Interesting.........or bollocks. We won the league because Chelsea and Arsenal were **** you say.... Well I say every single one of Liverpools 18 titles were won because everyone else were ****. 18 title wins by default eh, imagine that.
I wasnt being overly serious. Just winding the less intelligent Liverpool fans up lol. I know I shouldnt be so cruel. Seriously though City are not a good team and are far from certs for the top 4. I struggle to find more than 2 top players in their squad who will maintain the required level all season. Cant comment on the new ones of course.
Man Uniteds title is not by any means a foregone conclusion,their central midfield is more open than Jordans legs,and De Gea would not in any shape or form fill me with confidence.He was beaten by a speculative 30 yard shot that lets be fair he should have saved. The first goal was scored by a player that can't defend set pieces,he should have shown more authority and commanded his area like Van Der Sar did. I reckon Man Uniteds away form will not improve in the coming season,and more teams will go after them at Old Trafford. They will be there or thereabouts. Champions...for me,sorry,they won't be.
My opinion is that once 2017 comes Manchester United will cease to exist,thats when the Glazers loans are being called in. Forget about the Qatari's they thought Paris St Germain were a better option. You lot are sunk...and you know it. The Glazers are better businessmen than I thought, they have managed to bankrupt 4 shopping centres than the two most people knew about
Mancini allegedly 'wants' 3 more players before the season opener. He's already got enough talent there; it just needs managing better. Adding more players will just disrupt the squad even more than it already is. They should be at the stage (after 3 summers of big spending) of having a cohesive team and simply adding one or two quality players here and there, but they're not yet. Players seem to be brought in there simply because they can be, rather than because they're actually needed.
http://www.mirrorfootball.co.uk/new...y-to-sell-25-stake-in-club-article782144.html in case kpr wants proof it could be happening
This has just descended into farce now. These billionaires don't seem to go for teams who are already successful, but rather ones who are 'ok' (Chelsea were floating around the top half, never really challenging for titles; Man City were mid table at best) so I can only assume they look for a bit of a challenge, or rather a 'play thing',than merely maintaining the success of a club. Malaga and PSG seem to fit this model too. But anyway, MU won't cease to exist in 2017.
Just read that article. One point in there caught my eye: I believe that means that they can start taking money out of United which could be used to invest in the squad. Am I right here?
I think they like to have a challenge and be considered the saviour of football teams, not the ones who continued success. I feel that at some point, some mental rich blokes going to buy FC united of manchester and attempt to create a rival to United and City. Anyway, i suppose it was a kick in the teeth for newcastle fans as Ashley turned down the Arabs bid for the toon before they bought man city
You can blind yourself to the fact that you accumulated so few points to win the league. You can blind yourself to the worst winning away record. Then you can blind yourself to just how many points both Chelsea and Arsenal threw away during their 'blips'. There's your facts but as i say you are blind!
You mean it hadn't already?! I dunno, when Abramovich took over at Chelsea they had just qualified for the CL, and had just surpassed Arsenal as the club with the second highest revenues in England. Without the Russian money they probably wouldn't have been as successful as they were, but with Utd and Arsenal both slumping quite badly from 2004 and 2005 respectively Chelsea could well have won a title or two, particularly if Mourinho still went to them. It would've been interesting to see how they could have built on that had they had more stability than Abramovich has given over the last five years. True. No more than Liverpool ceased to exist in 2010 for that matter. But don't tell KPR They already can if they want to - the bond issue allowed them to take up to £100 million out of the club in dividends. It was assumed by many that this would be used to pay off the PIKs, but in reality it wasn't. Given Utd still have over £100 million in the bank, even after the recent purchases, I'm not sure whether the Glazers believe that cash is more valuable to them as dividends, or as funds for future investment in the stadium or other facilities in order to boost the total value of the club when they come to sell. After all, paying a dividend is simply a business way of saying "we can't invest this money to make enough profit within the company so we'll just give it to the shareholders". And you can blind yourself to the fact that we got one more point last season than we did in our treble winning season in 1999, and the same number of points as Liverpool did in their 1984 treble winning season, but playing four fewer games. You can only beat the teams you face. Ultimately the total number of points you get is irrelevant, it's how many more or less than the other teams that matters.
