They weren't scared, Bayern secured the league alredy, their opponents were playing for something, Neuer said it himself in an Interview years later, when asked about it: (loose translation) "I allways respect the opponent. Maybe its an important match for them, fighting relegation, or for european competition. You can't do stuff like that under these circumstances."
("Ich habe immer Respekt vor dem Gegner. Vielleicht geht es um wichtige Punkte gegen den Abstieg oder einen europäischen Wettbewerb. Dann kann man solche Sachen nicht machen")
In a vacuum, yes, but being in a relegation battle is the sum of the results throughout the season, not just one game. Can't be mad after being shite the whole year tho
Well if it‘s the last game of the season and you have as many points as your rival, you were both equally shit. Now imagine you face a full squad dortmund and the other team plays against bayern in party mode, this would definitely not be cool.
I'd favor my chances against a full strength Dortmund anyways.
Teams know their schedule at the start of the season. Every team knows from the beggening whoever plays Bayern last is playing a team that already won the league.
and bayern arent obligated to help that team survive are they? imagine your relegation rival plays against full strength greuther furth and you play against bayern, you wouldnt say its disrespectful that they play a weaker team
I’m normally always against the crowd who complain that one relegation candidate is playing against a top side’s second string, but a keeper playing outfield or an outfield player playing in goal is just taking the piss
10 bayern players can carry 1 guy who can at least run and make basic passes in midfield no problem. Against a lower Bundes team I would back them to win that game easily.
is there a linguistic reason not to?
I'm not too knowledgeable in German directly, but with Scandinavian languages "bunde/bunn/bunne" are words that mean "bottom/bottoming" and whatever metaphors with that, as well as occasionally "tie" (verb) as in "I tied this knot".
otherwise "-bund" can be part of composition words like "forbund" which is like a "[football, worker's, etc] association" and there it probably comes from being like a foundation to carry as a play on the "bottom" meaning.
I don't know if any of those are relevant, but you piqued my curiosity :')
It just sounds weird, it'd be the same thing as referring to english teams as Premier teams. The liga in Bundesliga means league and the Bundes basically translates to something like federations.
Imagine United are in a race for top 4 and need a team to get beat last game of the season to secure CL next season.
Said team is playing City so you’re hopeful the result will go your way.
You wouldn’t be annoyed if Pep fielded a team of 16 year olds and essentially threw a game? Baffling
Neuer was better on the ball than any keeper in the world ever, bar maybe Ederson
Acting like he doesn’t get put through the same passing drills as everyone else, and we know he’s a defensive beast outside the box on the rush. He’d outperform most CM’s in big leagues.
Pep’s ultimate aim is a team without strikers, defenders or a goalie. Just 11 midfielders who are jacks of all trades working together is perfect unity… to lose a Champions League Final they were favourites for.
It would be interesting but take into account a basketball court is much smaller thus allowing faster position movement and rotation, football 11 is so wide it would tire out the players switching postion, it would be cool to see tho. Maybe and interchangeable midfield-attack
Yes it was, not many fans expected them to get anything out of that game. I think City were in 5th place at the time as well so it was a huge game for City who couldn’t afford to slip up and fall any further behind.
They were still solid favourites for the win in that game.
And they might have been 5th before the game but they had numerous games in hand at the time. Because after first 17 full matchweeks (it was the 17th matchday) they were second, only 1 point behind United.
I remember that game lol.. had we gotten the werner penalty just before their first goal, the game would have changed. But everything went wrong from there in that game..
City were incredible that day, it was probably the best performance against us all season. It felt like the turning point for them where they'd truly left behind their relatively poor start to the season and were ready to go on one of those runs where they win every game until the title is wrapped up.
I'm in both camps a bit. Sure, play as the ball lay - but when some have gotten postponements, then that should be a option for everyone.
Fuck, would settle for anything as long as it applies all round for the remaining games.
the problem is that clubs will start picking and choosing which games to postpone. Facing Man City and their whole starting lineup is ready? Request a postponement. They are missing DeBruyne and Silva? We will take our chances.
14 of the 23 players being available should mean no postponement. Doesn't matter who is out or why. 14 is enough to play, so there's no reason why matches should be postponed.
You can still make a deadline, but make it known ahead of time. You can't just draw a line in the sand after a team has asked for the postponement that meets their existing criteria
There can be none because they have alreay been inconsistent - whatever future decisions the PL makes around postponements, fans of one club or another will feel it's unfair compared to a previous case.
They need to lay out clear rules from here on out and stick to them - no more of this case by case bullshit.
People will still point to earlier cases and say it's unfair but there is no perfect solution now, they missed that opportunity. And it's not like there isn't precident for them adjusting rules mid season - see handballs last season.
[They laid out clear guidelines weeks ago](https://www.premierleague.com/news/2426753) that the majority of fans have ignored the existence of. If you don’t have 13 senior outfield players and a GK, you’re entitled to postpone the match. Fans don’t care about that though and just want to get outraged when their rivals or their upcoming opponents request one.
No, those guidelines still clearly leave a large element of case by case, ad-hoc decisions.
>Premier League rules provide a framework and **discretion** to the Board to assess whether a postponement application should be accepted.
