The same question can be asked of, what would happen if that was done by someone just walking along the street and it was filmed and millions of people viewed it?
That depends. When the seagulls follow the trawler, is it because they think that sardines will be thrown into the sea?
When a club says that a player is not for sale, that ends the negotiation process. For example, Villa did not say that Stuart Downing was not for sale at any point, as well as the fact they're seen as a soft touch because they lose one or two key players every summer (Downing and Ashley Young this summer, James Milner last summer, Gareth Barry the summer before - after holding on to him for a year after Liverpool illegally approached him), and it's known that Randy Lerner wants to balance the wage bill. Spurs don't have a habit of selling their best players these days, not since the double whammy of Keane's tapping-up and Berbatov's kidnapping, aren't looking to recuce their wage bill, yet that hasn't stopped Man Utd or Chelsea feelign it's their duty to dictate which of our players should be playing for them. A while back on Old 606 I noted something else - why is it that Man Utd never tried to unsettle players from teams that were a threat to their position such as Chelsea, Arsenal or Liverpool, but looked to raid teams that could aid their cause by taking points off of them such as us, Villa, or Everton? Chelsea have got players off them by fair means or, more often, foul (Ashley Cole, John Obi Mikel - or whatever order he spells his name this week - and Fernando Torres being the obvious examples), whilst Man City signed Kolo Toure who Arsenal should've kept hold of? It's only now with Nasri that they're thinking of weakening teams they see as a threat - or is it they don't see Arsenal as a threat anymore, with the emergence of Man City's overdraft?
They couldn't unsettle players from the teams that you mention Croydon, as they had similar wage bills. They didn't have much to offer them that they didn't already have. Chelsea and Citeh don't mind offering wages that even the likes of Manyoo, Liverpool and the Goons would balk at.
Some people don't seem to get the obvious issue here. To get into the Champions League you have to displace one of the clubs already in it. They have the massive advantage that they have more income and can therefore pay higher wage costs as well as being more attractive to the best players because they can offer the Champions League. As a consequence they can afford bigger stadia, get better sponsorship deals etc etc. The only reliable way in is the Man City way - where you can pay so much over the going rate that players can see that they will almost certainly be successful in the future so are prepared to play for a year despite not being in the CL. For anyone else, it is a very difficult road, because, as we saw last season, slight under performance in the league knocked us out of the top four while the CL run was a shop window of how good our best players are - so they are now heavily in demand. The solution is to sign players up on long term contracts but that doesn't seem to work, even for guys like Modric who seemed decent enough before. When I fisrt became a football fan, some clubs had a bit of an advantage but it was nothing like what it is today. Indeed both Man U and Spurs have been relegated in that period and I can't see that happening today. Surely all true fans would want the possibilty of more turnover in the CL positions rather than an effective closed shop and indeed a smaller gap between the PL and the Championship so that there was more chance of breakthroughs there.
You're trying to claim that you're right while conceding that you're not, Lidls. Utterly dishonest and arrogant. I've shown why I believe you're wrong, yet you continue to spin out the standard "Manyoo are victimised by the cruel and heartless FA" line that your fellow Mancs love. Total crap. Winning honours comes from playing with top players, who go to clubs who pay the most wages. Funny that. You cannot argue against the wage bill/league table comparison, no matter how much **** you come out with. Spurs have punched above our weight in that and yet we've still got players trying to leave and being blatantly tapped up, without any protection from the FA/PL. How do we progress, if our best players are taken by the teams that we're trying to overhaul? It's impossible.
In a lot of cases, we have to pay them more. To do that, we have to produce more revenue. As I said earlier, the new stadium is becoming more urgent all the time.
I understand what you're saying, mate. Of course, Cantona was out of order, although what would happen nowadays if you SAID something like that on the street - you'd be arrested. I played Rugby for a number of years. It's obviously a physical game and in those days punches would be thrown, and it was accepted - you threw one back, and usually that was that. However, three things were totally unacceptable. One was gouging, secondly, any stamping, or raking to the facial area. Last of all, and funnily enough, the one that was guaranteed to spark a mass brawl, was spitting - especially in someones face. I'm not French, but that might have been what kicked Cantona off.
