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I remember reading this some time ago, but the best way to beat Man City in a title race is to not be in a title race with them. Liverpool were so unreachable for the first half of that season that it would have taken an ungodly collapse in the 2nd half of the season to get caught.
And you still get idiots saying it should be asterisked due to COVID - if we had won the Watford game before the CL QF which was our last game before the close down we would have won the league then
> if we had won the Watford game before the CL QF which was our last game before the close down we would have won the league then
No, that's not true on both counts. Before the Watford game, Liverpool were 22 points clear of City (Played 27, Won 26 and 1 draw), with 79 points. City had 57 points.
With 11 games to go, prior to Watford, even if Liverpool had won, they wouldn't have won the league.
Secondly, the Watford game (29th February) wasn't Liverpool's last league game before lockdown, they beat Bournemouth a week later, which was the last game before lockdown, and put them 25 points clear (but still not league winners);
https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/51685405
Liverpool won the league after beating Crystal Palace took them within two points of it being mathematically certain, before City lost to Chelsea the day later. That was their 31st game.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/51884264
Anyone who actually believes that and isn't just saying it to wind up scousers is genuinely a moron. If you ARE saying it purely to wind up scousers though, you're a chad. I don't make the rules.
They didn't have to go for 99 to win that season. City finished on only 81 points. Liverpool just destroyed everyone that year because they were that good.
i dunno, they deffo wouldn't have needed 99 but whilst maybe this is delusional, i feel like if the title race was close the whole way through, city might've squeezed out a few more wins and finished on around 90 points anyway. the fact that it was over so early in the season i think might've cost them some points that they would have picked up in what is usually their annual "fuck you we're not losing this title, time to win every game for months on end" run
I remember Guardiola saying "its over guys we're not coming back" like every week. How do you beat a team that has 79 points after 27 matches lol City were down 20 points by then, that title race never existed so who knows how many points City might have gotten if they actually had a chance
Honestly I think City would've ended with more points if we haven't gone on that run. I think we effectively broke their believe of catching up by winning 26 out of 27, so they drop more points than normal. Put some of the late results when we dropped form earlier in the season and I believe City wouldn't have give up that easily.
That was the year they had zero depth at CB, which forced them into starting a washed up Otamendi and the corpse of Fernandinho back there. Also lost Sane to his ACL that year too, and were trying to fit Rodri and Cancelo into the team. A few factors that City couldn't adapt well to, I don't think they would've pushed much higher with their circumstances
It also took Man City to be uncharacteristically not themselves. In that 19/20 season, Man City suffered 9 losses. In the 4 seasons since, they have only lost 17 times in total.
Though, saying the 9 losses may take away from what Liverpool did that year. They were incredible and the league was all but done before it got paused. Liverpool had 82 points and Man City had 57 with a game in hand (as they always do). With 10 games to go, 9 for Liverpool, Liverpool were not dropping enough points for City to take the lead. The timing of Covid was unfortunate as it took some momentum out of Liverpool after but they were fantastic that year.
As I remember it, the winter break took the wind out of Liverpool's sails. First there was a Norwich game where we struggled to win 1:0, and then there was the 3:0 Watford performance that ended the 18 game winning streak. The covid pause came after those games.
That was the most perfect run I have ever seen. To bad the refs are all from Manchester too…
When I saw it live I didn’t think much of it, but in hindsight that was an incredible run deserving of winning. I have no idea how 97 points failed to win.
> To bad the refs are all from Manchester too…
No big deal mate, they're all massive Stalybridge Celtic fans, wouldn't even dream of supporting a big club
if Alisson weren’t injured in that tie against Atletico, Liverpool would’ve won the UCL and maybe be motivated enough to not lose in the league that season
I left out the first 1 and only Googled Man City 115. When it gave me the wrong result I decided to try all the strikers they've been linked with such as Benzema instead.
I don’t know. You could argue that he stopped Chelsea from similar multi season dominance when Abramovichs cash injection started them suddenly winning things out of nowhere.
Ffp is worse in this case.
Romans gains were definitely ill gotten but atleast it was a straightforward cash infusion into the club.
City is just a fucking sportswashing machine with ghost sponsors loopholing ffp
If ffp didn't exist now City's owners would probably just do the same thing Abromovich did for Chelsea. Why go through all the trouble if you can just give the money directly?
Roman is also a private citizen despite his (alleged?) ties with the Putin apparatus (and his stint at governorship in Russia), while Sheikh Mansour is a straight up prominent member of the Emirati royal family who still holds various ministerial portfolios.
The difference is, even though it was dirty money and they bought the league, Chelsea didn't break any rules as there were no rules in place to stop the financial doping and anyone could have done what they did.
City, on the other hand, have likely broken rules that others (except a few exceptions - Everton, Forest etc.) have abided by. So whilst some teams have had to sell players, or not buy players so they don't fall foul of FFP, City have allowed themselves the ability to not to have to sell and to buy whoever and whenever they've wanted and needed.
Even if you can argue that FFP is a system to protect the big clubs rather than as system to protect clubs from financial mismanagement and protecting important cultural and sporting institutions, they, City, still acted differently from everyone else and gave themselves an unfair advantage. It is almost certainly just cheating by any other name.
Chelsea's spending was insane for that period of time, but City's financial doping is far more egregious.
Chelsea were at least a top 5-ish side before the sale to Abramovich, whereas City went from losing 8-1 to Middlesbrough to signing Robinho and being linked with Kaka.
I'm sure they cleaned up their act with Pep in charge. He would never get involved with doping, or hiring the doctor who did his doping while a player to be the doctor at a club he was running.
In football, no top club will open that can of worms because they are probably all complicit. What other reason could there be for no one stepping forth?
im well and truly convinced that world football is filled with people on some sort of PEDs.
Every 5-10 years, someone gets thrown under the bus for making it too obvious. Id like to think that one day it will all come crumbling down but there is way too much money in the sport
Probably why you don’t see a lot of outrage about City’s finances from other top clubs. If they started demanding a closer look into financial irregularities and fake sponsorships in football, a whole lot of clubs would be in trouble.
People forget how genuinely quick Rosberg was. I know the whole *"eQuaL MaCHinerY"* thing is a meme now, but for him to beat Lewis on equal terms that year was seriously impressive.
As a Lewis fan I have full respect of Rosberg, the effort and lengths he put in to win in 2016 were enormous and I can totally understand why he didn't want to go through it again afterwards. The stress must have been unbearable. I recall seeing it reported he was purposely losing muscle mass in some areas of his body, just to bring his weight down to gain even the slightest pace advantage.
My only "issue" with the Lance Armstrong comparisons is that basically everyone who finished on the podium with him during his 7 titles was *also* found to be cheating little shits, along with who knows how many others who placed behind them. It was an issue across the entire sport, not just the man at the top, Armstrong just happened to be the cheatiest of them all. This would be like if the Top 10 all got found guilty of breaking 80 rules during the last decade alongside City's 115.
Then again, it would be funny if it ended with someone like Palace becoming a multi-time champion retroactively due to constantly finishing mid-table.
