Guardiola is ‘an absolute hag’ who ‘was the loudest puppet’ Man City ‘had in their pocket’

· Football365

Pep Guardiola, Joe Hart, Ferran Soriano and Rodri all catch strays in the ongoing evisceration of Manchester City and their ‘absurd’ reaction.

The reply to the many responses

Goodness me that boiled some pss didn’t it.

In the interests of the greater good, I’ll try to be conciliatory. I’ll concede it’s really difficult for anyone (myself included) to be ruthlessly objective on an issue where emotions and loyalty play such an important part in forming an opinion. That goes for you too. None of us can help that.

I do genuinely believe the FFP rules were introduced to stop ‘sugar daddy’ ownership (Platini’s own phrase) and I do genuinely believe that what city did was to spend an equivalent amount of money to the established elite and do a much better job. Indeed if it wasn’t for the sham £1bn of deals they would be exemplary owners and a model for other clubs to follow. (It’s actually true in large part)

But in the interest of balance I also accept that if the appeal fails and we are found guilty then a punishment will need to be levied – perhaps not the extinction of the club and all its descendants, but maybe enough points to relegate us and a fine that stings along with a transfer ban. We will lose our stars, and who could blame them, and that part of the punishment shouldn’t be overlooked. For what it’s worth that’s what I think the likely outcome will actually be. And, as city fans, we will live with that and still support the team. Been there, done that.

People calling for years of accrued punishments and inter-club legal processes are really on rocky ground I think. Football doesn’t need that kind of downward spiral and I think the game as a whole might suffer as a result. Of course I would say that, but I also think the league might be in that frame of mind too.

What I won’t do is feel the level of guilt everyone seems to think city fans should feel and nor will I engage in some mental cleansing to leave a spotless mind. It’s not a choice thing, you either feel it or you don’t and some city fans I know do feel that they can no longer enjoy what happened. Fair enough

Now, who genuinely believes the current system of entrenched privilege for legacy clubs is genuinely fair? I’ll be Henry Fonda and go first, I vote no, who’s with me?

S Manchester. (To the guy who said city fans taunting Steven Gerrard for his slip was somehow symptomatic of a class issue- give yer head a wobble son).

Meh

Just thought you might be interested to hear the views of a fan who doesn’t sign off with City UTD AFC or LFC.

I’ve quite enjoyed watching the premier league over the last decade or two. Best players in the world playing some amazing football. Best league in the world to watch on TV. I’m a West Brom fan living overseas now. so no dog in this fight.

But guys, it’s just football remember. Most important of the least important things in life notwithstanding. Personally I’d like to see City survive this and I’ll be honest, I’ve enjoyed watching them take the old guard to task over the years.

I know many of you have a lot invested in this emotionally and I get how euphoric you must be right now. I just feel it would be a mistake to assume the rest of football fandom looks on with anything more than a disinterested shrug.

Mark- WBA (now living in Berlin where this has barely raised an eyebrow)

Enjoying the Cityzen reaction

The Man City meltdown is fantastic fun to watch. So many facets to enjoy, the obvious one being the howling from fans who seem wholly unable to accept the notion that cheating like fuck for a decade tarnishes and perhaps invalidates the success that was achieved off the back of that. Tell us it doesn’t change anything all you like, lads. We’re not buying it. The cartel argument is magnificent horse sht too.

But over the past few days, I’ve found the variety of reaction coming from people connected to the club in a professional sense to be more interesting, because you can draw some additional conclusions on the personalities involved. My tuppenceworth on those sounding off is as follows:

- Pep Guardiola: An absolute hag of a man who knew full well what was going on, and was the loudest puppet ADUG had in their pocket when the heat was coming on. After publicly defending them for years, he’s too far down that rabbit hole and can’t be seen to change tack for fear of looking even more absurd. The fact he’s sending messages of support to the fan base with blue heart emotes, having extricated himself from the impending shit show at exactly the right time, is nauseating.

- Roberto Mancini: Hung them out deliciously by flat out admitting he was remunerated from 2 different sources, before shrugging his shoulders and saying “it’s not my problem”. Probably knew plenty about the fishy business, happy to throw a little grenade into the flames from a safe distance.

- Micah Richards: He may be a tough watch as a pundit, but he has always seemed to be a decent type who still retains working-class values and sensibilities. Appears genuinely filled with dismay as he sees the writing appear on the walls, which seems like the right tone for someone who cares about the club to strike.

- Joe Hart: The other end of the spectrum. Christ almighty. His “oh captain, my captain” rallying cry in response to Al-Mubarak’s statement was just bizarre. He also suggested the charges were “speculation”, meaning he can’t tell the difference between accusations and charges. He’s either petrified that there might be some consequence to breaking ranks, or genuinely does live in the echo chamber he suggested he does. It’s a horrible look either way, and means he adds less than nothing to any discourse.

- David Bernstein: Probably the most salient viewpoint I’ve heard expressed, coming as it did from a man who literally ran the club previously and understands how football works at those levels. He came across as being disgusted and appalled, and raised the prospect of criminal fraud proceedings extending beyond the Premier League’s sanctions.

