Wasn't Liverpool success funded too
Bluemoon goes into Meltdown
- Thread starter Logan!
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Well said @noodlehair
Perfect analogy.
20 years later, the two fat blokes have gotten in shape, they're now extremely successful and are dating from the same pool of girls as the other 3 blokes in the bar, does anybody in this story really give a shit about what the two blokes looked like two decades ago?
Totally agree with all this. United are the big club they are now not because they have history and won stuff 60 odd years ago, but because they won stuff when the money in football went crazy. There are plenty of historically great clubs who were having bad patches during the 90s, and they'll never catch back up without a big injection of cash.
It's more luck than history! And people will soon forget City were a smaller club, because we're very nearly at the point where, historically (for a lot of young supporters) City were winning the league.
A well reasoned reply but I still disagree. Despite winning 4 or 5 titles in a decade I would say with reasonable certainty that 5 or 10 years from now when picking the best Prem team of all time, leaving out city fans, no city players would make a team picked by 100 fans. Not saying some aren't worthy, but the club and their new Abu Dhabi stadium and pumping billions into guaranteed success just have no romance or weight behind them. Its not just about money which is an inevitable part of the game, but how they've come to be combined with what they lack. Shearer is a good example I've already given. Id be surprised if the average 20 year old fan on the continent even knows who he is. But they'd all or mostly be familiar with cantona, who had a much shorter span and scored far less.
Aguero scoring 200 goals at the nou camp is simply going to be received differently (not diminishing it) to him doing it at Oil Fc,by many people.
This is a very eloquent article that puts things better than I can. Its from an overseas paper and reflects what i mean
https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.ir...d-they-re-paying-the-price-1.3897613?mode=amp
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That was Leeds, United signed Ferdinand in 2002 for £30m but despite being the richest club in the world at the time that was United's entire transfer budget blown on one player. A year later in 2003 Chelsea spent £150m on players and have continued to spend similar amounts these days they're spunking £200m+ in transfer windows, same with City a few years later right up to the present day. We never got anywhere near that level of spending under Ferguson, so you can't compare United's spending to City or Chelsea's it's just on another level that no club that isn't financially doped can compete with.
Chelsea went crazy in the early years of RA because they needed to play catch up. Once they got there they eased off, that is why they're 4th/5th on the ten year net spend list in the PL.
To be honest, I don't get why so many fans get so caught up with spending of other clubs, especially if their clubs also spend serious dollar (Utd are 2nd in the ten year list for instance.)
For me, people either need to accept spending as we see it, or have to push for a hard salary cap that is applicable to all teams equally. Having teams like Utd, Real, Barca, Juve, Milan, Inter etc plead poverty/complain that others spending is unfair is really rich as one of the main reasons for it is that in the 90s when football went stratospheric with money, they hovered a lot of it up and spent like crazy. As a result other clubs had two options: a) accept the new order or b) get a rich owner and try to buy their way in.
Personally, I really cannot see how people feel that they should've just accepted option a.
You make some good points, although I don’t think Aguero is going to be ranked right at the top due to his failure to make an impact either in the Champions League or at international level. Domestically, though, he has been one of the league’s best ever strikers.
One other point to bear in mind regarding United fans‘ attitude to City. For years, City fans disparaged United as a souless corporate monster and even spread the ridiculous claim that everyone in Manchester supported City. It’s amusing to see how fans of the homespun club of Eddie Large and Curly Watts adjusted almost overnight to the club’s new identity as a heavily financially-doped, sport washing vehicle.
I'd also add in, no players seem to really care about a club's history anyway - it's more for fans to argue with other fans but it has no bearing on the future. City should be treated with contempt because of who their owners are, not because they pump money into the club and are successful. Aguero is a PL great and will go into the PL Hall of Fame.
So you think the only two options are/were accept you'll never be able to compete or just wait to be bought out by a Russian Oligarch or a middle eastern state intent on beginning a sportswashing project?
Also when exactly did United spend like crazy in the 90's? Pretty sure I read last week we only the biggest spenders in the PL in 2 of Ferguson's 21 Premier League Seasons. 98/99 and 02/03
United were successful in the 90's and 00's because of good business management (mostly pre Glazers), a sound transfer policy that included calculated risks (despite a very restrictive wage structure) and a successful academy. Not because we spent way more than every other team.
Well clubs if you go down a FFP route cannot compete 'naturally' anymore as the big boys come in and strip them as soon as they put a decent team together. Look at Monaco 17, Ajax 19 etc. So the choice is get a benefactor or accept you place in the food chain. This was also happening in the 90s/00s look at West Ham for instance with the Rio, Defoe, Lampard, Cole, Johnson crop etc.
Only way around it is a hard cap and none of the big boys will sign up to that.