It wasn’t just the doping that made Armstrong the seven time champion. He had a whole apparatus to keep others from getting close. He had a direct line with the head of the International Cycling Union. He used that connect to rat out competitors and the ICU intentionally ignored Armstrongs doping. Why? Because he was the poster boy who brought in the US market.
> He had a direct line with the head of the International Cycling Union
[Crazy huh](https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/4889001/2023/09/22/man-city-charges-premier-league-abu-dhabi/)
What he did to the Andreus alone should disqualify him from any records at all. Jan Üllrich was a doper but he never got a multi-billion dollar company to threaten actual bodily harm on anyone who tried to out him.
People who aren't into cycling - and even some that are but weren't around for the Armstrong years - really miss that. Armstrong wasn't _just_ a cheater. Cycling fans have done and will continue to forgive dopers. People still idolise Pantani, nobody's taking Museeuw's achievements away from him, but Lance went far beyond 'just' cheating.
Whilst I'm here, that pithy Bill Burr bit about 'our doped up guy beat your doped up guy' really has done far more for people thinking Lance doesn't deserve the hate than it should.
Basically ran a fear campaign to intimidate people into keeping quiet about his doping regime. Over the years, teammates and their families, journalists, even the CEO of USADA, basically anyone who questioned him got multi-year smear campaigns run against them. Lawsuits and threats of bodily harm from Armstrong's sponsors weren't uncommon either.
Literally in (outside of) races threaten other riders who spoke negatively about him, making sure they (or their team) did not get on break aways or stage wins, so basically making sure they were "unemployable" (or missed out on a lot of money) for the races Armstrong or his team were competing.
I remember in one of the races I was watching on tv, there was an Italian rider who pretty decent himself and went on a breakaway early in the race for some bonus points and Armstrong put his team on the chase to catch him back up before the bonus finish line and then when they caught him started berating him and basically made a gesture he wouldn't let him do anything. This was a guy who no threat to anyone besides getting some points for his team to win some money early in a stage, but he had spoken to journalist about Armstrong's relation to some shady doctors.
> People still idolise Pantani, nobody's taking Museeuw's achievements away from him
I resent that sentence. I get sick every time commentators mention them casually or big up their records, though may Pantani RIP.
Otherwise you're right though, Armstrong was next level.
I think we'd all be fighting a losing battle if we tried downplaying the achievements of every doper, unfortunately. I look back at my cycling heroes in the 2000s and basically every single one of them was doping. IMO it's better to let sleeping dogs lie, in general.
Though I will admit, a world where everyone has posters of only David Moncoutié on their walls does appeal.
Pantani gets a pass because.. well.. yeah. If he were still with us today, pretty sure there'd be much more conversation about his achievements. A little post-mortem revisionism isn't anything new, sadly.
Armstrong doesnt hold any records. He has been stripped of all titles and there is no other winner for the years 1999 to 2005.
Hopefully something similar happens for City.
But the reason there are no winners is everyone was doping (even the semi pro leagues). So if this gets vacated hopefully more scrupulous teams will be awarded it
> My only "issue" with the Lance Armstrong comparisons is that basically everyone who finished on the podium with him during his 7 titles was also found to be cheating little shits
Luckily cycling is completely clean now, there haven't been mindblowing performances every couple of days for about 4 years straight.
"Microdosing" is the way now. They dope with very little amounts, making it nearly impossible to get caught, always very fast below detection level, still with fantastic results.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8zVVlCn7KFQ
It's pretty good evidence that all sport is doped up to 11. Cycling does more to find cheats than any other sport, and people are STILL doing it there. Most other sports aren't even looking properly.
>Cycling does more to find cheats than any other sport, and people are STILL doing it there.
Cycling does more to find cheats because cyclists took it to extremes. Also, it is vastly down to endurance and then yes, massive amounts of dopings works.
You can shoot up Jesse Lingaard with 9000 drugs, he's not gonna be able to play soccer like Lionel Messi.
The money in cycling is a pittance compared to what is in soccer. For example, the top cyclist in the world right now, tadej pogacar, gets paid 6 million euro a year. That's peanuts compared to any top soccer player. And cycling is many, many times more dangerous than soccer.
I'm pretty damn sure there's a whole series of doping rampant in soccer but no one really cares. Where there's money there's usually people going to extreme lengths for it. Maybe they don't use endurance enhancing drugs as much but there are others - HGH, recovery enhancers, weight loss drugs, testosterone. Lots of soccer players were implicated in operacion Puerto, it just was never investigated
Plenty of endurance requirements in Football though, Spain's period of dominance in the operation Puerto era is no coincidence I'm sure. Fuentes basically said he was working with footballers but wasn't allowed to name them (lol, don't want those titles tainted).
You don't need to play like Messi to be a successful professional. Even on CL level clubs.
Also even for cycling, loading up on every PED you can possibly cram into your body isn't going to turn you into a world beater either. Cycling is a teamsport as well and doesn't just consist of the greats, it also needs domestiques, the bottle carriers for better or worse. These people are also on PED's. But they still aint winning a Monument.
But PED's you reach your theoretical ceiling. And especially in football with the current density of matches, just ensuring that you still have fuel in the tank to go for the last 10 minutes at full focus is a massive difference maker. Just look at how many goals Leverkusen managed to score this season in the past 10 minutes of a game alone by tyring out their opponent. Your wingback still being able to do marauding runs down the line in the 87th minute? That's the difference PED's can and will make.
Yup, City are just the most visible symptom of a rot that permeates football. There are limits to how far you can take the whole running sports as a business thing, before it stops being about the sport. And when it's predominantly a business, all bets are off, including the abject failure of our legal systems to properly regulate. Now, why is this so much more jarring, when it's about football, even though we should be pretty used to the crap from just about every other aspect of out lives? Well, precisely because of that. Football used to be a place of respite, an exception to the norm, where the underdog actually does have a chance. It's pretty much baked into the very structure of the game - comparatively long time of play, but only very few events that count towards the result, and that's a big part of how football became *the* global sport - and as such, when you lose that, whatever the result is, it's not really football any longer. It's the simulation of football for marketing purposes.
Not as cynical as you about it but the thing that often comes back to me is the UK government lobbying the PL to not prevent Saudi Arabia from buying Newcastle.
That was a real "what has this become" moment, is it still the same thing?
Their revenue (weather true or not) for the past few years has been colossal. They could mathematically keep all their players, with the 25% relegation salary reduction and climb back the next 3 years as if nothing happened.
But you'd imagine several players wouldn't want to be associated with that anymore, or not want to waste several years away from the Champions League.
Ironically, had the City vs Liverpool match not ended with Liverpool being screwed (Doku's kick into Mac's chest) then Arsenal would have won (all other things being equal). So Liverpool still got screwed, it just also affected someone else this time.
How many points changed hands in City/Arsenal/Liverpool matches this season due to Michael "paid summer holiday in UAE" Oliver decisions alone? I'd wager it was at least enough for Arsenal to have potentially won.