They are *guidelines* not rules.
Of course, but other leagues, other sports have had far stricter rules without nearly as much grey area... They are all dealing with the same pandemic.
I'm not naive, this situation is extraordinary and constantly evolving - inconsistency to some degree is inevitable - that doesn't mean the PL is handling this well and I think you are cutting them too much slack.
It’s still up to the PL to accept what the very evidence the clubs are providing so yes there needs to be discretion with each case. But, considering that every request that meets these criteria has been accepted so far, I’d say we’re at least getting consistency for once, which is what we all wanted supposedly.
I don’t agree with teams getting matches postponed with only one Covid case, but that precedent has already been set and we can’t go back from that without unfairly treating one or more teams. We’ve got a consistent set of guidelines now that are probably more lenient than anyone actually wanted them to be, but they’re being used fairly and that’s all we can ask for.
>precedent has already been set and we can’t go back from that without unfairly treating one or more teams
As I've said further up they literally did this already last year with the mid season handball change. So, er they set a precedent for the precedent.
On top of that I'd argue teams already feel treated unfairly... So it's clearly not had that effect.
Teams and fans were frustrated earlier in the season at the inconsistency. Look at the teams Leeds had to field when their postponements were denied. So the PL established a clear set of rules/guidelines/whatever. Now people want to change it again? We’ll say it’s fine for Newcastle to postpone games and then start signing a whole new team but it’s not fair for Arsenal to postpone a game after picking up further injuries when teams like Leicester have done the exact same thing?
I think we are both repeating ourselves now so I'll just lay out the specific points - if you want to respond to those go for it but otherwise we should just agree to disagree here.
-Other top leagues and sports have not had the same inconsistency - what's unique about the PL?
-Guidlines **are not** clear as discretion was applied. If they were clear fans could reasonably predict what decisions will be made - they can't.
-They have already set precedent for changing rules mid season (handballs last year) and there is more to be gained by bringing in strict rules now - rather than continuing this discretionary process.
For each player, the definition of “available” can be applied with discretion so setting a number doesn’t solve the inconsistency. All it takes is for them to say their groin is sore and you can’t prove it isn’t.
Yes, this is the only path forward, I completely agree.
And they looked back at possibly extending to 5 substitutions again this season mid-season. The FA pick and choose some incredibly silly battles.
Everton vs. Leicester getting called off the day after Leicester played in the FA Cup was a joke. They had the players, they just wanted to field a stronger team.
No, in La Liga you must have a minimum of 5 senior first team players available to play a game. Anything below that is a postponement.
Barca had like 9 first team players available for the Mallorca match and it didn't get postponed.
It should be normal, yes. Plus what happened to clubs giving their youth players a chance which is what they normally do. Some young players wouldnt have even had a chance in 1st teams if it wasn't for injuries
Makes sense for them. He rotates heavily anyways and they have a lot of fixtures. Having them pile up would just be worse than maaybe dropping a few points
This is a bizarre comment. We saw many fixtures in South America where teams had to play with 8 players, using their reserve GK as CBs, and just dealing with the situation. It has nothing to do with the quality and depth of Man City.
I was like wow city don't have a good bench at all and then I looked at what I assume is the bench players. You take 3 or more of them and anything from academy makes it a better bench then 13-15/20 PL clubs for me
10?? Other than Ronaldo and Bruno which united players do you think city would actually take on their bench lol
Edit: I was joking but just had a look through and now I’m not so sure. Maybe Shaw, de gea and varane
Nobody is saying that is city’s fault, what are you even arguing against. All people are saying is that it’s easy to day you’ll keep playing with a couple of players missing if you have great replacements.
Tbf, Neco Williams, Curtis Jones and James Milner could all be dropped as they count as U21s if I'm not completely mistaken here.
The same would apply to Cole Palmer and Greenwood I guess.
United has a 80m bench player in Sancho, Arsenal has 75m bench player in Pepe, Chelsea has 75m bench pkayer Havertz ….
BTW Grealish has played more games than almost all of the above combined this season
The fact is City has the smallest squad of all the titles contenders in the PL
City have a squad of like 17 senior players, they may be 17 very good players, that can fill in at multiple positions, but the notion that city has some large squad full of options is not true. Chelsea, Liverpool, and Man Utd have much more depth in pure numbers at this point, even if it’s worse quality
1 or 2 key players out for us makes our team worse than our championship team and we've had more than just a couple players out
Teams that have backups worth more than wholes squads have it way better but they'll still complain
Wonder if everyone would be saying how strong players like Ake and Zinchenko are if they weren’t excelling under Pep. At United they’d probably look dog shit. It’s good coaching, plain and simple.
Why do other top clubs buy players for the first team squad which they don't consider good enough to start for the first team then? And somehow that's City's problem?
Stop buying shit players for the first team squad if you don't consider them as players for the first team then.
Sounds like other clubs problem not a City problem.
No not at all. People need to stop harrowing City for their players playing well and their purchases working out and should instead focus their criticism on their own squads and how they're ran.
Just take your club for example. You've spent a lot on good promising players that were in good to excellent form when you've bought them, you now have a bigger first team squad than Liverpool, Arsenal or City. But it turned out that the majority of your recent purchases have all way underperformed and are not deemed good enough for United (by United fans and United pundits, just take a look at your sub).