That rogues’ gallery is of course just the tip of the iceberg. When it came to the wider reaction, I enjoyed Roy Keane’s “medals, meet bin” comment which was 100% on brand but not without validity. Mark Chapman’s mounting realisation of just how messy things might get down the line was also amusing.

Long may the dissection of this melodrama continue, it’s made this the best international break I can remember.As an aside, I noticed that Penfold Infantino’s latest scumbag sound bites got relegated to content sidebars as a result – with a bit of luck, his misdemeanours will get their day in the sun before long too.

Keith Reilly

Listening and reading the comments by players, ex-players, ex-managers and even the Man City management is funny, disheartening, annoying and incredulous, all at the same time.

From the stoicism of ex-players (Danny Murphy) saying no player would want to win the title by having City stripped of theirs – even though it meant great players never got to claim a title due to City cheating. Let alone the fans of those clubs – who paid good money to follow their team only to find out they were beaten to glory by cheats.

Joe Hart exclaims that City must be innocent because he loved how Khaldoon spoke to him, and he trusts they were innocent. Even so, the record shows several members of the City management team lied at the commission. And I’m not sure whether it’s worse or not, but Pat Nevin nods and agrees sagely that no one wants to win titles by having the team that cheated stripped of those titles. Er, as a fan of one of the clubs that cheated, I do.

Or Soriano claiming they had ‘irrefutable’ evidence of their innocence. Really. We’re that gullible to think that the guy going to jail says, “Judge, look, we saved all the irrefutable evidence for the appeal…”

Rodri claiming we won it all mano-a-mano.

Why do these people try to make out that ‘well, this all happened so long ago and we lost mano-a-mano, so oh darn it, shucks, but oh well. It happens.’ It was cheating on a massive, long-term scale.

And not that it was an avalanche of cheating.

Winning one title meant they could cheat a bit more on sponsorships the next year. They could build a squad where the second team was as good as most first teams. Players would choose City over other teams, at a lower price (Haaland, for example), because the player wanted to win trophies and where better than financially-success-doped City. They could have players who would walk into most clubs’ first teams, sit on the bench for half a year, allowing City to win against teams whose midfield or defensive line had been decimated throughout the season. Oh, and it started an arms race as other teams tried to keep up, driving player and ticket prices higher. (If there was a surprise, it was that the 3 ‘B’s (seemingly well-run clubs) voted against PSR, while City voted for it. I wonder would they now vote against it after reading the commission’s decision.)

City went from a club with a relatively small fan base and commensurate commercial revenues (27% of Liverpool’s, 34% of Chelsea’s and 38% of Arsenal’s in 2008/9) to 156% of Liverpool, 138% of Chelsea and 220% of Arsenal to the leader. Only Utd kept pace, but with much, much lower increases. In other words, even against teams that had been successful or had a much larger fan base and following, Man City magically increased commercial revenues.

While the Premier League can’t do anything about FA Cups or League Cups, they can strip City of all their Premier League titles. Particularly where City won by goal difference or a very small points difference.

Of course, this story is going to go around and around until the final punishment is meted out.

In the meantime, can those players, ex-players, pundits, etc, just shut up pontificating unless its along the lines of Keane (I know) saying those players should throw their medals in the trash. Or Simon Jordan (I know again) taking Danny Murphy to task, saying the players would have an escape clause if relegated, with Simon pointing out the idiocy of a player being bought at such high prices, earning significant pay, going to City to win trophies, and asking for a relegation escape clause. That’s the kind of realism we need now. Weird how it has to come from pundits who are generally wankers – and not those of senior managers purring nice words.

Paul McDevitt

Prime fool

So this hardly seems hypothetical, but as the Prime Minister and the totally unrelated sponsor of loads of things in the Premier League and elsewhere have weighed in – how are fans of the other clubs in British football supposed to react when these external pressures tell, and City get away with it?

We now have a situation with the written equivalent of a smoking gun (please just read the internal emails, they are literally describing the cheating), an independent committee agreed upon by both parties rendering a clear, very guilty verdict and yet, it’s 50/50 if in a few month’s time any ramifications are dealt to Manchester City.

Not because they didn’t cheat for a decade, not because they weren’t caught red-handed, not because they’re not guilty – but because they’re so rich the rules don’t apply, and external forces can make the cheating go away.

When that happens I’d encourage all of us to stop watching the ‘league’. Maybe Serie A is on the ups.

Ryan, Bermuda (when they said City would ruin football, I didn’t think it was actually possible)

Well, oh dear.

Pep (ok, he’s still on their payroll) speaks up in full support of Man City with his tweet(?) x(?) on X.

Then to top it off, I read this:

> ‘Well, I would be really concerned to lose them. They’ve been such a huge partner in the building of modern Manchester. > > Obviously, the building of Manchester City into the global force that it is. > > ‘I can’t intervene more in the process. It would be wrong for me to do that. It would be wrong, I think, to jump to a conclusion before having really studied all of the detail, but obviously it’s ongoing, and because it’s still contested by Manchester City, then I think it’s right that I don’t say much more!”

That’s our current prime minister. “Can’t intervene more in the process.” MORE he says! So the prime minister HAS intervened!

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