Well currently, around 45m a year goes out to pay dividends on the bonds. Based on our annual profit of around 100m I can't see share dividends approaching that figure.
SWARBS, "Given Utd still have over £100 million in the bank, " Look again mate. That money is not sitting there like spare change. The vast part of it is already pre-allocated or a deposit demand by the bankers. The Glazers do face a major dilema. They have already gone beyond the usual selling threshold for leverage buyouts plus it looks like the world economy is going to be more than just a little anxious about high value speculative (and every football club has to be so considered) investments. Whilst the media is focusing upon sovereign debt just look at the massacres that are happening in the corporate paper markets. United could continue to be successful on the pitch and still find itself in trouble as the environment around them collapses. It's a bit like an F1 car when your as highly geared (did you see what i did there) as United are, you can only hit the rev limiter so many times before the engine goes pop. To continue the similie as the clouds gather over the Euro and the American markets come to their cake and milk, the whole of the European football industry is going to face a cruel chill.
"And you can blind yourself to the fact that we got one more point last season than we did in our treble winning season in 1999, and the same number of points as Liverpool did in their 1984 treble winning season, but playing four fewer games. You can only beat the teams you face. Ultimately the total number of points you get is irrelevant, it's how many more or less than the other teams that matters." That is no argument at all! You didn't beat the teams that were put in front of you -away from home at least! Whilst it cannot be proven, if either Arsenal or Chelsea had picked up the points that they were expected to then you would not have had sufficient points. That's the point that i was making.
Too.much.number.crunching. Lol, but seriously, name me a successful Champions League winning club that isn't in debt (Even Barcelona are in debt aren't they?)
Your reasoning is that we only won the title because the other challengers didn't win games they were expected to. But that is just speculation. And why can't you say that we dropped points we were expecting to pick up? Surely that would have made us even stronger winners? It is all what ifs. The fact is that we had the most points.
But using your theory, as United were also expected to win a large majority of their away games, they wouldn't have dropped all those points that they weren't expected to neither, so who's to say the final standings wouldn't still be the same anyway?
No it's not. United have no bank debt - it is all bonds issued by the club, on the club's terms. The bond prospectus did not mandate Utd to hold any cash in the bank at all. In fact it specified that the Glazers could take up to £100 million out of the club regardless of the current cash flow situation. I don't see how going beyond "the usual selling threshold" represents a problem. Philip Green went beyond "the usual selling threshold" with BHS and Arcadia and made himself a billionaire as a result. The problems start when you start looking at these thresholds and other 'accepted' wisdom as fact and making less than optimal decisions. As long as the Glazers are still achieving revenue and profit growth, particularly in the commercial area, then there is no absolute threshold for how long they should own the club. And the massacres in the corporate paper market will only help United. If the bonds the club issued dive in value, the club can buy them back cheaper and the total value of the debt declines. The bonds only mature in 2017, so the Glazers don't need to worry about raising more debt on the markets until then. Lol, that's a terrible metaphor! Clouds over cake and milk?!? Oscar Wilde is spinning in his grave United will only run into trouble if: a) They consistently miss out on CL qualification (and even missing out for two years hasn't done for Liverpool) b) Fans stop paying as much to attend matches (Utd still had the highest attendance as a % of ground capacity last year despite all the price increases) c) Broadcasting revenue dries up (could well happen in future if the EU regulates the European market, but overseas revenue is still growing strong) We beat every team in the PL, either at home or at away. That's better than most champions do. Liverpool in 84 didn't beat Utd, Ipswich, Leicester or Sunderland either home or away, Utd in 99 didn't beat Arsenal or Chelsea either home or away. Even Arsenal in 04 didn't beat Utd or Portsmouth home or away. I'm sorry mate, but your entire argument is flimsy as paper. Did you seriously expect Arsenal to pick up 13 more points this season? You might as well say that if Utd picked up the points they were "expected" to in 2010 then Chelsea would not have had sufficient points as Utd would have been "expected" to beat Aston Villa at home and Blackburn away. Likewise in 2009 when Liverpool were "expected" to win all those games they drew at home. And who's to say that if Chelsea had kept picking up points in November that we wouldn't have raised our game? We did it in 1996 against Newcastle, against Arsenal in 2003 and against Liverpool in 2009. If anything we eased off and focused on the CL in the later part of the league season in response to the other clubs being so poor.