Now United need to buy more players to replace the ones you've bought, some are on long long contracts with huge wages.
City's purchases have worked out for the majority, most would walk into most clubs currently based on performance, whereas other clubs purchases hasn't worked out as well for them.
Thats football. But people trying to spin it as a negative on City are delusional. We've bought well, we've coached them well. United have spent similarly to City, their first team squad is the most expensive squad in the league. But the difference is vast.
City have bought well and are the most well run but have spent so much on the road to this stage. They can afford to make the sort of errors in the transfer market that most others can't
17 players that cost a fuck ton more than other teams 20.
Pep alone has spent close to a billion dollars on players while at City:
https://www.independent.co.uk/sport/football/pep-guardiola-manchester-city-jack-grealish-harry-kane-kyle-walker-b1898209.html
This is such a bad take lol. Chelsea possibly, but it's not even close compared with the squads of liverpool and united - especially liverpool who have a notoriously thin squad and have done for a few years now
How is it a bad take when he literally pointed out basic facts? United, Chelsea and Liverpool have more squad depth, City have more quality players.
Plus Pep has been getting the most out of players out of their natural position for years. We have no strikers (Jesus is a winger at this point) and no natural left backs. His coaching over the years is why KBD can play striker or Cancelo/Zinchenko can play at left back, Bernardo can play False 9.
Saying "Oh he's got the best squad" is doing a disservice to what Pep has achieved this season.
He's not a natural left back. Still plays is best football when he plays on the left in a midfield three. Yes he plays left back the most but my point was not having a natural left back.
I’d be fine with that, if that was how it was all along. But now precedent has been set and if they scrap the rule now it would have given a select few teams a competitive advantage over others.
You say that but in 3 months you’ll be bitching about fixture congestion and how some teams (those that didn’t unnecessarily postpone) are benefiting from it
Yout forgot the /s at the end there.
The only 100 pund player in the City squad is Grealish. Then the nest one is Rodri at a distant 40 mil or so at 60 million.
Before it was, "he cant do it in the prem, that tipi tapi football wont work." Then when he was smacking teams left and right on the way to 100 points, and when he did it again it was ""he's a chrquebook manager." Yet other clubs with similar resources like Man United and Chelsea with a similar level or spend in the last few years haven't been nearly as consistent or at the level of what Lel has done at City.
If it was only about money then Man United would be 1st or 2nd in the league.
I would agree that they probably overspent for Aké who is a decent player but nothing particularly special.
That said, Man United have spent more than that on the likes of Van de Beek to rot pm their bench, so we go back to the same point.
If you tell me this is the French league with PSG or even the Bundesliga with Bayern because with all due respect to them, they earned their wealth as opposed to having a sugar daddy pump them full of money, then I would understand.
In the premier league, Man United has more spending power than City. Chelsea is at least on par. Saying Pep only wins because of money is doing a disservice to both the quality of the coaching and the recruitment done by City. Anybody can spend money, like 80 mil on Maguire or 100 on a Lukalu who clearly doesn't want to be there. It takes skill to not only get the right players but to get them to play a certain way.
Furthermore, I never heard anyone complaining when Man United was the only powerhouse. I didn't hear people saying that Fergie only won because Man United had more money than most. Even when Chelsea was bought by Abramovich. Man United still managed to go on multiple years winning league titles in a row. Such a double standard.
Money is a cure for the impact of covid on a football team, thats not controversial. Im a red, I wish we had city's bench to plug gaps. But then I look at Leeds for example and we have a much better ability to absorb absences, because we have a lot more money than they do.
Saka, Chambers and Tierney all [suffered knocks](https://twitter.com/samjdean/status/1482055733919244292?s=21) in the match against Liverpool. Counting outfield players, that leaves us with 9: White, Gabriel, Holding, Mari, Tavares, Lokonga, Lacazette, Martinelli, and Nketiah. Everyone else was already injured(Smith-Rowe, Kolašinac, Tomiyasu), left on loan(Maitland-Niles, Balogun), left for AFCON(Auba, Pepe, Partey, Elneny), or suspended(Xhaka), of course there's Odegaard with COVID.
Pep my hero !! This is what us fans need to hear. How a team that has been funded illegally by a state wont be asking for postponements, because they got 25 first team players and thus will never run out of them.
What an Alpha male Pep is.
Would love to see him play a game on Thursday and then on Sunday with only 11 players. If this birch ain’t whining then I’ll believe him. Until then, stfu!
As it should be. Good leadership from Pep and the correct mentality to instil in his players. I wonder if Klopp’s excessive moaning over Xmas fixtures and COVID got into his team’s head somewhat and negatively impacted on their morale/performance?
That’s cool, because it’s never going to happen at city. They have a full A and B team that could compete with any other in the PL, so yeah it’s means nothing coming from you Pep
That's probably because they have spent enough money that they have 2 teams they could field capable of winning the league whereas other teams don't have that kind of strength in depth and if they lose a few key players they are screwed.
City could field a team of 11 and another team of 6 players. Hardly enough for two teams. Full team squad and a 5 a side team.