A bold prediction (the bit I made bold) because in 5 years time Phil Foden will be 26, in 10 years 31 and according to Pep he is better than Messi was when he was coming through.
Let us see what happens shall we?
Monaco was stripped mostly by City and PSG, West Ham lost Cole and Johnson to Roman backed Chelsea. Financially doped clubs with unlimited resources have made things worse for clubs aspiring to compete for the top prizes. The either or scenario you described of not trying and/or waiting for a billionaire wasn't a thing pre Roman in 2003.
Sadly now with City, Chelsea and PSG inflating the market to such an extent hoping for some nefarious regime to take you over probably is the only to make it to the top these days. In the past other clubs could and regularly did spend more than the richest club in England (United). Now United still the richest English club on paper (and even Real/Barca) can't match the sugar daddy clubs spending so what hope does the rest of the footballing pyramid have?
There are only so many billionaires and middle eastern states in the market for a sportwashing project.
Pointless, the likes of City and PSG are probably already paying players a second salary under the table. They'd sign up and then just ignore it and break the rules as they did with FFP.
A great point that is routinely missed by those who blabber on about how clubs can only compete via the means of state backing.
As if the consequence of them buying off talent from a specific club means nothing. I’d add Arsenal to that list too, Nasri, Adebayor etc. Chelsea and city have been able to take the likes of Sterling, Walker, Torres off other top PL clubs at their peak. Something nobody else in England can do, we were only able to sign Sanchez and Rvp because their contracts were expiring.
Making out oil money has been for the good of the game is the most disingenuous argument for years.
Some people just don't see it yet. The worst part of the argument for me is when people say they're only spending like United or other clubs did in the past which is absolute nonsense. No club pre Roman was able to spend £150-250m in a single window. And even some of the worlds biggest clubs like Barca and Real can only do similar by getting themselves into mountains of debt trying to keep up.
Aguero's da now accusing Pep of crocodile tears
https://www.espn.com/soccer/manches...a-of-fake-tears-over-manchester-city-farewell
https://www.espn.com/soccer/manches...a-of-fake-tears-over-manchester-city-farewell
Is that actually true?
First of all, Robinho thought he had signed for Chelsea and Sparky had to correct him. Second, United history didn’t start in the 60’s or was earlier. Third City are owned by a regime that is dodgy and very ‘smart’ if not sly when it comes to rules. The City Football group are buying up nothing clubs all over the place to circumvent FFP rules. Remember Lampard signing for New York City who immediately ‘loaned’ him to Man City. That kept a transfer fee and wages of Man City’s books. They have done the same trick in Australia. Look at the ‘sponsorship’ Etihad Airways bought the naming rights for the stadium in a £500m ten year deal when £2m was thought to be a lot. Etihad Airways haven’t made a profit yet or if they have it’s tiny. As they are owned by a relative of Sheik Mansour, it does break FFP. They have been found out twice for breaking the rules but have got off lightly because UEFA are shit scared of litigation which would cost millions but City would do it as they have the money. Raheem Sterling and co take the knee for Black Lives Matter but don’t give a monkeys about political prisoners held without trial in Abu Dhabi. Finally, as part of the deal to get saint Guardiola ( banned twice for drug taking in his playing days) his brother Pere apparently owns part of Girona. Pere is also an agent and it is supposed to be against the rules for agents to own clubs. City also loan players to Girona which must please the other clubs in La Liga. In summary, dodgy, dodgy club and owners.
Help! my head is hurting... have you quoted me and sent this to me in error, because I made no mention of Robinho going anywhere (but to be fair it is a well known conspiracy theory that he was signing for Utd. not City when he got off the plane - I don't know where the Chelsea thing comes from).
If you want me to address your other points, I will have a go, but first, can I check, are you talking to me? (Taxi driver lol)
Teams gets stripped regardless. In Germany, all the teams get stripped by Bayern, Ajax 19 got stripped equally by the top European teams. Portugese teams typically get stripped by Real and Barca. Spanish league teams get stripped by Real/Barca or English clubs if they hold them off (Bilbao do this.)
As for West Ham, the main damage was done by selling Rio and Lampard as that set the blueprint, however they went to pre-Roman Chelsea and Leeds.
I am amazed people don't recognise the shift that happened when Silvo B took over Milan. That really was the start of the big money in football (coupled with TV) and the concentration of wealth into the top teams from that era.
Let's put it this way, if Chelsea, City or PSG didn't get money pumped into them, do you think anyone would've broken into the top echelons of European football? For me the answer is no, if they hadn't done that Utd would probably by be PL 27 or more and the the CL would be even more concentrated than it is.
I get as a Utd fan, why this isn't liked. However, as a football fan principally it is more interesting to have this competition.
Probably cause they don't know about the moores family and their external investments used to bankroll you.I see that question got the responses it deserved.