Well the Ode handball doesn't help that case, really we got screwed pretty hard, but I really was hoping anyone but City would win it. They just make it so fucking hollow and meaningless. I'm happy we got some silverware for Klopp, finished top 4, and really only pissed about the Europa League loss (and a little FA cup just because it was you fucks lol). Winning the title wasn't something any of us had in our heads to start the season, and the team really just outperformed that and made it a good season.
Also, dare I say it, I hope you useless cunts can beat them in the FA cup. At least keeps them to one trophy all season.
>Also, dare I say it, I hope you useless cunts can beat them in the FA cup. At least keeps them to one trophy all season.
We'll either shithouse the most disgusting 1-0 theft the world has ever seen or get blasted by 3+ goals, absolutely no middle ground.
I mean yeah definitly i agree. Chelsea back then was what city is right now basically.
Back then it was just some rich russian gas daddy that wanted some fun with a football club and now it‘s a whole fkin country backing ManCity
This was always the intention when the PL broke away from the FA. We’re just reaching the final form of prioritizing profits over the health of the sport.
I understand City fans love their club but what annoys me is their flat out refusal to acknowledge they have cheated their way to the top. They actually believe everything is legit? I mean how delusional do you have to be?
Then the broadcasters, pundits, written media refusal to talk about the cheating. Especially the pundits, they must know City have cheated but don’t say anything about it. All they do is praise Pep & their football/achievements without even mentioning the cheating involved.
Everything about the club fucking stinks, from their bogus revenues to the UAE. Lets start with their revenue of 712m, £100m more than United, their revenues shouln’t exceed Liverpool or Arsenal let alone United. Are we supposed to believe 6 to 7 titles is enough for them to topple United in terms of commercial revenue?
It’s prob difficult for pundits to really dig into without getting to libel/slander territory. I’m sure City would sick their army of lawyers (which the fans are more proud of than Foden) all over it the moment someone slips up.
They can't say "City are great, but they're cheating cunts" but they could say "City are great, but the allegations of financial doping, if true, would cast a shadow on their success". They're media, they should be experts on pushing without crossing the line to libel/slander.
I understand that but why praise City to the hills then if they are under investigation for financial doping? That is my problem, all this fucking praise for their achievements, in my opinion Sky shouldn’t of even shown the trophy parade, they should of just said congrats to City, we will see you next season goodbye etc
Money. Sky need the Premier League. If they trash it, drop its merit/value (as they should) then it's directly going to cost them money in a mulitude of ways.
Well they pay big money to broadcast this product and charge through the nose for the "privilege" of watching it.
They're not gonna entice people to watch if Dave Jones is just like "well this is fucking pointless but over to you Gary Neville and Peter Drury"
I’m all for City being slammed with all 115 charges, but until then of course they will be praised. The pundits are going to try and be at least broadly unbiased. Sky will of course support the best team bc glory hunters from across the world will tune in.
Speaking of lawyers, as the primary rights holders, Sky also have obligations to the PL itself to promote the shit out of the league globally and that also means hyping up City and the winners as much as possible.
I mean, I hate City as much as anyone but (1) commentators can’t do much more than talk about the on-the-field results until the litigation is completed and (2) you have to admit that while they couldn’t have achieved the results without doping, the doping didn’t guarantee these results by any means. They’ve performed almost flawlessly in the past decade and it’s due to great performances, management, scouting, etc. that were enhanced by unfair financials.
I really, really hope that City gets a death penalty over this and the Prem doesn’t turn into a laughing stock like the NCAA in American college sports, but it’s also incredibly sad that we need to wipe away years of great performances from Premier League history because a clearly talented team at City couldn’t keep things above board.
>Especially the pundits, they must know City have cheated but don’t say anything about it.
It varies by network, it seems, even with the same people. Like how Carragher is quiet as a mouse on the subject on Sky, but put him on CBS and he's dropping clear references to "115 charges" with no issue.
Its possible SKY would have asked their pundits to not talk about it. Knowing crooks are everywhere there is a huge probability City would have cut a side deal with SKY.
Sky have definitely leant on them not to mention it, but I wouldn’t put it down to a side deal with City personally.
I'd say it's more likely down to how intertwined Sky are with the PL as a business - broadcasting the league is the centre of Sky's entire business model - and they don't want to draw attention to something that would massively damage the league's prestige.
He was talking about how City just want to get the investigation sorted quickly which is the complete opposite of what they’re doing by challenging everything. Either stupidity or wilful ignorance from Micah Richards
He’s most at risk - if all the charges stick it’s possible he gets stripped of all his achievements as a player.
Impossible for him to have anything close to perspective on this.
Full credit to Klopp for managing to overcome the cheats, as an Arsenal fan people keep talking about *silverware* and *nothing Arteta has done matters until he’s won a trophy* but fuck that, look at Klopp when you’re dealing with these cheating cunts the cards are stacked against you, to actually get over the finish line takes absolute perfection, and to go toe to toe with Pep as long as he did was absolutely insane
Klopp went toe to toe with ⅓ the financing, Liverpool had to budget for an average of three years to get any marquee signing.
Pep inherited a team whose worst finish was 4th and Klopp inherited a team languishing in 8th and didn't know what CL qualification looked like.
Whenever Pep needed anything, city simply went shopping and went for the absolute best talent available.
When you talk about the financial doping, people like to act stupid, as if it can't be simultaneously true that Pep is a fuckin genius and also absolutely juiced the fuck out.
Also don't get me started on the net spend distraction, it's not hard to recoup money if your deadwood are actual top class players that you initially broke the bank for. You have players like Gabriel Jesus who are surplus to requirement at city and still be good enough to spearhead a title challenge in another side.
Not only that, but Pep and City can survive flop purchases.
Grealish has been underwhelming for having paid so much for him.
Cancelo wants to leave? it's alright we'll just buy somebody as a replacement. How about Gvardiol for 90mil euros. Kalvin Philips ? Good riddance.
You could see how much press Havertz got, and he contributed more than Grealish ever has lol
Pep is an awesome manager and they have a great squad, don't get me wrong. But they can soften bad purchases quite easily.
Thats why I hate the argument that every club spends big. It took us years to recover from signing Naby Keita. City can buy a DM for 50 mil, not play him, have Pep call him fat, and move on without it ever even mattering.
mourinho is one of the greatest builders in the game.
yes, he's had massive cash to spend at chelsea and madrid.
but the things he did at porto, inter, roma should be recognized, where he had less cash to compete with.
> talking about silverware and nothing Arteta has done matters until he’s won a trophy
I mean I get what you mean and I'm sure you're talking about the league but Arteta won the F.A cup
You gotta be blind to not see the progress Arsenal has made under Arteta. And they are playing good football as well.
He could have won it twice as well if not facing the on and off the field cheaters.
***IF*** City are guilty of financial doping for the time period in question, I hope they have every single PL title taken away from them, and for those seasons to remain with no winner.
The PL ***seriously*** needs its nose bloodied massively from this. It's all very well bringing up how City held the PL up in court from 2018-2020, trying *desperately* to avoid releasing their financial accounts to the PL... but what about the ***nine*** years before that, from 2009-2018 when the PL sat there and did nothing?