Don't get me wrong NSIS, I'm not condoning anything that the Palace fan may have done. I'm not a particularly violent person and I've laughed off being punched before, but I'd definitely react physically to anyone spitting at me. I think that Cantona was lucky to have come away from it unharmed, though and he certainly should've faced a longer ban. A Man Utd youth player, Ronnie Wallwork, grabbed a ref by the throat and was given an initial life ban, which was reduced to 3 years, 2 of which were probational. Cantona was banned for 8 months and refers to the kick as "a great memory".
So you're claiming that when 4 teams in the world have finally overtaken you financially and barely so at that, years of having that advantage will suddenly disappear? Scholes has been very, very well paid for the entirety of his career and doesn't even have an agent to pay. Giggs would've had to let down his host of 'lady friends' and may have risked losing half of everything that he owned, had he moved, if you get what I mean. Vidic and Evra are on massive wages. You have no point. Spurs cannot compete consistently with our current stadium. We don't have the income to match those that have taken advantage of past advantages or those with ultra-rich owners.
Unfortunately, from Wallworks' point of view, if was a Ref, not a fan. As we all know, Referees are sacrosanct. Which is why he was treated so relatively harshly.
And fans aren't sacrosanct? We all know of the Paulo Di Canio incident and there have been other examples of players getting physical with refs, but I really can't remember another player going off the pitch to attack a fan. As you can see, Manyoo fans still think that he did the right thing and ignore his thuggish behaviour because he wrapped it in pseudo-intellectual bullshit. If the gloryhunters follow the cheaters...
The bit about the sardines was aimed at the Journos, IMO. I understand what you're saying, but you know, as well as I do that abuse of Referees will always be treated as a more special case for punishment by the F.A.
It is just timing Lidl. If the Champions league had started in 1961, Arsenal would just be a small London club, forever in Tottenham's shadow. If it had started the year Man U were relegated then Old Trafford would never have been redevleoped. Before the CL the playing field was reasonably level - any team could go down and most did once in a while. Arsenal (who of course never won promotion via their league position) would have gone done in one season with just one changed result. But now the PL has got 4 teams who've benefited from years in the CL, plus Man C who've got billions. Because Spurs (and Everton and Villa) were in a bad patch at the beginning a gulf has opened which is very difficult to cross. I agree it is not impossible and we are quite close, but having the smallest stadium and no multi-billionaire owner prepared to throw £££ around, it realy isn't the most likely outcome. In 1960, Ipswich won the league - imagine a club like that even getting close now - this is not progress as it makes the competition less interesting even if the quality of play is way higher
Of course, if all this comes down to is a pissing contest. i.e. who's got the most money, then the only winners, in the long run, will be The ****tys and The Chavs, because no other clubs can compete financially, at the moment. The rest of us can only hope that the new FFP rules actually have some teeth, and will create, at least, a slightly more level playing field.
Sorry Lidl - remember the timing issue. I've supported Spurs since I was five. Over my first 20 years our average league position was better than both Man U and Arsenal and we had very similar sized stadia and fan bases. Over my first 35 years Spurs lost a tiny bit of ground but there was nothing to stop the tables being turned. But if you happened to be top four when the CL started the one-off advantage was overwhelming. We happened to be rubbish then and have not got back amongst it properly since.
You have to remember, also, that in those days, the Champions league (European Cup, as it was called) was just that. A competition for the league champions of the various European countries involved. On the other point, as I have said, basically, it's all about money now. If you have plenty of it, you will succeed. Why do you think UEFA are bringing in the FFP rules? They know what will happen if they don't. Success, or failure, in the the whole game, both domestic, and Pan-European will become about nothing more than who has the most financial clout.
I think a better solution would be a proper European champions league composed of the champions of the top twelve European leagues, eleven clubs from the smaller ones (via play offs) and the previous years champions. They would drop out of their own domestic leagues for the season and play 46 matches. This would stop it being a clique as the clubs would change each year
Ensil - do you ever get bored by your own pedantry? I have to say it is getting increasingly boring to read. I thought you had Luke on ignore, can't you just go back to that?
That would be the end of domestic football wouldn't it? I must admit it would stuff my trips to the away games right up as I can't get to home games very often... How about a big draw involving loads of european teams, each round played over two legs home and away, knockout stages all the way through until there's one left?
