Kenny Dalglish Won't Be Delivering the Module: English Premiership 2011-12

Ben Lewis on Twitter: "I hope Woy's watching Leon Osman. Been brilliant in the last few months and deserving of a place in what could be a weak squad."

could be a weak squad

lfc look decent since imo

carroll looking good, nice ball to shelvey there

yeah carroll looks good, i'd back him to score.

shelvey had a nice effort there, quite unenglish in design.

i don't want to sound ungrateful for my free stream but setanta would really want to splash out on better replays- theirs are so quick you can't actually see much better than in real time

BBC surpassing itself with its choice of photos tonight
http://static.bbci.co.uk/h4discoveryzone/ic/newsimg/media/images/473/210/59949000/jpg/_59949849_tuesday-football_310412_el.jpg

aside from that effort shelvey doesn't look like he could ever be a professional footballer

ESPN:

http://a.espncdn.com/espn360/images/so/english_premier_league/474318.jpg

That game was pish.

that'll do!

First half was great fun

http://espn.go.com/espn/story/_/id/7850531/espn-magazine-sportingintelligence-global-salary-survey-espn-magazine

in soviet barca cult pays you

"Roy's a good man and a good manager," Gerrard said. "It's important he's given a chance and I'm looking forward to working with him again."

still picking the team i see

heh.

Imbued in City's moment of glory was inescapable sadness, too: because this club is the last. For as long as UEFA remain in charge of the purse strings of English football, we will never tread this path again. The door is shut now.

This is the last group of fans who can be lifted from mediocrity by the fairytale: the one where a very rich man flies in bearing gifts and transports a club to the heavens. And surveying the sheer pleasure that it brought one half of Manchester on Monday, we have to ask: how did football allow this to happen? How did the sport permit a single man's idea of what is right and preferable to erase one of the most potent forces for good in the game? Money from outside, coming in, to make dreams come true. What on earth was wrong with that? Forget Portsmouth, forget Leeds United, forget the financial disaster stories that are trotted out to make fans think like accountants and turn their fun, their weekend release, into an extension of mundane, recession-blighted existence.

This is not about spending money a club does not have, or ruinous owner loans that are given and then just as unthinkingly recalled. The focus here, specifically, is on the Abu Dhabi project and others like it, when a very rich man gives - without expectation of return - money to a football club to have a right old go. Take City away and what would this season have brought? A 13th Premier League title for Manchester United. Unlucky for some; mainly those who seek variety. Here comes another one, just like the other one.

There are competitions throughout Europe that will become wholly one-dimensional after this. It is why we need City to finish this job now, to win at Newcastle United on Sunday, then against Queens Park Rangers and form a powerful rivalry across town. We cannot rely on the old ways, football's natural rhythms, the ebbs and flows caused by successful investment or unfortunate mismanagement.

UEFA will protect the worst from themselves and the best from the others, so City are the last of it. The era of austerity is upon us and there won't be too many singsongs from here.

no fucking way

I'm guessing..... John Cleese?

erase one of the most potent forces for good in the game?

http://i.telegraph.co.uk/multimedia/archive/01382/Thaksin-Shinawatra_1382583c.jpg

I dunno. I mean I know why I disagree with almost all of that; yet I'm not entirely sure that "Take City away and what would this season have brought? A 13th Premier League title for Manchester United ... Here comes another one, just like the other ones" isn't the clincher.

bollocks, ismael

if we'd gotten dzeko and citeh'd not beaten us twice when they did, we'd have won the league.

Terry and Ferdinand remain the best defensive partnership available to Hodgson

Woy Out

and city've not won it yet

might as well enjoy this last couple of weeks of moaning in this thread

Long-serving Connor has support in the boardroom and in the dressing room and the club are anxious to continue some sort of continuity.

The players today vowed Connor will improve results if he keeps the job. Midfielder Dave Edwards said: “He’ll turn results around because if you look how he’s developed over the 11 games, he’s learned so much.

“Whether it’s with us or someone else next season, he’ll be a great manager one day.

“You can see we’re moving in the right direction, but he hasn’t had enough games to turn it around.”

Edwards feels no-one would care about the club as much as Connor.

He said: “Look how he’s carried himself in interviews – he has great dignity and you can tell this club means the world to him. The boys are completely behind him.”

Left-back Stephen Ward believes Connor will turn results around, in the long run, given the chance.

He said: “Look at some of the performances – we have been unlucky not to get more positive results.

“We have shown real togetherness and ability to battle.

“Being relegated is disappointing but he’s kept us smiling.

“We could have lost by six or seven goals on Saturday, but we had a go. He just needs time.”

