Rival watch

[The Huddlefro]

When your club's not happy with a domestic treble, then there's something drastically wrong.

Because the club isn’t built to compete for trophies to prove they’re the best at football, like most football clubs were. They’re not even built to make money, like most are now.

They exist purely as a vanity project for the owners, and to try and improve the image of the government that effectively owns the club. They won’t be happy until they win the Champions League and until people stop discussing the dodgy dealings, the breaking of rules, and the shady actions of the country their owners effectively rule.

I’m sure City fans who have been with the club through thick and thin are delighted with what’s going on on the pitch, and probably incredibly conflicted with circumstances off it. I say I’m sure, because I’ve never met one.

 

[remembercolinlee]

TBH it is pathetic to class a glorified friendly like the Community Shield as a trophy.

Since I was a child I could name you every year we won a trophy, and what the trophy was but I have no idea when we or if we won the Charity shield or who we played except with 2 exceptions...united in 1967 cos Pat Jennings scored and we drew a NLD one in 1991.

It amazes me thst journalists don't tell Pep to wind his ****ing neck in when he talks about it being s ****ing trophy.

 

[humanbeingincroydon]

Steptonho suggesting he's interested in the Newcastle job

Funny how he wasn't interested until Sheikh Mansour's brother stepped up as a potential owner, isn't it?

 

[remembercolinlee]

City, Chelsea and toon all sugar daddied up to their armpits...this is making our decision to build a new ground in the way we have look even more vital.
Arsenal and United are going to have to take huge gambles to get back in the top 4 as they have come to rely on the CL money and the sponsorship that comes with it.
United are reportedly going to take Bale on loan... no fee but paying £500,000 per week in wages...that's £25m for a loan for a year
I know I aound like a broken record but imho a big club is going to **** up trying to compete with the sugar daddies by spending what they csn not afford if this continues.

 

[Dier Hard]

City, Chelsea and toon all sugar daddied up to their armpits...this is making our decision to build a new ground in the way we have look even more vital.
Arsenal and United are going to have to take huge gambles to get back in the top 4 as they have come to rely on the CL money and the sponsorship that comes with it.
United are reportedly going to take Bale on loan... no fee but paying £500,000 per week in wages...that's £25m for a loan for a year
I know I aound like a broken record but imho a big club is going to **** up trying to compete with the sugar daddies by spending what they csn not afford if this continues.

Utd are still an empire though mate.

I read a couple years back that they recouped the Pogba fee within a month or something through merchandise and shirt sales of the player.

Even without CL football they can still afford the very best.

Arsenal are different as they don’t have the same pull as Utd. Without CL they’re not attractive to the very best players nor can they afford them either. It’s why they need Ozil off the books and why they lost Ramsay as they couldn’t pay him what he wanted (albeit his rumoured wage at Juve is crazy!).

 

[remembercolinlee]

United will lose tens of millions in sponsorship money if they do not get regular CL football...it's why they tolerated Maureen's awful football until it was no longer getting it.

A couple more seasons without could see them paying fees and wages that may be a gamble.

5 years ago, the idea that Arsenal could find it difficult financially difficult to cope would have been seen as silly talk imo...but not now.

 

[Dier Hard]

United will lose tens of millions in sponsorship money if they do not get regular CL football...it's why they tolerated Maureen's awful football until it was no longer getting it.

A couple more seasons without could see them paying fees and wages that may be a gamble.

5 years ago, the idea that Arsenal could find it difficult financially difficult to cope would have been seen as silly talk imo...but not now.

If they don’t get CL for about 3-4 years on the trot, yes I’d agree they could be set to lose sponsors but a season in and out won’t make much difference. Utd are ****ing huge mate. It’d probably take 10 years of severe mediocrity before they’d lose their appeal.

Arsenal are essentially looking a bit like Spurs 5 or so years ago. A good side but lacking the finances to compete with the best. Thankfully for us we have a chairman that’s smart as **** and a manager who is essentially, magic, despite some flaws in both. It’s helped to begin to close that financial gap that set us apart for so long and we’re now finally in a position to spend considerable amounts of money on exceptional players.

 

[Spurlock]

If they don’t get CL for about 3-4 years on the trot, yes I’d agree they could be set to lose sponsors but a season in and out won’t make much difference. Utd are ****ing huge mate. It’d probably take 10 years of severe mediocrity before they’d lose their appeal.

Arsenal are essentially looking a bit like Spurs 5 or so years ago. A good side but lacking the finances to compete with the best. Thankfully for us we have a chairman that’s smart as **** and a manager who is essentially, magic, despite some flaws in both. It’s helped to begin to close that financial gap that set us apart for so long and we’re now finally in a position to spend considerable amounts of money on exceptional players.

Brainfarts in pivotal games is an issue for the Magic man...CL finals aren't handed out for jokes. Think it will take me a while to put that **** up under the carpet

 

[Dier Hard]

Brainfarts in pivotal games is an issue for the Magic man...CL finals aren't handed out for jokes. Think it will take me a while to put that **** up under the carpet

We’ll just do a Pool and right our wrongs next season

I’m over it now anyway, no point dwelling on the past for too long. All about looking forward.