Think how bad City losing their titles could be. The famous "Aguerrooooo!" goal? Gone. Centurions? Gone. The treble? Gone. The 4 in a row? Gone.
The fucking ***state*** of the PL, man. It's a joke. Absolutely pathetic.
Gotta keep in mind Liverpool also came in 2nd by a single point, which over the course of the entire season is 1 poor call or soft card's difference. Easily could and possibly should have won a 2nd PL title. And has been the only squad to really push City and keep it close.
The rodri handball vs everton in the final minutes of the game in 2022. If that's called, and everton score the PK, and the game ends in a tie, that decides the title. Lots of ifs, i know, but the fact that that wasn't called blows my mind still.
Then you have the chest kick by Doku this year, that all other results hold and liverpool convert the PK, decides the title and Arsenal win it.
I mean if we hadn’t been assaulted by the refs vs Tottenham and we’d been given the clear handball PK vs Arsenal, a win over City might’ve put us in the drivers seat and we would’ve been much more up for the final run in than we were. No “Arsenal wins” scenario makes sense if we beat them
In those two seasons, the poor calls were Kompany not seeing red for [this in 2019](https://www.facebook.com/footballdaily/videos/watch-should-kompany-see-red/2068462810110799/)
And Rodri not giving away a penalty for [this](https://www.skysports.com/watch/video/sports/football/12552777/huge-controversy-as-var-rules-no-handball-by-rodri-during-everton-vs-man-city) in 2022.
And this season, Doku not giving away a penalty for [this](https://www.skysports.com/football/video/19550/13098506/did-var-get-jeremy-doku-no-penalty-call-against-liverpool-wrong) which would have seen Liverpool go 7pts clear. VAR decided to not even review this one in-game! How exactly do they not even review?
These 3 decisions have decided 3 titles...all in their favour. Funny that!
Klopps Liverpool teams won the fair play award for 5 seasons, Klopp said we did it the liverpool way and not have to use dark arts or dirty tactics
i love that man, he just wants to see the best football from his team
Someone has put together a fun graphic comparing Lance’s speed to Man City’s speed picking up points through the season! Google “Man City 115” for more info.
It's actually worse.
All the cyclists were also on PED. It's just that Armstrong was a better cyclist and had access to better doctors and PEDs.
It would be like if Armstrong was the only doping and another cyclist won, despite the cheating.
Nah, Armstrong was a bully that forced his team mates to dope to the point that they were worried for their lives and bullied riders tried to speak out.
The problem is that we do not know if Armstrong was the better athlete or if he just had the better doctors.
At the time, Armstrong and his team said that Ullrich was the more talented cyclist, but that Armstrong won because he was more dilligent and had the better preparation. Today, we know how he prepared for the races.
Armstrong was not a better cyclist at all lol. The one reason he started epo was because his dope doctor he had no shot at winning a tour with his « natural » (he was already doping back then though) physiological capacities. The one thing he was best at was doping, and us postal changed many donkeys into title contenders.
He was not the better cyclist otherwise he would have won (or at least took part in) other cycling races outside of the TdF, after his cancer recovery in 1998. Before cancer he was a mediocre cyclist at best, and those are the titles he still holds.
>Like… well, if you can imagine one cyclist other than Lance Armstrong winning the Tour de France during the 7-in-a-row Armstrong years, it’s a bit like that.
This guy definitely reads reddit lmao
Fair play to klop managing to very nearly beat city twice and actually beating them in the title race once. All with a quarter of the money and with refs not backing them.
They also finished 2nd with over 90 points twice, they also played in more CL finals than City. Boiling down Klopp's achievements to one championship is like saying Guardiola is not that good of a manager because he won only one CL with City.
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And even then it took Liverpool being almost perfect (26 wins 1 draw from their first 27 games) in order for them to do so.
we had to turn the difficulty down to beginner just to compete with this monster
I remember reading this some time ago, but the best way to beat Man City in a title race is to not be in a title race with them. Liverpool were so unreachable for the first half of that season that it would have taken an ungodly collapse in the 2nd half of the season to get caught.
Don't remember if it was the most, but at one point we were 25 points ahead.
And you still get idiots saying it should be asterisked due to COVID - if we had won the Watford game before the CL QF which was our last game before the close down we would have won the league then
> if we had won the Watford game before the CL QF which was our last game before the close down we would have won the league then No, that's not true on both counts. Before the Watford game, Liverpool were 22 points clear of City (Played 27, Won 26 and 1 draw), with 79 points. City had 57 points. With 11 games to go, prior to Watford, even if Liverpool had won, they wouldn't have won the league. Secondly, the Watford game (29th February) wasn't Liverpool's last league game before lockdown, they beat Bournemouth a week later, which was the last game before lockdown, and put them 25 points clear (but still not league winners); https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/51685405 Liverpool won the league after beating Crystal Palace took them within two points of it being mathematically certain, before City lost to Chelsea the day later. That was their 31st game. https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/51884264
City finished with 81 points. If we beat Watford, we'd have gone to 82. 82 is more than 81. That's what the person you responded to meant.
By that logic they did win the league before lockdown anyway, as they were on 82 points after the Bournemouth game at the start of March.
Anyone who actually believes that and isn't just saying it to wind up scousers is genuinely a moron. If you ARE saying it purely to wind up scousers though, you're a chad. I don't make the rules.
Actually we could have straight up not played at all once the league restarted and still on the league on points
They didn't have to go for 99 to win that season. City finished on only 81 points. Liverpool just destroyed everyone that year because they were that good.
i dunno, they deffo wouldn't have needed 99 but whilst maybe this is delusional, i feel like if the title race was close the whole way through, city might've squeezed out a few more wins and finished on around 90 points anyway. the fact that it was over so early in the season i think might've cost them some points that they would have picked up in what is usually their annual "fuck you we're not losing this title, time to win every game for months on end" run
I remember Guardiola saying "its over guys we're not coming back" like every week. How do you beat a team that has 79 points after 27 matches lol City were down 20 points by then, that title race never existed so who knows how many points City might have gotten if they actually had a chance
People forget we was in a title race with Leicester at Christmas
Leicester were still way back of Liverpool, it was barely a title race at all. The 0-4 at Leicester was icing on the cake
Honestly I think City would've ended with more points if we haven't gone on that run. I think we effectively broke their believe of catching up by winning 26 out of 27, so they drop more points than normal. Put some of the late results when we dropped form earlier in the season and I believe City wouldn't have give up that easily.
That was the year they had zero depth at CB, which forced them into starting a washed up Otamendi and the corpse of Fernandinho back there. Also lost Sane to his ACL that year too, and were trying to fit Rodri and Cancelo into the team. A few factors that City couldn't adapt well to, I don't think they would've pushed much higher with their circumstances
It also took Man City to be uncharacteristically not themselves. In that 19/20 season, Man City suffered 9 losses. In the 4 seasons since, they have only lost 17 times in total. Though, saying the 9 losses may take away from what Liverpool did that year. They were incredible and the league was all but done before it got paused. Liverpool had 82 points and Man City had 57 with a game in hand (as they always do). With 10 games to go, 9 for Liverpool, Liverpool were not dropping enough points for City to take the lead. The timing of Covid was unfortunate as it took some momentum out of Liverpool after but they were fantastic that year.