Ward added: “I don’t think anyone would have any qualms if TC got the job.

“If you ask the players, he’s done great things and he already knows the Championship.”

i'd be crying but, y'know, i'm pilled up

I'm guessing Martin samuel for the article upthread. He hates Platini and FFP.

it was Martin Samuel that fucking choad

if we'd gotten dzeko and citeh'd not beaten us twice when they did, we'd have won the league.

didn't realise two wins against city would be worth 22 points

“We have shown real togetherness and ability to battle.

“Being relegated is disappointing but he’s kept us smiling.

“We could have lost by six or seven goals on Saturday, but we had a go. He just needs time.”

This section in particular is in no way an endorsement surely?

there is a collective insanity coming from the dressing room that surely requires the appointment of Pol Pot come May

altho notable quotes from Ward and Edwards there who must realise they'll be first out the door if anybody but their best pal gets the job

twas the second loss to city set us up for the bad run, we'd be ten clear by now

I understand everything wrong with that article but I can't help thinking there's something wrong with preventing someone from investing hugely in football in certain circumstances.

I'f I suddenly found myself unable to think of a better way to waste £500m of my own money why would UEFA want to stop me from building a new football stadium for e.g. Partick Thistle, creating jobs, breaking the Old Firm duopoly, and playing Champions League football for the first time ever while not giving one shit about my wages to turnover ratio?

I'f

that will eventually become accepted shorthand for "I would of"

Because it distorts things for everyone else, is the answer. Set against that, the last twenty years has shown us that there's no other way to do it.

i think they would have issues, cos wages/turnover is the best determinant of sustainability, which is kinda the point

Otoh, I guess it also shows that you can break up the old firm duopoly by wasting hundreds of millions in a quite different way.

I thought Vertonghen was going to Arsenal? Now the BBC says Tottenham.

here's hoping, but i'm sure it'll rest on cl qualification before we're even in with a chance tbh.

i think they would have issues, cos wages/turnover is the best determinant of sustainability, which is kinda the point

To make a club bigger requires doing that initially but success could/would/should bring increased turnover and possibly lead to something sustainable. How has Chelsea's turnover changed since Abramovich arrived?

ah, what, work? no chance!

2002-2003 - £75 million
2009-2010 - £209 million

2011 - £222.3m, so turnover has trebled in the Rmoan era. Next figure should be even higher with a run to CL and FA Cup finals.

They're still posting ridic losses but I think there's a middle ground somewhere that puts money into the game and makes a club relatively more successful and sustainable.

That'd be restricted to spending on infrastructure, is my feeling. Inject capital to eg build a stadium and generate income, but not to take the place of income itself by eg using it to pay wages. I *think* FFP takes account of that.

but the sustainability brought by increased turnover won't happen unless you put something on the pitch to attract the extra customers and sponsors

The question is not really about those few cases where insanely rich and generous benefactors decide to waste their money on a club, it's what's to be done to stop the financial sickness of English (/British / European?) professional football.

Clubs don't seem capable of acting collectively and sensibly to control their spending, and giving them rules by which to live seems like a good idea, unless you've a better one. So rather than be sad about failing to releive a tiny number of "benefactors" of their cash, it might be better to be happy about the greater good.

Yes you can spend £500m by buying a new a stadium and training ground. Then, by having a 100,000 seater stadium you can distort the wage bill or whatever however you like. But it means that nothing like Pompy will happen if you do it like that - City's owner can fuck right off tomorrow and leave them with an amount of debt that would make Rangers look like a well run club.

Fuck ~Martin Samuel.

That's true enough, but there's no need to be signing Robinho on day one. What's the criteria for FFP? iirc it's something like a three-year rolling period, with losses permitted to a certain amount, so it does seem to allow for this to happen more slowly.

it might be better to be happy about the greater good.

I agree, but I also like rich fuckers messing with the status quo as long at they're not fucking up my club in the long term.

If City win of course it'll be thanks to a disproportionate and unsustainable investment, but isn't it good to have someone who isn't Utd/Chelsea possibly winning for the first time in a decade? Isn't having Aguero/Silva/Balotelli/Yaya play in the Premier League more fun than a "sustainable" City hovering around the drop zone? Wouldn't it be exciting to have half a dozen of these crazy bastards all picking a club each and seeing what happened?

Isn't there a way to do it that provides a safety net for the club to gently fall back to its "natural" state when Project Big Club becomes unsustainable?

iirc ik has it- you can loss-lead to cover a certain level of squad investment, but if you really want to be pumping big bucks into a club the idea is to funnel it into infrastructure and revenue generation, not wages/fees.

I don't think City are fun

I agree with Tim