's and even Ji Sung Parks of this world are very often the difference in league titles.
Committed and selfless players. Other clubs supporters laugh at this but they really should try it sometimes, I know most City supporters would understand this right now.

As Swarbs also correctly points out, where have the superb Silva and Aguero been for half this season when needed? Nowhere.

As for maybe resting players, it's possible that there are three remaining CL games that this could be done before if we're to reach the final (not including this week of course when only Carrick was rested) and depending on the league opposition before these games if we reach them, then those times there would definitely be players rested.

 

Fair enough, Milner is a bad example as he's a wide player. But then in that regard Milner is the perfect example as he is the right kind of player in completely the wrong place.

City need players like Milner in the middle - they have Silva and Aguero but they have no player like Carrick, none like Fletcher and none like Cleverley. They have Toure, who is better than all three, but no one else. And as good as Toure is, if City swapped him for Carrick, Cleverley and a fit Fletcher (or even Anderson) they would be a whole lot of points better off right now.

Actually the fact we fly to Madrid makes the 24 hours much more important. We fly out tomorrow, so have only one full day to prepare whereas had we played on Saturday we'd have flown out today and had twice as long to prepare. That's a big difference in terms of getting used to the place and being properly prepared, particularly when facing a club like Real.

I wonder if Real will try to switch El Classico from the 3rd to the 2nd before the 2nd leg.

As for SAF not moaning about something not in his control, when has any manager ever done that?! Every manager moans about things they can't control - that's practically part of the job description

 

I love the fact other teams supporters seem to think their team needs a star player in every position. In the EPL it is usually Lfc, Cfc and Afc fans that say this.
They are the very same fans that say Utd are in decline every season that Utd don`t always buy star players.
They still don`t get it, you need players for a team, not a team of players.

 

Westbrom must be starting to wish they could play you lot every week.

 

Steve Clarke must find it all mildly hilarious.

 

Fire drill at Anfield!!!

 

Fire drill at Anfield!!!

 

/

 

Sturridge injured? That didn't take long.