 

[littleDinosaurLuke]

United are reportedly going to take Bale on loan... no fee but paying £500,000 per week in wages...that's £25m for a loan for a year

Getting him for a period for no transfer fee sounds like good business.
His wages may be high, but any player of his stature would demand upwards of £15M per year.
He's 30 next month so paying £80M or so to buy him equates to £20M per year in transfer fees alone over 4 years for a player who would be 34 at the end of that period and a have a drastically reduced value because of his age.
A loan sounds great to me - as long as he finds some form!!

 

["Thanks for that Brian"]

Bale for no money up front, wages only is a bargain. In shirt sales and sponsorships, he'd bring in most/all of that for United. We'd probably need a bit of discount but it's not impossible.

The player holds all the cards here. Madrid have given him a mental deal and now they want rid. If he wants to come to us and MP wants him, this could be a VdV type deal for us. If I was him, I'd sort out where I want to go and wait...

 

[The RDBD]

Bale for no money up front, wages only is a bargain. In shirt sales and sponsorships, he'd bring in most/all of that for United. We'd probably need a bit of discount but it's not impossible.

The player holds all the cards here. Madrid have given him a mental deal and now they want rid. If he wants to come to us and MP wants him, this could be a VdV type deal for us. If I was him, I'd sort out where I want to go and wait...

Perez will be dreading Spurs killing him with his own sword over Bale.
If his 'golfing holiday' leave threat is true, he only has to say that if he is
going on loan back to England that Spurs is his choice, and then their
bean counters will start sweating big-time.

 

[PleaseNotPoll]

Bale and Sanchez can play golf together, while picking up about £1m a week.

 

["Thanks for that Brian"]

Perez will be dreading Spurs killing him with his own sword over Bale.
If his 'golfing holiday' leave threat is true, he only has to say that if he is
going on loan back to England that Spurs is his choice, and then their
bean counters will start sweating big-time.

So enormous is his salary, that getting half of it off the books could be a saving of £15m a season. No matter their wealth, they don't want to be paying a player £30m to turn up for training and nothing more. It's not good for business, morale or a President's re-election (due 2021).

He'll be gone this summer, no matter how bad a deal they have to swallow. The sums involved means that Bale holds all the cards on where and can extract some of his current salary on top.

As my old man told me, "If you owe someone money, make sure it's a lot of money. If you owe them a little bit, it's your problem. If you owe someone a lot, it's their problem." He went bankrupt about 6 years ago.

 

[PleaseNotPoll]

So enormous is his salary, that getting half of it off the books could be a saving of £15m a season. No matter their wealth, they don't want to be paying a player £30m to turn up for training and nothing more. It's not good for business, morale or a President's re-election (due 2021).

He'll be gone this summer, no matter how bad a deal they have to swallow. The sums involved means that Bale holds all the cards on where and can extract some of his current salary on top.

As my old man told me, "If you owe someone money, make sure it's a lot of money. If you owe them a little bit, it's your problem. If you owe someone a lot, it's their problem." He went bankrupt about 6 years ago.

It's the old Jean Paul Getty quote:
"If you owe the bank $100 that's your problem. If you owe the bank $100 million, that's the bank's problem."

 

[bigsmithy9]

You could be talking about Donald Trump!....and the banks!!!!!

I can't see that Bale would return to Spurs. He had a great spell here and it would be sad to watch a player decline in performance!

 

["Thanks for that Brian"]

It's the old Jean Paul Getty quote:
"If you owe the bank $100 that's your problem. If you owe the bank $100 million, that's the bank's problem."

So he nicked that as well? It shouldn't surprise me. The old man always had a flexible attitude to who owned what and the application of the law.

 

[The RDBD]

So enormous is his salary, that getting half of it off the books could be a saving of £15m a season. No matter their wealth, they don't want to be paying a player £30m to turn up for training and nothing more. It's not good for business, morale or a President's re-election (due 2021).

He'll be gone this summer, no matter how bad a deal they have to swallow. The sums involved means that Bale holds all the cards on where and can extract some of his current salary on top.

I am glad that Bale never became the heir to CR7 (as some there may
have planned) , and he got all those CL medals + mega bucks in return.
Him possibly being a wage leech is just a bonus.

All that is left is for Madrid to fade into CL mediocrity for long enough
before their next winners trophy.

 

[humanbeingincroydon]

Such a charming fanbase...

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[Dier Hard]

Woodgate set to be named Boro boss.

Best of luck to him, loved watching the rare moments we got to see him and Ledley at the back. Best CB pairing I’ve seen at Spurs, just a shame we only got about 25-30 games of them in the XI together... but in those 25 or so games, we were so defensively sound it almost felt unfair. Jan and Toby make a great second and their longevity in the XI over the years should essentially make them “the best” I’ve seen but King and Woody were something else. Not really a coincidence the last trophy we won was with those two at the back.