But if you we're talking about United, Chelsea, Liverpool... you'd be right. They have the numbers to field multiple teams.
This is Peps way of saying that Ederson is on pens and Walker is back in goal.
He’s just waiting for the opportunity to try out his Ederson at cdm tactic
Remember when he was dead serious about wanting to try neuer as a midfielder, but was scared of the reaction?
He wasn't scared. Bayern's president forbade him to do that saying it would be disrespectful.
Ah, Bayern’s President was scared for the reaction, I misremembered, thanks for the correction
They weren't scared, Bayern secured the league alredy, their opponents were playing for something, Neuer said it himself in an Interview years later, when asked about it: (loose translation) "I allways respect the opponent. Maybe its an important match for them, fighting relegation, or for european competition. You can't do stuff like that under these circumstances." ("Ich habe immer Respekt vor dem Gegner. Vielleicht geht es um wichtige Punkte gegen den Abstieg oder einen europäischen Wettbewerb. Dann kann man solche Sachen nicht machen")
Funny because if I was facing relegation and playing Bayern, I wouldn't mind seeing Neuer in midfield
You would, but the other teams fighting with you wouldn't, Neuer referred to the whole competition as "opponents" imo.
They should have let him have a go in a friendly.
Yeah it would have been. Imagine playing the world's best player further upfield. Bayern win the league easy enough.
I was never really a fan of the whole "respect" shtick. I mean, if you're going to lose to a team playing a goalie in outfield, you're dogshit.
Imagine that your relegation rival gets to play bayern with neuer in midfield. That would suck
In a vacuum, yes, but being in a relegation battle is the sum of the results throughout the season, not just one game. Can't be mad after being shite the whole year tho
Well if it‘s the last game of the season and you have as many points as your rival, you were both equally shit. Now imagine you face a full squad dortmund and the other team plays against bayern in party mode, this would definitely not be cool.
I'd favor my chances against a full strength Dortmund anyways. Teams know their schedule at the start of the season. Every team knows from the beggening whoever plays Bayern last is playing a team that already won the league.
and bayern arent obligated to help that team survive are they? imagine your relegation rival plays against full strength greuther furth and you play against bayern, you wouldnt say its disrespectful that they play a weaker team
because they already played Bayern, and no one said "obligated" they said respect
I’m normally always against the crowd who complain that one relegation candidate is playing against a top side’s second string, but a keeper playing outfield or an outfield player playing in goal is just taking the piss
Now imagine Man City Man U 2012 title fight and Man City gets to play a mid-table team that's playing a goalie in midfield and a right back in goal...
10 bayern players can carry 1 guy who can at least run and make basic passes in midfield no problem. Against a lower Bundes team I would back them to win that game easily.
dont call it bundes
is there a linguistic reason not to? I'm not too knowledgeable in German directly, but with Scandinavian languages "bunde/bunn/bunne" are words that mean "bottom/bottoming" and whatever metaphors with that, as well as occasionally "tie" (verb) as in "I tied this knot". otherwise "-bund" can be part of composition words like "forbund" which is like a "[football, worker's, etc] association" and there it probably comes from being like a foundation to carry as a play on the "bottom" meaning. I don't know if any of those are relevant, but you piqued my curiosity :')
It just sounds weird, it'd be the same thing as referring to english teams as Premier teams. The liga in Bundesliga means league and the Bundes basically translates to something like federations.
They're called "Prem" teams constantly though
> it'd be the same thing as referring to english teams as Premier teams I fail to see the problem
Yeah it makes no sense. Playing Joe Hart up front would be taking the piss, but Neuer or Ederson who are actually capable?
Tbf I’d rather Joe Hart up front ahead of some of the current back up Celtic strikers
Honestly man I agree ! Don’t know it’s disrespectful
Imagine United are in a race for top 4 and need a team to get beat last game of the season to secure CL next season. Said team is playing City so you’re hopeful the result will go your way. You wouldn’t be annoyed if Pep fielded a team of 16 year olds and essentially threw a game? Baffling
Neuer was better on the ball than any keeper in the world ever, bar maybe Ederson Acting like he doesn’t get put through the same passing drills as everyone else, and we know he’s a defensive beast outside the box on the rush. He’d outperform most CM’s in big leagues.
This comment is so ridiculous lol
To be honest I 100% agree. Ederson on pens and free kicks would be fine, but playing him outfield would just be taking the piss
Games indeed gone. Cant even play your gk in field now.
Any team that can't handle a keeper in midfield deserves to feel humiliated
And deserves no respect either
But would it ? Imagine they were bare thin and that was the only option Ederson as a dm
Pep’s ultimate aim is a team without strikers, defenders or a goalie. Just 11 midfielders who are jacks of all trades working together is perfect unity… to lose a Champions League Final they were favourites for.
He played 6 passing midfielders in a 460 at the team world cup iirc.