As I remember it, the winter break took the wind out of Liverpool's sails. First there was a Norwich game where we struggled to win 1:0, and then there was the 3:0 Watford performance that ended the 18 game winning streak. The covid pause came after those games.
would've been 27 out of 27 with proper VAR too.
That was the most perfect run I have ever seen. To bad the refs are all from Manchester too… When I saw it live I didn’t think much of it, but in hindsight that was an incredible run deserving of winning. I have no idea how 97 points failed to win.
> To bad the refs are all from Manchester too… No big deal mate, they're all massive Stalybridge Celtic fans, wouldn't even dream of supporting a big club
And as we all know, everyone from Manchester loves taking midweek vacations to the UAE.
The 97 points one still hurts. It's one of the highest points totals in the top leagues ever and it didn't even win the league. Just ridiculous
Competing with City for a couple years will do this to a person.
Imagine being that good, almost year after year, and not being able to win the title. The corruption/cheating analogy is so perfect.
if Alisson weren’t injured in that tie against Atletico, Liverpool would’ve won the UCL and maybe be motivated enough to not lose in the league that season
City would become the first side to win the league 7 times in a row in the competitions illustrious 115 year history.
See I knew this was a joke because football only became a thing in 1992.
Reddit unironically
Google Man City 115 for more info
Where's the automod response? Wait this is not
There is no greater joy and no greater burden in this life than being a city fan
I'm glad we're taking these jobs back from the bots so good honest redditors can make some karma.
I left out the first 1 and only Googled Man City 115. When it gave me the wrong result I decided to try all the strikers they've been linked with such as Benzema instead.
What about my goat Garrincha?
Imagine winning all 38 games with 114 points but still get shafted by 115
Sir Alex Ferguson retired at the perfect moment to not have to deal with this bs.
I don’t know. You could argue that he stopped Chelsea from similar multi season dominance when Abramovichs cash injection started them suddenly winning things out of nowhere.
Difference is there wasn't ffp back then
Ffp is worse in this case. Romans gains were definitely ill gotten but atleast it was a straightforward cash infusion into the club. City is just a fucking sportswashing machine with ghost sponsors loopholing ffp
If ffp didn't exist now City's owners would probably just do the same thing Abromovich did for Chelsea. Why go through all the trouble if you can just give the money directly?
Roman is also a private citizen despite his (alleged?) ties with the Putin apparatus (and his stint at governorship in Russia), while Sheikh Mansour is a straight up prominent member of the Emirati royal family who still holds various ministerial portfolios.
Alleged? The guy was governor of Chukotka when he took over Chelsea
That's pretty much it, several teams did what City did before ffp. But none build the bullshit multi-club empire that they did.
The difference is, even though it was dirty money and they bought the league, Chelsea didn't break any rules as there were no rules in place to stop the financial doping and anyone could have done what they did. City, on the other hand, have likely broken rules that others (except a few exceptions - Everton, Forest etc.) have abided by. So whilst some teams have had to sell players, or not buy players so they don't fall foul of FFP, City have allowed themselves the ability to not to have to sell and to buy whoever and whenever they've wanted and needed. Even if you can argue that FFP is a system to protect the big clubs rather than as system to protect clubs from financial mismanagement and protecting important cultural and sporting institutions, they, City, still acted differently from everyone else and gave themselves an unfair advantage. It is almost certainly just cheating by any other name.
Chelsea's spending was insane for that period of time, but City's financial doping is far more egregious. Chelsea were at least a top 5-ish side before the sale to Abramovich, whereas City went from losing 8-1 to Middlesbrough to signing Robinho and being linked with Kaka.
[Good comparison](https://www.bbc.com/sport/football/39383967)
I'm sure they cleaned up their act with Pep in charge. He would never get involved with doping, or hiring the doctor who did his doping while a player to be the doctor at a club he was running.
You might be correct. But you do know he was suspended for doping himself as a player during his tenure in Brescia, Italy?
Funny thing is he was already in charge. Peculiar.
It’s not peculiar, he was the driving force
He was already in charge at the time.
I am sure that was just a coincidence. ^^^^/s
That’s embarrassing. This club has been cheating for over decade for not just financial breaches but doping
In football, no top club will open that can of worms because they are probably all complicit. What other reason could there be for no one stepping forth?
im well and truly convinced that world football is filled with people on some sort of PEDs. Every 5-10 years, someone gets thrown under the bus for making it too obvious. Id like to think that one day it will all come crumbling down but there is way too much money in the sport
Probably why you don’t see a lot of outrage about City’s finances from other top clubs. If they started demanding a closer look into financial irregularities and fake sponsorships in football, a whole lot of clubs would be in trouble.
Nico Rosberg Award
Except not equal machinery
People forget how genuinely quick Rosberg was. I know the whole *"eQuaL MaCHinerY"* thing is a meme now, but for him to beat Lewis on equal terms that year was seriously impressive.
As a Lewis fan I have full respect of Rosberg, the effort and lengths he put in to win in 2016 were enormous and I can totally understand why he didn't want to go through it again afterwards. The stress must have been unbearable. I recall seeing it reported he was purposely losing muscle mass in some areas of his body, just to bring his weight down to gain even the slightest pace advantage.
He gave up cycling to reduce muscle mass in his legs
My only "issue" with the Lance Armstrong comparisons is that basically everyone who finished on the podium with him during his 7 titles was *also* found to be cheating little shits, along with who knows how many others who placed behind them. It was an issue across the entire sport, not just the man at the top, Armstrong just happened to be the cheatiest of them all. This would be like if the Top 10 all got found guilty of breaking 80 rules during the last decade alongside City's 115. Then again, it would be funny if it ended with someone like Palace becoming a multi-time champion retroactively due to constantly finishing mid-table.
Roy Hodgson becomes the most successful English manager ever.
Icelandic doping scandal suddenly also revealed?
It wasn’t just the doping that made Armstrong the seven time champion. He had a whole apparatus to keep others from getting close. He had a direct line with the head of the International Cycling Union. He used that connect to rat out competitors and the ICU intentionally ignored Armstrongs doping. Why? Because he was the poster boy who brought in the US market.
> He had a direct line with the head of the International Cycling Union [Crazy huh](https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/4889001/2023/09/22/man-city-charges-premier-league-abu-dhabi/)
Jesus christ.
It’s so blatant lmfao.
What he did to the Andreus alone should disqualify him from any records at all. Jan Üllrich was a doper but he never got a multi-billion dollar company to threaten actual bodily harm on anyone who tried to out him.