United was a huge club globally before the 90s due to Busby babies, Best, Law and Charlton and never reached the lows of City. Even before Fergie era, the gap between City and the rest (Liverpool, Arsenal, Manchester) was immense. And still is in terms of how these clubs are viewed. It will take 2 decades before they will be "accepted" as a true big club. It is almost 20 years since Roman took over Chelsea and many still considered them as just an oil club, and Chelsea was already established as a semi-big club, even before Roman.
You make some fair points, but what people often forget is that for every signing of a player like Ferdinand, we were selling academy players to other PL and Championship players for decent sums, and we were often only signing one high-priced player per season. In 2002/03, the season we signed Ferdinand, we were outspent by a side coming up from the Championship. Manchester City, as it happens. When we bought Hargreaves, Nani and Anderson in 2007/08, we were again outspent by a pre-oil money Manchester City. People forget that because, while they finished the season with a 8-1 hammering by Middlesbrough, we won the PL and CL with those players.
While City haven't spent as much as us in transfer fees on individual players, they have spent more by buying multiple players and paying more in wages. In 2016/17 when we signed Pogba for £89m, City's most expensive signing may only have cost £47.5m (Stones), but they still outspent us by £60m! In 2019/20, when we bought Maguire, they again spent about £10m more than us on players. People just don't seem to realise this.
Those 3 clubs specifically who knows but there was nothing stopping any of them or any other club from hiring the right manager, making smart signings and investing in their academies and producing top talents to compete with the best. You know the way teams used to get to the top for over a century. It's not as if Chelsea were a tiny club that had never won anything pre Roman either. Sorry mate but this idea that the only way to become a top team and club pre 2003 was to get bought by a billionaire is nonsense. As I said it's probably only the case now ironically because of the 3 financially doped clubs inflating the market to such an extent that virtually no club can keep up with them.
United would have had a down turn post Fergie even if City and Chelsea weren't around as we've been in a mess. It simply would have been other clubs winning the league, the fact City and Chelsea have won the league in 6 of the 8 seasons post Fergie says it all. Liverpool only managed to win one by hiring the right manager, making smart signings and producing some top players from their academy. Despite being one of the worlds biggest clubs that's the only way they can compete with City. What hope does any other club have?
The Champions League has lead to the concentration of wealth in a few clubs in each league over the last 30 years. And the Champions League of course has been shaped over the last 2 decades by big clubs strong arming UEFA into more and more concessions that generate money for them so UEFA can stave off the threat of a breakaway Super League. A Super League which teams like Real, Juve, Barca, United and Liverpool have wanted because FFP has failed (and was never effective) and they can't compete financially with the bottomless pits of wealth flowing from Gas/Oil rich nation states.
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Well I just look at the leagues in Europe where this didn't happen and see:
Italy - Juve - 9 in a row, only broken this year
Germany - Bayern - 9 in a row and counting
Spain - Three teams have only won the league in the past 17 years and of those 17 only 2 didn't go to Real or Barca.
France is really the only exception, they did get fecked over by PSG as that league always had different winners.
For me, it is pretty obvious that the PL would've become like Italy/Germany/Spain. I mean it was close to being like that from 92. I mean, didn't the PL have the least different amount of winners of a top European league between 1992-2004?
Of course there would've been a wobble post SAF but I think it would've been that, a wobble, everything else indicates leagues become monopolized.
So you are refuting my claim that you didn't need a billionaire owner to get to the top of English football before 2003. By saying that post 2003 in completely different countries and leagues that teams won 9 in a row in Italy and Germany over the last decade and that only 3 teams have won in Spain. Well done.
English football has always been more competitive than those leagues. United were only so dominant because we had a once in a generation manager, arguably the greatest of all time. Had Ferguson not been in charge 1992-2013 then I seriously doubt we win 13 out of 21 league titles. Not many managers could have kept a team competing at the top of Engalnd and Europe with such a restrictive wage structure and then compete with finacially doped teams like Chelsea and City while operating on a budget because of the massive debt placed on the club. Without Ferguson United couldn't have dominated the way they did from 93 to 13.
And for me it's pretty obvious that now more than ever there's a danger we're heading towards a 1 team league and it's not far off City winning 7-8-9 titles in a row. Especially since they won't even have to pretend to comply with FFP anymore.
No what I was saying is that from the late 1980's through to the 1990's football had a seismic shift that began to concentrate the wealth into the hands of the established elite clubs. Three key events are important here:
1) Formation of the CL
2) The formation of the PL
3) The explosion in TV rights money
Hence, what happened is that teams that were most successful during this period essentially gave themselves a massive financial injection that took them away from the rest the the clubs in their leagues and cemented the top 4 leagues superiority over the rest of Europe.
Hence, owing to the amount of power the big clubs got from this shift, it required outside money to break into it once it was done.