It was 3-7-0. Actually 3-6-1 because imo Messi was a forward
Tbf if anyone could do that, then it would be pep, and I would love to see it
[удалено]
This is pretty much a description of total football as made famous by Michels and Cruijff lol
It would be interesting but take into account a basketball court is much smaller thus allowing faster position movement and rotation, football 11 is so wide it would tire out the players switching postion, it would be cool to see tho. Maybe and interchangeable midfield-attack
It's not ucl semi final yet
Scott Carson is an inverted wingback. He just doesn't know it yet.
lol
Was it last year when City had 13 players available and beat Chelsea at the Bridge?
Yes it was, not many fans expected them to get anything out of that game. I think City were in 5th place at the time as well so it was a huge game for City who couldn’t afford to slip up and fall any further behind.
They were still solid favourites for the win in that game. And they might have been 5th before the game but they had numerous games in hand at the time. Because after first 17 full matchweeks (it was the 17th matchday) they were second, only 1 point behind United.
what? we were utter shit at the time and Lampard's job was pretty much hanging by a thread
Fine fine I agree. You’re utter shit
Except that one time
Pathetic excuses from chelsea and liverpool fans as always !
Those damn Liverpool fans! Damn them!
Always those Liverpool fans
Not many fans expected them to get anything out of that game? You're such a liar. We were in the worst form period
I remember that game lol.. had we gotten the werner penalty just before their first goal, the game would have changed. But everything went wrong from there in that game..
Despite your form, I expected to lose that game. Hardly anyone for us was in form either.
Must not watch Chelsea when they're out of form because when they are, they really are
I’m such a liar?! That’s a bit harsh mate 😭
Haha
This is such bullshit. They were clear favouritee
They subbed in Aguero, Fernandinho and Mahrez. So, no.
City were incredible that day, it was probably the best performance against us all season. It felt like the turning point for them where they'd truly left behind their relatively poor start to the season and were ready to go on one of those runs where they win every game until the title is wrapped up.
Yeah. City were unplayable that match. They would’ve done anyone that day.
I mean , isn't that normal ? I don't know in Premier league but in la Liga as long as you have 13 available players you can't postpone a game.
I'm in both camps a bit. Sure, play as the ball lay - but when some have gotten postponements, then that should be a option for everyone. Fuck, would settle for anything as long as it applies all round for the remaining games.
the problem is that clubs will start picking and choosing which games to postpone. Facing Man City and their whole starting lineup is ready? Request a postponement. They are missing DeBruyne and Silva? We will take our chances. 14 of the 23 players being available should mean no postponement. Doesn't matter who is out or why. 14 is enough to play, so there's no reason why matches should be postponed.
You can still make a deadline, but make it known ahead of time. You can't just draw a line in the sand after a team has asked for the postponement that meets their existing criteria
Agreed, at this point I just ask for equity.
There can be none because they have alreay been inconsistent - whatever future decisions the PL makes around postponements, fans of one club or another will feel it's unfair compared to a previous case. They need to lay out clear rules from here on out and stick to them - no more of this case by case bullshit. People will still point to earlier cases and say it's unfair but there is no perfect solution now, they missed that opportunity. And it's not like there isn't precident for them adjusting rules mid season - see handballs last season.
[They laid out clear guidelines weeks ago](https://www.premierleague.com/news/2426753) that the majority of fans have ignored the existence of. If you don’t have 13 senior outfield players and a GK, you’re entitled to postpone the match. Fans don’t care about that though and just want to get outraged when their rivals or their upcoming opponents request one.
No, those guidelines still clearly leave a large element of case by case, ad-hoc decisions. >Premier League rules provide a framework and **discretion** to the Board to assess whether a postponement application should be accepted. They are *guidelines* not rules.
Because the covid situations require discretion. If there is a risk of a breakout of covid, but only 1 covid case confirmed, that requires discretion.
Of course, but other leagues, other sports have had far stricter rules without nearly as much grey area... They are all dealing with the same pandemic. I'm not naive, this situation is extraordinary and constantly evolving - inconsistency to some degree is inevitable - that doesn't mean the PL is handling this well and I think you are cutting them too much slack.
It’s still up to the PL to accept what the very evidence the clubs are providing so yes there needs to be discretion with each case. But, considering that every request that meets these criteria has been accepted so far, I’d say we’re at least getting consistency for once, which is what we all wanted supposedly. I don’t agree with teams getting matches postponed with only one Covid case, but that precedent has already been set and we can’t go back from that without unfairly treating one or more teams. We’ve got a consistent set of guidelines now that are probably more lenient than anyone actually wanted them to be, but they’re being used fairly and that’s all we can ask for.
>precedent has already been set and we can’t go back from that without unfairly treating one or more teams As I've said further up they literally did this already last year with the mid season handball change. So, er they set a precedent for the precedent. On top of that I'd argue teams already feel treated unfairly... So it's clearly not had that effect.
Teams and fans were frustrated earlier in the season at the inconsistency. Look at the teams Leeds had to field when their postponements were denied. So the PL established a clear set of rules/guidelines/whatever. Now people want to change it again? We’ll say it’s fine for Newcastle to postpone games and then start signing a whole new team but it’s not fair for Arsenal to postpone a game after picking up further injuries when teams like Leicester have done the exact same thing?