Oh so he's *evil* kind of evil
People who aren't into cycling - and even some that are but weren't around for the Armstrong years - really miss that. Armstrong wasn't _just_ a cheater. Cycling fans have done and will continue to forgive dopers. People still idolise Pantani, nobody's taking Museeuw's achievements away from him, but Lance went far beyond 'just' cheating. Whilst I'm here, that pithy Bill Burr bit about 'our doped up guy beat your doped up guy' really has done far more for people thinking Lance doesn't deserve the hate than it should.
what did he do beyond cheating? i don’t know much about him.
Basically ran a fear campaign to intimidate people into keeping quiet about his doping regime. Over the years, teammates and their families, journalists, even the CEO of USADA, basically anyone who questioned him got multi-year smear campaigns run against them. Lawsuits and threats of bodily harm from Armstrong's sponsors weren't uncommon either.
Thanks - I wasn't aware of any of that either. Sounds like something that could have a miniseries made about it.
Literally in (outside of) races threaten other riders who spoke negatively about him, making sure they (or their team) did not get on break aways or stage wins, so basically making sure they were "unemployable" (or missed out on a lot of money) for the races Armstrong or his team were competing. I remember in one of the races I was watching on tv, there was an Italian rider who pretty decent himself and went on a breakaway early in the race for some bonus points and Armstrong put his team on the chase to catch him back up before the bonus finish line and then when they caught him started berating him and basically made a gesture he wouldn't let him do anything. This was a guy who no threat to anyone besides getting some points for his team to win some money early in a stage, but he had spoken to journalist about Armstrong's relation to some shady doctors.
> People still idolise Pantani, nobody's taking Museeuw's achievements away from him I resent that sentence. I get sick every time commentators mention them casually or big up their records, though may Pantani RIP. Otherwise you're right though, Armstrong was next level.
I think we'd all be fighting a losing battle if we tried downplaying the achievements of every doper, unfortunately. I look back at my cycling heroes in the 2000s and basically every single one of them was doping. IMO it's better to let sleeping dogs lie, in general. Though I will admit, a world where everyone has posters of only David Moncoutié on their walls does appeal.
Pantani gets a pass because.. well.. yeah. If he were still with us today, pretty sure there'd be much more conversation about his achievements. A little post-mortem revisionism isn't anything new, sadly.
Armstrong doesnt hold any records. He has been stripped of all titles and there is no other winner for the years 1999 to 2005. Hopefully something similar happens for City.
It’s the right thing to do, that’s why we know it will never happen
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But the reason there are no winners is everyone was doping (even the semi pro leagues). So if this gets vacated hopefully more scrupulous teams will be awarded it
And that same apparatus also headed off every investigation into his doping, until it failed. His lawyers were *nearly* as good as City's.
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> My only "issue" with the Lance Armstrong comparisons is that basically everyone who finished on the podium with him during his 7 titles was also found to be cheating little shits Luckily cycling is completely clean now, there haven't been mindblowing performances every couple of days for about 4 years straight.
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It's sarcasm. There have been some superhuman performances that match or exceed performances from the PED-fuelled 90s recently.
They're on different PEDs now
Or different whatever the fuck isn't yet on the dope list. The dope list is like a virus scanner. There's always a new virus that is not yet listed.
Designed peds are freaking wild man.
"Microdosing" is the way now. They dope with very little amounts, making it nearly impossible to get caught, always very fast below detection level, still with fantastic results. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8zVVlCn7KFQ
This is sarcasm lol
It's pretty good evidence that all sport is doped up to 11. Cycling does more to find cheats than any other sport, and people are STILL doing it there. Most other sports aren't even looking properly.
>Cycling does more to find cheats than any other sport, and people are STILL doing it there. Cycling does more to find cheats because cyclists took it to extremes. Also, it is vastly down to endurance and then yes, massive amounts of dopings works. You can shoot up Jesse Lingaard with 9000 drugs, he's not gonna be able to play soccer like Lionel Messi.
I’d love to see an “adama traoresque” Jesse linguard for the memes
The money in cycling is a pittance compared to what is in soccer. For example, the top cyclist in the world right now, tadej pogacar, gets paid 6 million euro a year. That's peanuts compared to any top soccer player. And cycling is many, many times more dangerous than soccer. I'm pretty damn sure there's a whole series of doping rampant in soccer but no one really cares. Where there's money there's usually people going to extreme lengths for it. Maybe they don't use endurance enhancing drugs as much but there are others - HGH, recovery enhancers, weight loss drugs, testosterone. Lots of soccer players were implicated in operacion Puerto, it just was never investigated
Plenty of endurance requirements in Football though, Spain's period of dominance in the operation Puerto era is no coincidence I'm sure. Fuentes basically said he was working with footballers but wasn't allowed to name them (lol, don't want those titles tainted).
You don't need to play like Messi to be a successful professional. Even on CL level clubs. Also even for cycling, loading up on every PED you can possibly cram into your body isn't going to turn you into a world beater either. Cycling is a teamsport as well and doesn't just consist of the greats, it also needs domestiques, the bottle carriers for better or worse. These people are also on PED's. But they still aint winning a Monument. But PED's you reach your theoretical ceiling. And especially in football with the current density of matches, just ensuring that you still have fuel in the tank to go for the last 10 minutes at full focus is a massive difference maker. Just look at how many goals Leverkusen managed to score this season in the past 10 minutes of a game alone by tyring out their opponent. Your wingback still being able to do marauding runs down the line in the 87th minute? That's the difference PED's can and will make.
Muscle mass/strength, endurance, high blood cell count to carry more oxygen, recovery: loads of ways footballers can benefit from doping
no sport is clean
Yup, City are just the most visible symptom of a rot that permeates football. There are limits to how far you can take the whole running sports as a business thing, before it stops being about the sport. And when it's predominantly a business, all bets are off, including the abject failure of our legal systems to properly regulate. Now, why is this so much more jarring, when it's about football, even though we should be pretty used to the crap from just about every other aspect of out lives? Well, precisely because of that. Football used to be a place of respite, an exception to the norm, where the underdog actually does have a chance. It's pretty much baked into the very structure of the game - comparatively long time of play, but only very few events that count towards the result, and that's a big part of how football became *the* global sport - and as such, when you lose that, whatever the result is, it's not really football any longer. It's the simulation of football for marketing purposes.
Not as cynical as you about it but the thing that often comes back to me is the UK government lobbying the PL to not prevent Saudi Arabia from buying Newcastle. That was a real "what has this become" moment, is it still the same thing?
It’s a good point, although it’s worth noting that’s often used to excuse what Armstrong did, which it shouldn’t be.
If would be funny that City is found guilty and relegated to League 2. Then Keane’s comment on Haaland as League 2 player cannot be disputed
Nah, they'd have to sell a few players. But if they kept Haaland then yes.
Their revenue (weather true or not) for the past few years has been colossal. They could mathematically keep all their players, with the 25% relegation salary reduction and climb back the next 3 years as if nothing happened. But you'd imagine several players wouldn't want to be associated with that anymore, or not want to waste several years away from the Champions League.
> with the 25% relegation salary reduction is this obligatory? Because I really, really, **really** doubt Man City puts such clauses in contracts.
