Manchester City

But that’s just not true. Clubs like Chelsea, Barcelona, Manchester United, PSG and Real Madrid have been just as much a cause of market inflation as City have.

But that’s besides the point. You’re criticising Pep for doing only as well (in terms of trophies) as Pellegrini and using his expenditure as justification. Yet City have been spending Big for years, Pep just happens to be the one to arrive during the markets hyper inflation.

So your point isn’t balanced. It doesn’t take into account that Walker wouldn’t have cost Pellegrini £50m.

In the same way Sterling wouldn’t cost City £50m now if they tried to sign him. He’d cost considerably more.

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Who is ignoring bigger picture now?

Manchester City have begun the market inflation in terms of defenders
Mangala was bought for 41m in 2014 - 9m less than Walker’s amount
Otamendi - 34m in 2015
John Stones - 48m - 2m less than Walker in 2016

Who pays 54m for a left back?
Who pays 50m for a right back?

None of Chelsea, PSG, Real Madrid, Monaco, Barcelona ever paid this much on fullbacks.
This is completely City’s own making and I will never accept any defence of this.

Pep can say no but if he has indulged in it & took advantage of it, then he should take the onus of performing accordingly.

And it’s not like Market inflation is affordable to everyone.
People tend to forget that it is not like Liverpool or United who had one or two expensive signings.
City spend massively for every position in the team within few 2-3 transfer windows.

That is a massive massive advantage over your rivals.

I suppose it was convenient to leave Man U out of this list as they spent 30m on Luke Shaw in 2014. You’ve substituted them for Monaco from the teams SRCJJ listed.

If you include add ons Barca spent nearly 30m on Alves in 2008, given the vast inflation that has occurred since that’s easily equivalent to 50m in today’s money.

But yeah, generally full backs don’t go for as much as other positions. But it feels like you’re disproportionately focusing on full backs to me

I think you have to factor in the premium City get charged too, because everyone knows just how outrageously rich they are. Speculation in my part, but I suspect their full backs cost about 10m less to most other suitors.

I don’t know why we can’t find a middle ground tbh. What’s wrong with acknowledging that City’s achievements in the league have been pretty incredible, even with the money spent, but that they have really disappointed in Europe? I feel like we can praise City and Pep for doing something brilliantly in one competition and for doing poorly in another. There’s room for nuance.

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I think you’re missing the point that I’m making and you’ve turned this into a debate I wasn’t trying to have.

What I’m saying is Pep spent more than his predecessors but that’s because players cost more now. If Pellegrini was City manager now he’d probably have similar transfer spends.

So judging Pep’s success based on transfer spend when compared to his predecessors is flawed and neglecting of the many varying factors in how Football has developed financially.

Does it matter how much a player costs, from a footballing perspective?

You say City payed 50mil for Walker but everyone laughed at them when they did, implying they got a shit defender. Guardiola seemed to disagree.

The amount of money spend by Pellegrini, Wenger, Mourinho et al on players who have miserably failed and won the club no silverware massively exceeds the amount spend by Guardiola to make City champions.

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That’s to Pep’s advantage though, he’s inherited Silva, Aguero, Sterling, Fernandinho, Kompany because they’ve spent the most for years. They can spend 210m on their defense alone this season and around 350m on just their defense in the past 5 seasons. If there’s any flops Guardiola doesn’t have to stand by them, he can just spend another 50m on a replacement and the wages for the flop are pretty much wrote off. No other club can do that, it’s unprecidented.

So while what he’s done this season is incredibly impressive in spite of that, it is playing in a cheat mode like no other team can.

Horseshit everyone knew Walker was a top fullback it was just 50million is the type of money their rivals spend on their strikers, not their fecking fullbacks.

Barcelona spend £150m on players. PSG spend £200m on players. City have never paid anywhere near that for anyone so it goes both ways.

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This trend of spending has been prevalent throughout recent history and City definitely aren’t the ones to blame…

Ferdinand to United for £30m in 2002
Nedved to Juve for £38m in 2001
Zidane to Madrid for £45m
Buffon to Juve for £32m in 2001

There’s loads and plenty more where United are concerned so it’s unfair to blame City for the stupid increase in transfer fees.

When they did it, it was a one off and confined to those clubs.
However now the same thing is expected of all clubs because Clubs like City hog up all the talents leaving other clubs competing amongst each other on individual talents by overpaying.

@Trion’s anti-Guardiola arguments :heart_eyes::star_struck::heart_eyes::crazy_face::crazy_face::cowboy_hat_face::cowboy_hat_face:

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Since I don’t see Arsenal in there, I don’t care

Players like Walker, Stones and Otemendi were available for other clubs to buy and these players aren’t the reason that Man City are going to be one of the biggest winners of the PL, it’s because Guardiola has turned a lot of good players into a great team.

How many genuine world class players have they got?
Probably Aguero, Silva and De Bruyne, but even when theses players are injured they still keep winning games easily.

Wenger has spent more 200m on Xhaka, Mustafa, Ozil, Lacazette and Aubameyang and we are nearer relegation than Man City, with a manager who has the most experience in the PL.
Guardiola has only been there one full season and he has turned them into one of Europe’s best teams, with buying very few world class players.

There is no doubt he is one of the finest managers in the history of football.

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They may not have many world class players but they have plenty just a tier down. And he assembled them within one year

How many players we have in that bracket?

According to Wenger, we have plenty.

Remember, most of the players that Guardiola has were there when he arrived, and it’s not as if he has gone out and bought any elite players.

He has turned those players into one of the most exciting teams in Europe, as well as one of the most effective.

I can’t think of any other manager that could have done the same.

Had Guardiola waited 3 years to spend what he spent and buy what he bought instead of doing it over 2 years, would that make him a better manager in your eyes?

No player Guardiola has bought has ever been unattainable for Arsenal from a simple financial viewpoint. Maybe we couldn’t buy them all in 2 years but we could definitely assemble a squad of similar qualities over 3-4 years. Well here’s the news - Wenger hasn’t manager anything similar to Guardiola in 14 years and counting.

Money only changes the length of the walk until you reach the end but it doesn’t change whether you have or don’t have the ability to walk the walk.

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So you’re saying we could spend 350m on our defense alone?

Well I don’t know, are you saying Guardiola spent 350m on defense?

It certainly accelerate the notion that “Guardiola achieved XYZ in less than 2 season” that everyone is harping on about, isn’t it?

Exhibit 1-


Yes he can do that but the players purchased 4 years ago won’t be at same level at the time of purchase of new players.
Fabregas was not the same level when Ozil came in. Persie wouldn’t have been same level as Sanchez, Aubameyang will not be same level in 2 years time.

Guardiola has an advantage of having players in their prime in single season because he can get them in within couple of transfer window.
They faced similar issue with Yaya toure, they phased him out & bought 2 more players in that position.
We can’t do that with Yaya’s salary in our books.

The ridiculous dismissal of Manchester City’s advantage & shaming rest of the clubs to follow suit will make football remains fucked.

Then we will have fans being hypocrite with their whining about paying lower ticket prices.

Unless fans are charged upwards of 100 pounds per game, we cannot expect Arsenal to do what City does.
What we are getting right now is in accordance to what fans are paying right now.