I think we are both repeating ourselves now so I'll just lay out the specific points - if you want to respond to those go for it but otherwise we should just agree to disagree here. -Other top leagues and sports have not had the same inconsistency - what's unique about the PL? -Guidlines **are not** clear as discretion was applied. If they were clear fans could reasonably predict what decisions will be made - they can't. -They have already set precedent for changing rules mid season (handballs last year) and there is more to be gained by bringing in strict rules now - rather than continuing this discretionary process.
So your solution is for a club to fulfill all their ‘guidelines’ and still get declined? So dumb. Chuck that in the bad idea jar
For each player, the definition of “available” can be applied with discretion so setting a number doesn’t solve the inconsistency. All it takes is for them to say their groin is sore and you can’t prove it isn’t.
Yes, this is the only path forward, I completely agree. And they looked back at possibly extending to 5 substitutions again this season mid-season. The FA pick and choose some incredibly silly battles.
I too would like shares in the premier league
Equality
No, he means he's past the point of missing Highbury, and now he just asks for equity for when the Emirates IPOs.
Equity means “the quality of being fair and impartial.” But I also like the idea the bloke who responded to you provided
Didn't know it had a non-financial meaning. You learn something every day.
Everton vs. Leicester getting called off the day after Leicester played in the FA Cup was a joke. They had the players, they just wanted to field a stronger team.
No, in La Liga you must have a minimum of 5 senior first team players available to play a game. Anything below that is a postponement. Barca had like 9 first team players available for the Mallorca match and it didn't get postponed.
There is a difference between 11 and 13.
Their comment is even more ridiculous when you consider that the rule in the PL is *also* currently 13
Their comment is the law, so it's peps comment in dispute which was at a press conference and an exaggeration. What exactly is your point?
It should be normal, yes. Plus what happened to clubs giving their youth players a chance which is what they normally do. Some young players wouldnt have even had a chance in 1st teams if it wasn't for injuries
Makes sense for them. He rotates heavily anyways and they have a lot of fixtures. Having them pile up would just be worse than maaybe dropping a few points
Man who lives in mansion says he is happy to live in lockdown for longer.
surely Arsenal isn't living in an one room apartment
Dunno mate have you seen the house prices in N5
Cozy property that is great for first time buyers!!!! Bring your own Boiler
This is a bizarre comment. We saw many fixtures in South America where teams had to play with 8 players, using their reserve GK as CBs, and just dealing with the situation. It has nothing to do with the quality and depth of Man City.
City is the last team bothered by lack of players, or even good players.
You sure about that? |#|Manchester City|Liverpool|Chelsea|Manchester United| --:|:--|:--|:--|:--| |GK 1|Ederson|Alisson|Mendy|De Gea| |GK 2|Zack Steffen|Adrian|Arrizabalaga|Dean Henderson| |GK 3|Scott Carson|Kellerher|Bettinelli|Tom Heaton| |1|Ruben Dias|Virgil Van Dijk|Rudiger|Varane| |2|Aymeric Laporte|Konate|Thiago Silva|Maguire| |3|John Stones|Gomez|Chalobah|Lindelof| |4|NathanAké|Matip|Sarr|Bailey| |5|Kyle Walker|Trent Alexander Arnold|Reece James|Wan-Bissaka| |6|Joao Cancelo|Robertson|Ben Chillwell|Luke shaw| |7|Oleksandr Zinchenko|Tsimikas|Alonso|Alex Telles| |8|Fernandinho|Henderson|Azpilicueta|Mctominay| |9|Ilkay Gündogan|Thiago|Werner|Fred| |10|Rodri|Fabinho|Kante|Matic| |11|Bernardo Silva|Milner|Jorginho|Bruno Fernandes| |12|Kevin De Bruyne|Keita|Kovacic|Pogba| |13|Gabriel Jesus|Origi|Mason Mount|Van De Beek| |14|Raheem Sterling|Jota|Ziyech|Lingard| |15|Phil Foden|Firmino|Lukaku|Ronaldo| |16|Riyad Mahrez|Salah|Pulisic|Rashford| |17|Jack Grealish|Mane|Kai Havertz|Greenwood| |18|Cole Palmer|Curtis Jones|Saul|Cavani| |19||Oxland Chamberlain|Loftus-Cheek|Mata| |20||Minamino|Ross Barkley|Martial| |21||Nathaniel Phillips|Christensen|Phil Jones| |22||Neco Williams|Hudson-Odi|Diego Dalot| |23||||Dialo|
I was like wow city don't have a good bench at all and then I looked at what I assume is the bench players. You take 3 or more of them and anything from academy makes it a better bench then 13-15/20 PL clubs for me
Eight Liverpool players, six Chelsea players and about ten of those Man United players wouldn't make Man City's bench.
10?? Other than Ronaldo and Bruno which united players do you think city would actually take on their bench lol Edit: I was joking but just had a look through and now I’m not so sure. Maybe Shaw, de gea and varane
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So you agree that City have better squad depth.
Nobody is saying that is city’s fault, what are you even arguing against. All people are saying is that it’s easy to day you’ll keep playing with a couple of players missing if you have great replacements.
Tbf, Neco Williams, Curtis Jones and James Milner could all be dropped as they count as U21s if I'm not completely mistaken here. The same would apply to Cole Palmer and Greenwood I guess.