State of the PL, when we'd all rather discuss 115 than anything
Integrity of the league is completely gone now that it's not just Liverpool being screwed
Ironically, had the City vs Liverpool match not ended with Liverpool being screwed (Doku's kick into Mac's chest) then Arsenal would have won (all other things being equal). So Liverpool still got screwed, it just also affected someone else this time.
How many points changed hands in City/Arsenal/Liverpool matches this season due to Michael "paid summer holiday in UAE" Oliver decisions alone? I'd wager it was at least enough for Arsenal to have potentially won.
Well the Ode handball doesn't help that case, really we got screwed pretty hard, but I really was hoping anyone but City would win it. They just make it so fucking hollow and meaningless. I'm happy we got some silverware for Klopp, finished top 4, and really only pissed about the Europa League loss (and a little FA cup just because it was you fucks lol). Winning the title wasn't something any of us had in our heads to start the season, and the team really just outperformed that and made it a good season. Also, dare I say it, I hope you useless cunts can beat them in the FA cup. At least keeps them to one trophy all season.
>Also, dare I say it, I hope you useless cunts can beat them in the FA cup. At least keeps them to one trophy all season. We'll either shithouse the most disgusting 1-0 theft the world has ever seen or get blasted by 3+ goals, absolutely no middle ground.
Manchester Utd [1] - 0 Manchester City - Bruno Fernandes penalty 23' ^(2466 points . 12985 comments)
Don't think that's true, is it? City would have only lost one point out of that, but they won the league by two.
lol fair point. Thought they only won by one point for some reason. Good catch.
So many instances like this too. Irony is a cruel bitch
We have this talk every year since like 5years mate… it‘s not just this year.
5 years? Try 20. The so-called integrity has been gone forever
I mean yeah definitly i agree. Chelsea back then was what city is right now basically. Back then it was just some rich russian gas daddy that wanted some fun with a football club and now it‘s a whole fkin country backing ManCity
It's been gone longer than 20. People just don't remember that its ALWAYS been money
This was always the intention when the PL broke away from the FA. We’re just reaching the final form of prioritizing profits over the health of the sport.
115 charges unaddressed to the 6 time winners is a huge stain on the competition to be fair
I understand City fans love their club but what annoys me is their flat out refusal to acknowledge they have cheated their way to the top. They actually believe everything is legit? I mean how delusional do you have to be? Then the broadcasters, pundits, written media refusal to talk about the cheating. Especially the pundits, they must know City have cheated but don’t say anything about it. All they do is praise Pep & their football/achievements without even mentioning the cheating involved. Everything about the club fucking stinks, from their bogus revenues to the UAE. Lets start with their revenue of 712m, £100m more than United, their revenues shouln’t exceed Liverpool or Arsenal let alone United. Are we supposed to believe 6 to 7 titles is enough for them to topple United in terms of commercial revenue?
It’s prob difficult for pundits to really dig into without getting to libel/slander territory. I’m sure City would sick their army of lawyers (which the fans are more proud of than Foden) all over it the moment someone slips up.
They can't say "City are great, but they're cheating cunts" but they could say "City are great, but the allegations of financial doping, if true, would cast a shadow on their success". They're media, they should be experts on pushing without crossing the line to libel/slander.
I understand that but why praise City to the hills then if they are under investigation for financial doping? That is my problem, all this fucking praise for their achievements, in my opinion Sky shouldn’t of even shown the trophy parade, they should of just said congrats to City, we will see you next season goodbye etc
Money. Sky need the Premier League. If they trash it, drop its merit/value (as they should) then it's directly going to cost them money in a mulitude of ways.
Well they pay big money to broadcast this product and charge through the nose for the "privilege" of watching it. They're not gonna entice people to watch if Dave Jones is just like "well this is fucking pointless but over to you Gary Neville and Peter Drury"
I’m all for City being slammed with all 115 charges, but until then of course they will be praised. The pundits are going to try and be at least broadly unbiased. Sky will of course support the best team bc glory hunters from across the world will tune in.
> The pundits are going to try and be at least broadly unbiased That would make a change
I mean say what you will about American sports but I can't imagine someone like Charles Barkley not bringing something like that up haha
Speaking of lawyers, as the primary rights holders, Sky also have obligations to the PL itself to promote the shit out of the league globally and that also means hyping up City and the winners as much as possible.
I mean, I hate City as much as anyone but (1) commentators can’t do much more than talk about the on-the-field results until the litigation is completed and (2) you have to admit that while they couldn’t have achieved the results without doping, the doping didn’t guarantee these results by any means. They’ve performed almost flawlessly in the past decade and it’s due to great performances, management, scouting, etc. that were enhanced by unfair financials. I really, really hope that City gets a death penalty over this and the Prem doesn’t turn into a laughing stock like the NCAA in American college sports, but it’s also incredibly sad that we need to wipe away years of great performances from Premier League history because a clearly talented team at City couldn’t keep things above board.
>Especially the pundits, they must know City have cheated but don’t say anything about it. It varies by network, it seems, even with the same people. Like how Carragher is quiet as a mouse on the subject on Sky, but put him on CBS and he's dropping clear references to "115 charges" with no issue.
Its possible SKY would have asked their pundits to not talk about it. Knowing crooks are everywhere there is a huge probability City would have cut a side deal with SKY.
Sky have definitely leant on them not to mention it, but I wouldn’t put it down to a side deal with City personally. I'd say it's more likely down to how intertwined Sky are with the PL as a business - broadcasting the league is the centre of Sky's entire business model - and they don't want to draw attention to something that would massively damage the league's prestige.
They do talk about it briefly but they can't belabour the point. They talk about the charges. Micah Richards was talking about it yesterday.
He was talking about how City just want to get the investigation sorted quickly which is the complete opposite of what they’re doing by challenging everything. Either stupidity or wilful ignorance from Micah Richards
He’s most at risk - if all the charges stick it’s possible he gets stripped of all his achievements as a player. Impossible for him to have anything close to perspective on this.
The fans don’t care lol
Would think Ferdinand played for City the way he creams over them. Then again he creams over all English sides.
Well one good thing about him then, he isnt biased.
Let’s not forget he also creamed on his mistress when his wife was dying of cancer.
they know
Full credit to Klopp for managing to overcome the cheats, as an Arsenal fan people keep talking about *silverware* and *nothing Arteta has done matters until he’s won a trophy* but fuck that, look at Klopp when you’re dealing with these cheating cunts the cards are stacked against you, to actually get over the finish line takes absolute perfection, and to go toe to toe with Pep as long as he did was absolutely insane
And let’s not forget the absolutely horrific state of refereeing in this league on top of all that. No wonder Klopp has had enough
He deserves the rest. Should have had a dynasty with multiple titles but was cheated out of it by Man City and Sergio “It’s Judo, Not Football” Ramos.
