F.A. Cup 2023 Thread

I was having a pop at City not you.

When City get sanctioned for cheating will they lose the cups as well or is it just the Premier league investigating the cheating?

Just to say, I genuinely don't care if City win the treble from a fan point of view. I know one City fan, and he's not even obnoxious.

But if you think what you're watching is legit, you're fooling yourself. It is not normal for the last 4 months of the season to have zero jeopardy. They've never been behind. They've never been in trouble.

Utd, the third best team in England this season, couldn't lay a glove without some Grealish madness. Not a glove.

Arsenal, the second best team this season, couldn't get near them twice in the league.

This is what the FA's ineptitude in dealing with the cheating has done. All it needed was a supercoach to stick around an oil run club for long enough, and a jeopardy-less season has happened. It was inevitable.

No word of a lie, I stopped my football subscriptions in March. I've had them since well before Liverpool under Klopp. The whole thing is lifeless.

In the United era of dominance, and 1999, there was always jeopardy. They were moments from losing or fùcking up multiple times. It's what made it memorable for me, even though I fúcking hated it.

This City is different.

Bang on.

The effort Liverpool put it in for those few years to keep up only resulted in one title and the liklihood of Klopp getting back to that point is minimal.

It took everything they had to achieve that success, City barely break a sweat.

Similarly with Arsenal this year, best league performance in two decades, not good enough.

United had a lot of success under Ferguson, most of it was edge of your seat stuff, the treble was miraculous but every game was on a knife edge.

The Premier League allowed this to happen and in doing so they've devalued their own product.

The toothpaste is out of the tube and all the charges and rumours and innuendo are coming too late.

As much as I dislike City, you have to take the moaning of Utd, Liverpool, Barca, Real Madrid fans with a pinch of salt.

It was all great for decades when they were able to buy the best players, outspend everyone else, get all the decisions etc, but now they aren't winning any more, the toys are out of the pram. They want the old days back, well sorry but they are gone. The authorities have sold the game a long time again. There is no way of going back. And you might all soon be hoping for a super league so you can compete.

That is true but only if city were buying all the good players and paying everyone legally much like Chelsea did, and madrid did for years. But man city decided fir some reason to pay players under the table, just seems totally unnecessary and a bit arrogant.

Since when are the Saudis in for United?

Tbf none of what you're saying seems particularly well informed.

It's Jim Ratcliffe and the Qatari's.

You seem to be ignoring some pretty egregious behaviour by City.

We've all been watching football for decades so that's an odd attempt at establishing some sort eminence here.

Yeah... there's always this narrative that it's just the cabal of 'old' clubs having a problem with City because it encroaches on their turf. As if they're this little elite society sticking together, when in actual fact they have all hated each other during their own fallow periods. So the resentment of a stronger foe has always been there, but with it came a grudging respect. I think it's that latter element that's gone, as a result of the fact that it's all being achieved entirely outside of the football finance eco-system (breaking said eco-system in the process to an extent that will likely lead to some form of implosion before too long).

Also City have created a level of continuous consistent established dominance never before seen. The cycle of teams qualifying for the CL fairly continuously shifted over the years, with everyone having ups and downs, dropping in and out, opening space for other teams to move up and have a pop - but since City first qualified for the CL, they have qualified every single subsequent year. The only team to do so, by a mile. Rather than valiantly breaking down the gates of the old power structures, they've lowered the odds for anyone else making it up - it's now City+3 that will take part in the CL. And it's probably safe to say that very soon it with be City+Newcastle+2.

They aren't moaning about too much money in the game.

They are moaning about the cheating.

You must work for the BBC, they never once mentioned the cheating today either.

So you're OK with City's behaviour then?

I'm sick of this narrative that it's fans of big teams who are simply sore that City have money. It's lazy, uninformed and desperate.

It's the cheating. It's the fact that it's so obvious too. But we're supposed to believe they're just really well run, but within the rules.

They buy the best players (eg Haaland and Grealish), whilst keeping their best players on big contracts, whilst paying the best manager, whilst assembling the best football structure, whilst renovating their stadium, whilst stockpiling all the best youth talent for as long as they're useful, whilst cutting the world's best sponsorship deals to pay to do all of these things simultaneously. All whilst every other club, even elite ones, have to pick and choose when they do things.

But I'm supposed to believe it's because they're the only club able to do all these because they're simply 'well run', and no other club can.

It's insulting tbh.

I find it really odd that it's not ever questioned by anyone in the media, ever. Like it's a 115 tonne elephant in the room but all we get is fawning platitudes. Will be really interesting to see what the reaction is if alot of the charges stick.

And with empty seats at most home games.

It's all above board. All their sponsorship comes from Abu Dhabi and Newcastle are already lining up Saudi sponsorship for their new regime.

Obviously it's just sour grapes from fans of other clubs.

Especially given that they can't fill the commonwealth games stadium.

For years they were shite at it, adebayor, tevez, wayne bridge loads of them offloaded at huge loss. Its only recently they have become good at it. Its hardly suspicious at all?

Most of the profitable sales have come from youth players or players cycled through the rest of the group. Picking them up on the continent for peanuts.

Someone mentioned Torres, they turned a profit on him, no financial hit. Got him for a decent price, he did alright, scored a few decent goals for spanish national team and made a profit on him by selling him back to barca(albeit on the never never).

Cancelo will likely take a hit as no one is stupid enough to pay big bucks for him…

The players mentioned were all offloaded at huge losses in recent memory yet the club have a turn-over on par with Real Madrid.

I know fans will do their damndest to defend their chosen club but it simply is not possible that City fans can look at the starting base less than 15 years ago and honestly believe it's all on the up and up, if ye were truthful on the subject. I don't expect an honest answer but please don't try to shyte in a cone and tell me its ice cream.

I think ever since City started hoovering up league titles a few years ago, I stopped being bothered by them. They’re not winners in a traditional sense, they don't have moments where they struggle. The worst adversity they over come is maybe a blip where they lose a game or draw a couple. Due to their doped squad strength, they can afford to rotate without it affecting the overall quality of the team. Look at Stones for example, a fantastic defender that would walk into most sides in the league, but barely played for the last 5 games of the season. Or Mahrez, who would start for most teams week in, week out yet was rested for pretty much the month of February.

Thats not canny management, it’s cheating.

I’m sure many city fans couldn’t care less what I think, and see it as sour grapes or whatever, but I won’t recognise the greatness of City. Whenever they win a league or a cup, I just shrug, because it’s like a void year, no-one deserving won the trophy.

And if they are ever stripped of their titles, it’ll be the same. No one will recognise those that came behind City as winners of those titles.

Are you talking turnover or revenue in relation to all income or just player sales?

When city offloaded these players they posted huge losses, mostly in the first 5-10 years since the takeover.

Have you looked into detail the revenue of City versus Madrid for the financial year you mention?

With respect managing that City squad is something that at least two dozen experienced coaches in European Leagues could do successfully.When you have 20+ World class players that you can rotate and rest at will during the Season without a fear of a drop off in performance it’s not a bad job!

£100 million on average talents...

Nah, I would have a look at in detail to see for myself what the numbers are and try figure it out. And then when having a debate I would pin point exactly where my suspicions are and try hear the other side. But that doesn’t happen on this forum when it comes to city, people(not aimed at initial poster) throw out a few lines and there taken as fact to be regurgitated many more times by multiple other people who have no clue and accept it all as fact.

Its absolutely preposterous for city to have slightly more revenue in a financial year than Real Madrid and must be cheating but for eg Spurs can have significantly more than Atl Madrid and not a single person questions that.