Another point that you seem to lose is the arguement that the Billionaire clubs/money has made things more competitive as:
1) There have been more winners of the league since they came along than before it.
2) Of the three clubs to win the league pre-Billionaire spending, Blackburn essentially had to do a 90's equivalent of it to win the league.
3) Leagues where they have not had a Billionaire investor have seen their leagues become completely dominated by one, or two (in the case of Spain) clubs as those clubs have been able to complete cement their position.
As I initially said, it is hard to complain about Billionaire owners when clubs had no real chance of competing unless they went that route (feck me even Blackburn had to do it). Now is this perfect, no? However, what other options are there? FFP was a joke, as it was simply a cartel system, and a hard salary cap is never going to be agreed (this would actually be fair.)
1, 90-00 Arsenal, Leeds, United, Blackburn.
00-10 United, Arsenal, Chelsea. Post Roman in this decade only United could compete with Chelsea.
10-20 United, City, Chelsea, Leicester and Liverpool. Bar Leicester which was a fluke and probably won't happen again only United at the start of the decade and Liverpool right at the end stopped City and Chelsea dominating.
Let's see how the next decade goes. Especially if the Saudis buy a team.
2, Blackburn spent no where near the type of money City and Chelsea do. A local businessman done good invested a 20-30 million and his hometown club were able to win the PL. That won't happen again with nation States Bank rolling teams.
3, That's largely to do with the CL. Germany has always been dominated by Bayern to some extent. Same with Barca and Real in Spain. Before Juve Inter won 5 in a row. France is being dominated because of a gulf state buy out.
Arsenal, Blackburn and Newcastle were able to compete fine without billionaire owners in the 90's before Roman came along.
Yes FFP was a joke and City and PSG treated it as such. They'd do the same with a salary cap enforced by UEFA. That's partly why 10 of the clubs wanted a super league with strict financial limits that teams had to agree to
Sooo where's the Bluemoon meltdown lads
Don’t quite know what the discussion is here but Lyon were pretty dominant for a while before PSG. 2001-2007. That’s almost all of the naughties.
This
There is only one solution.
Every time at football club is taken over by a plastic, billionaire, cheating, murder-driven owner, they are annexed into a new league system.
Let’s call it the Plastic League
Basically, at the moment, Chelsea, Man City and PSG would have to be moved into the Plastic League. This entails them playing an eternal round robin tournament against each other, segregated from actual football clubs.
The actual football clubs could then get on with a fair competition, where teams are successful through merit,rather than cheating and attempting to cover up gross human rights crimes.
Maybe once a team turns plastic, a new team is created in the actual football league which assumes their name and qualities.
Meanwhile, over at the Plastic League, if Chelsea, Man City and PSG get bored of their eternal round robin competition where they play each other endlessly in a plastic eternal round robin, they might want to introduce a cup competition.
The new Plastic Cup would involve Chelsea, Man City and PSG playing each other in an eternal round robin competition.
Meanwhile all the actual football clubs get to bring the integrity, authenticity and joy back to the game we all love.
Win win!
Every time at football club is taken over by a plastic, billionaire, cheating, murder-driven owner, they are annexed into a new league system.
Let’s call it the Plastic League
Basically, at the moment, Chelsea, Man City and PSG would have to be moved into the Plastic League. This entails them playing an eternal round robin tournament against each other, segregated from actual football clubs.
The actual football clubs could then get on with a fair competition, where teams are successful through merit,rather than cheating and attempting to cover up gross human rights crimes.
Maybe once a team turns plastic, a new team is created in the actual football league which assumes their name and qualities.
Meanwhile, over at the Plastic League, if Chelsea, Man City and PSG get bored of their eternal round robin competition where they play each other endlessly in a plastic eternal round robin, they might want to introduce a cup competition.
The new Plastic Cup would involve Chelsea, Man City and PSG playing each other in an eternal round robin competition.
Meanwhile all the actual football clubs get to bring the integrity, authenticity and joy back to the game we all love.
Win win!
Entirely self-sustained though, from players signed cheaply and sold for far more. No one has a problem with that model.
Some decent points, but a strange point about Blackburn. Fees were so much lower then so of course they didn't spend what Chelsea and City do, but at the time they were doing the same level of outspending of rivals. I always think that 5m for Sutton is what really blew the domestic market to bits.
Plus teams didn't use as big a squad in those days so fewer players to buy.
Even taking inflation into account mate Blackburn weren't able to spend 3-4 times what even United could afford to spend in one window let's be honest here.
The biggest outlay in a PL transfer window was I think £50m+ by United in 2001. 2 years later in 2003 Chelsea were spending £150m in a window.
Even 20 years later £150m is a fairly big outlay in one window for even big clubs. Circa the late 90's early 00's it was unprecedented. I don't think City even spent more than that in a window until after Guardiola arrived.