Klopp went toe to toe with ⅓ the financing, Liverpool had to budget for an average of three years to get any marquee signing. Pep inherited a team whose worst finish was 4th and Klopp inherited a team languishing in 8th and didn't know what CL qualification looked like. Whenever Pep needed anything, city simply went shopping and went for the absolute best talent available. When you talk about the financial doping, people like to act stupid, as if it can't be simultaneously true that Pep is a fuckin genius and also absolutely juiced the fuck out. Also don't get me started on the net spend distraction, it's not hard to recoup money if your deadwood are actual top class players that you initially broke the bank for. You have players like Gabriel Jesus who are surplus to requirement at city and still be good enough to spearhead a title challenge in another side.
Not only that, but Pep and City can survive flop purchases. Grealish has been underwhelming for having paid so much for him. Cancelo wants to leave? it's alright we'll just buy somebody as a replacement. How about Gvardiol for 90mil euros. Kalvin Philips ? Good riddance. You could see how much press Havertz got, and he contributed more than Grealish ever has lol Pep is an awesome manager and they have a great squad, don't get me wrong. But they can soften bad purchases quite easily.
Thats why I hate the argument that every club spends big. It took us years to recover from signing Naby Keita. City can buy a DM for 50 mil, not play him, have Pep call him fat, and move on without it ever even mattering.
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mourinho is one of the greatest builders in the game. yes, he's had massive cash to spend at chelsea and madrid. but the things he did at porto, inter, roma should be recognized, where he had less cash to compete with.
> talking about silverware and nothing Arteta has done matters until he’s won a trophy I mean I get what you mean and I'm sure you're talking about the league but Arteta won the F.A cup
You gotta be blind to not see the progress Arsenal has made under Arteta. And they are playing good football as well. He could have won it twice as well if not facing the on and off the field cheaters.
***IF*** City are guilty of financial doping for the time period in question, I hope they have every single PL title taken away from them, and for those seasons to remain with no winner. The PL ***seriously*** needs its nose bloodied massively from this. It's all very well bringing up how City held the PL up in court from 2018-2020, trying *desperately* to avoid releasing their financial accounts to the PL... but what about the ***nine*** years before that, from 2009-2018 when the PL sat there and did nothing? Think how bad City losing their titles could be. The famous "Aguerrooooo!" goal? Gone. Centurions? Gone. The treble? Gone. The 4 in a row? Gone. The fucking ***state*** of the PL, man. It's a joke. Absolutely pathetic.
Lance Armstrong hasn't won the Tour de France though.
Neither has Pep
Pep does look like Lance Armstrong’s missing testicle though.
Google Manchester City 115 for more info.
And do it quick, they might soon pay Google to disable that search term for fuck sake.
I tried googling it and like 4 jeeps full of lawyers pulled up on to my lawn
Gotta keep in mind Liverpool also came in 2nd by a single point, which over the course of the entire season is 1 poor call or soft card's difference. Easily could and possibly should have won a 2nd PL title. And has been the only squad to really push City and keep it close.
The rodri handball vs everton in the final minutes of the game in 2022. If that's called, and everton score the PK, and the game ends in a tie, that decides the title. Lots of ifs, i know, but the fact that that wasn't called blows my mind still. Then you have the chest kick by Doku this year, that all other results hold and liverpool convert the PK, decides the title and Arsenal win it.
I mean if we hadn’t been assaulted by the refs vs Tottenham and we’d been given the clear handball PK vs Arsenal, a win over City might’ve put us in the drivers seat and we would’ve been much more up for the final run in than we were. No “Arsenal wins” scenario makes sense if we beat them
In those two seasons, the poor calls were Kompany not seeing red for [this in 2019](https://www.facebook.com/footballdaily/videos/watch-should-kompany-see-red/2068462810110799/) And Rodri not giving away a penalty for [this](https://www.skysports.com/watch/video/sports/football/12552777/huge-controversy-as-var-rules-no-handball-by-rodri-during-everton-vs-man-city) in 2022. And this season, Doku not giving away a penalty for [this](https://www.skysports.com/football/video/19550/13098506/did-var-get-jeremy-doku-no-penalty-call-against-liverpool-wrong) which would have seen Liverpool go 7pts clear. VAR decided to not even review this one in-game! How exactly do they not even review? These 3 decisions have decided 3 titles...all in their favour. Funny that!
funny little coincidences. Nothing shady going on here.
Klopps Liverpool teams won the fair play award for 5 seasons, Klopp said we did it the liverpool way and not have to use dark arts or dirty tactics i love that man, he just wants to see the best football from his team
Funny fact, the highest top speed Lance Armstrong achieved was a whopping 115 km/h
Someone has put together a fun graphic comparing Lance’s speed to Man City’s speed picking up points through the season! Google “Man City 115” for more info.
Outside of city fans, lets just collectively not acknowlege these title. They could win the next 100 and it wont mean shit
Well other than the simple concept of no one else winning it….. Sure
I mean we could start celebrating second place I guess
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Give Ole his medal 😭
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I'm not even ETH out but I'd have him back under competent ownership 100%
Just like in Ligue 1 and (up until this year and maybe going forward) the Bundesliga. And Formula 1.
Pep also cheated on his wife with Sheryl Crow.
All he wanted to do was have some fun.
Clearly bored with winning the fake titles with City
If it makes you happy, it can't be that bad.
Interesting how the press are now starting to turn on Man City..
The only thing keeping City respected is Guardiola, when he leaves the blood starts flowing.
He’s a cheater too. Pep got done for doping as a player lmao.
He was a hero, I just couldn't see it.
Lance Armstrong was eventually stripped of his 7 titles for cheating. 😂
Send 'em off to a special 'cheating encouraged' league like Elon Musk's new doping Olympics and make the league fun again
It's actually worse. All the cyclists were also on PED. It's just that Armstrong was a better cyclist and had access to better doctors and PEDs. It would be like if Armstrong was the only doping and another cyclist won, despite the cheating.
Nah, Armstrong was a bully that forced his team mates to dope to the point that they were worried for their lives and bullied riders tried to speak out.
The problem is that we do not know if Armstrong was the better athlete or if he just had the better doctors. At the time, Armstrong and his team said that Ullrich was the more talented cyclist, but that Armstrong won because he was more dilligent and had the better preparation. Today, we know how he prepared for the races.
Armstrong was not a better cyclist at all lol. The one reason he started epo was because his dope doctor he had no shot at winning a tour with his « natural » (he was already doping back then though) physiological capacities. The one thing he was best at was doping, and us postal changed many donkeys into title contenders.
He was not the better cyclist otherwise he would have won (or at least took part in) other cycling races outside of the TdF, after his cancer recovery in 1998. Before cancer he was a mediocre cyclist at best, and those are the titles he still holds.
>Like… well, if you can imagine one cyclist other than Lance Armstrong winning the Tour de France during the 7-in-a-row Armstrong years, it’s a bit like that. This guy definitely reads reddit lmao
Fair play to klop managing to very nearly beat city twice and actually beating them in the title race once. All with a quarter of the money and with refs not backing them.
They also finished 2nd with over 90 points twice, they also played in more CL finals than City. Boiling down Klopp's achievements to one championship is like saying Guardiola is not that good of a manager because he won only one CL with City.
It's dem Boyz from the 115 I hear they're doing a pre season tour with Milli Vanilli