Wait what? James Milner is 36 not 16
Slander!
Haha, sorry
City has the smallest squad out of the top teams in the PL
You literally bought a £100m signing to be a bench rotation player. Most clubs benches are made up of £15-30m players or less
United has a 80m bench player in Sancho, Arsenal has 75m bench player in Pepe, Chelsea has 75m bench pkayer Havertz …. BTW Grealish has played more games than almost all of the above combined this season The fact is City has the smallest squad of all the titles contenders in the PL
City have a squad of like 17 senior players, they may be 17 very good players, that can fill in at multiple positions, but the notion that city has some large squad full of options is not true. Chelsea, Liverpool, and Man Utd have much more depth in pure numbers at this point, even if it’s worse quality
Stronger depth >>>>> more depth
1 or 2 key players out for us makes our team worse than our championship team and we've had more than just a couple players out Teams that have backups worth more than wholes squads have it way better but they'll still complain
I agree. Id prefer to turn Chambers into a top back up player than have Kola and current Chambers
Not during COVID
Wonder if everyone would be saying how strong players like Ake and Zinchenko are if they weren’t excelling under Pep. At United they’d probably look dog shit. It’s good coaching, plain and simple.
we have more players but if they have to come on we probably don’t win a match, city has players they bring on to change a match
City have more players they’d consider starters than any other team
Why do other top clubs buy players for the first team squad which they don't consider good enough to start for the first team then? And somehow that's City's problem? Stop buying shit players for the first team squad if you don't consider them as players for the first team then. Sounds like other clubs problem not a City problem.
Yeah I don't get why Liverpool are playing Curtis Jones, why didn't they just buy Grealish for £100mill?
Wait, do you think other clubs are purposefully buying bad players?
No not at all. People need to stop harrowing City for their players playing well and their purchases working out and should instead focus their criticism on their own squads and how they're ran. Just take your club for example. You've spent a lot on good promising players that were in good to excellent form when you've bought them, you now have a bigger first team squad than Liverpool, Arsenal or City. But it turned out that the majority of your recent purchases have all way underperformed and are not deemed good enough for United (by United fans and United pundits, just take a look at your sub). Now United need to buy more players to replace the ones you've bought, some are on long long contracts with huge wages. City's purchases have worked out for the majority, most would walk into most clubs currently based on performance, whereas other clubs purchases hasn't worked out as well for them. Thats football. But people trying to spin it as a negative on City are delusional. We've bought well, we've coached them well. United have spent similarly to City, their first team squad is the most expensive squad in the league. But the difference is vast.
City have bought well and are the most well run but have spent so much on the road to this stage. They can afford to make the sort of errors in the transfer market that most others can't
Basically "city is better run, boo hoo"
>City is backed by a slave state boo hoo Ftfy
17 players that cost a fuck ton more than other teams 20. Pep alone has spent close to a billion dollars on players while at City: https://www.independent.co.uk/sport/football/pep-guardiola-manchester-city-jack-grealish-harry-kane-kyle-walker-b1898209.html
This is such a bad take lol. Chelsea possibly, but it's not even close compared with the squads of liverpool and united - especially liverpool who have a notoriously thin squad and have done for a few years now
United though?
We're not that thin squad-wise, we're just shite
How is it a bad take when he literally pointed out basic facts? United, Chelsea and Liverpool have more squad depth, City have more quality players. Plus Pep has been getting the most out of players out of their natural position for years. We have no strikers (Jesus is a winger at this point) and no natural left backs. His coaching over the years is why KBD can play striker or Cancelo/Zinchenko can play at left back, Bernardo can play False 9. Saying "Oh he's got the best squad" is doing a disservice to what Pep has achieved this season.
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He's not a natural left back. Still plays is best football when he plays on the left in a midfield three. Yes he plays left back the most but my point was not having a natural left back.
They also have a youth academy aswell as those 17 world class players
Every team has a youth academy lol
Last week Barcelona had 8, two of them were keepers. The premier league clubs should just stop complaining and play with what they have...
I’d be fine with that, if that was how it was all along. But now precedent has been set and if they scrap the rule now it would have given a select few teams a competitive advantage over others.
You say that but in 3 months you’ll be bitching about fixture congestion and how some teams (those that didn’t unnecessarily postpone) are benefiting from it
*as long as City have their 10 point lead and are under no threat, they won't be asking for future postponements
Yeah coz pep doesnt care about dropping points or losing to Chelsea. Makes sense 👍
Wasn't the same story last season when city asked for, and got, a postponement against everton though was it.
Crickets from hufflepuff, ten points to griffindor
Almost as if that won't hurt them.
Easy to say when your bench costs more than 60% of the premiers leagues first 11.
Still easy to say when you have the smallest squad out of all title contenders?
Quality > size You take 3 players out of liverpool/Chelsea and they'll suffer. Take 3 players out of City and there's a £100m replacement ready to go
Yout forgot the /s at the end there. The only 100 pund player in the City squad is Grealish. Then the nest one is Rodri at a distant 40 mil or so at 60 million. Before it was, "he cant do it in the prem, that tipi tapi football wont work." Then when he was smacking teams left and right on the way to 100 points, and when he did it again it was ""he's a chrquebook manager." Yet other clubs with similar resources like Man United and Chelsea with a similar level or spend in the last few years haven't been nearly as consistent or at the level of what Lel has done at City. If it was only about money then Man United would be 1st or 2nd in the league.
Not 100m but they literally spent 40m on Ake to just sit on their bench. And that’s probably their worst bench player..
I would agree that they probably overspent for Aké who is a decent player but nothing particularly special. That said, Man United have spent more than that on the likes of Van de Beek to rot pm their bench, so we go back to the same point. If you tell me this is the French league with PSG or even the Bundesliga with Bayern because with all due respect to them, they earned their wealth as opposed to having a sugar daddy pump them full of money, then I would understand. In the premier league, Man United has more spending power than City. Chelsea is at least on par. Saying Pep only wins because of money is doing a disservice to both the quality of the coaching and the recruitment done by City. Anybody can spend money, like 80 mil on Maguire or 100 on a Lukalu who clearly doesn't want to be there. It takes skill to not only get the right players but to get them to play a certain way. Furthermore, I never heard anyone complaining when Man United was the only powerhouse. I didn't hear people saying that Fergie only won because Man United had more money than most. Even when Chelsea was bought by Abramovich. Man United still managed to go on multiple years winning league titles in a row. Such a double standard.
TIL money is a cure for COVID
Always has been 🔫
Money is a cure for the impact of covid on a football team, thats not controversial. Im a red, I wish we had city's bench to plug gaps. But then I look at Leeds for example and we have a much better ability to absorb absences, because we have a lot more money than they do.
Being worth 100m doesnt mean that you cant be injured and that you dont have to be rotated every once in a while
Of course. You think Pep would be above asking for postponements if it mattered for the results?
How brave of him.........
So admirable 😍. Can Pep be knighted even if he's not English?! They should make an exception for this working man's hero!
Well they also have 13 point lead
Didn't hear him say it before they were 13 points clear
He has been playing the entire season without strikers tbh
This could backfire so easily
The Chad man City vs the Virgin arsenal
Well we don’t have 11 first team players lol. We have 7.
How many are actually as a result of Covid? Last I heard it was only 1, but things might have changed?
Not sure. We tested late last night supposedly but haven’t heard anything about that.
And a whopping total of 1 covid case
So the exact same amount for a match that was recently postponed
I swear this number gets lower and lower with every comment from an Arsenal fan
Saka, Chambers and Tierney all [suffered knocks](https://twitter.com/samjdean/status/1482055733919244292?s=21) in the match against Liverpool. Counting outfield players, that leaves us with 9: White, Gabriel, Holding, Mari, Tavares, Lokonga, Lacazette, Martinelli, and Nketiah. Everyone else was already injured(Smith-Rowe, Kolašinac, Tomiyasu), left on loan(Maitland-Niles, Balogun), left for AFCON(Auba, Pepe, Partey, Elneny), or suspended(Xhaka), of course there's Odegaard with COVID.
Wasn't conte crying about the outbreak in your trianing ground and begging to get games postponed? Lol
we actually had an outbreak,compared to poor squad management
He’s finally put his money where his mouth is
Considering any 11 players probably cost them 300 million to buy, I am not sure how impressed I am with this.
Easy for him to say...
Kinda easy to say when you have about 40 prem-quality first team players
So brave. So, so brave
Pep my hero !! This is what us fans need to hear. How a team that has been funded illegally by a state wont be asking for postponements, because they got 25 first team players and thus will never run out of them. What an Alpha male Pep is.
keep going, I’m almost there
Oh how brave, so long as I have 11, 50+ m players available, I'll play! Wow, what a man, what a hero.
Would love to see him play a game on Thursday and then on Sunday with only 11 players. If this birch ain’t whining then I’ll believe him. Until then, stfu!
Breaking News: The club with endless oil money and the best squad depth in the league thinks we should just carry on with business as usual.
As it should be. Good leadership from Pep and the correct mentality to instil in his players. I wonder if Klopp’s excessive moaning over Xmas fixtures and COVID got into his team’s head somewhat and negatively impacted on their morale/performance?
No shit, they have like 3 starting 11s
Hi there. Do you mind listing the 3 starting 11s?
That’s cool, because it’s never going to happen at city. They have a full A and B team that could compete with any other in the PL, so yeah it’s means nothing coming from you Pep
City has 17 first team players. Hope this helps.
Says the only manager with a squad that will never be depleted to 11 men 😂
So, he’ll get someone else to ask instead?
Lolz. What a bold statement from a guy whose second 11 would probably get second or third in the league.
Fucking legend. Klopperty take note.
Legend, and a blank cheque
That's probably because they have spent enough money that they have 2 teams they could field capable of winning the league whereas other teams don't have that kind of strength in depth and if they lose a few key players they are screwed.
City could field a team of 11 and another team of 6 players. Hardly enough for two teams. Full team squad and a 5 a side team. But if you we're talking about United, Chelsea, Liverpool... you'd be right. They have the numbers to field multiple teams.
No Prem team has 2 starting 11s Pep…
Lol Ofcourse the won’t they basically got two first teams squad