Manchester City

Think our transfer policy over the last 10 years has been disgraceful. Look at the talent that has passed through English football over the last 10 years and a lot of it had been good and affordable players.

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United & Chelsea inflated the transfer prices.
City inflated the wages.

Out of curiosity, what particular period are you referring to when you talk about inflation of transfer fees regarding Manchester United?

We had this chat in one of the other threads, the Arsenal heads were so stupid to realise that having world class players for the long terms was a much better asset in all respects than cash reserves.

Cash reserves mean fuck all now. 10 years ago, ÂŁ160 million could get you 5-6 absolutely world class players who are the best in their positions.

Now it may get you 1 or 2.

If we fans could foresee this turbocharged inflation, then I don’t understand how they couldn’t either.

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Surely the transfer prices for Veron, and particularly Rooney, Carrick & Ferdinand.
United had zero competition for English players. They didn’t need to go all out to get these players. They could have just paid 15, 12, 18 m or so for these players.
No one in the league including Arsenal would have matched those figures back then.
But United wanted to replicate European rivals to show their dick.

If I’m being honest I don’t think United are even close to being as culpable as Chelsea, City, Real Madrid (when galacticos policy started) and the Italian teams in the early 00s.

And I was actually someone who didn’t feel like they overspent on Rooney even at the time. They signed one of the most gifted English talents ever to emerge and they paid a premium for it.

They had Newcastle challenging them too if I remember right so they just paid more then Newcastle could afford and got him.

United just blew others out of the water tbh. They didn’t inflate anything because no one tried to keep pace with them.

I’m not so sure city created it. Everyone having way more money is surely the root cause of that?

Lol I didn’t know why you wrote owl until now. :joy::joy::joy::joy: FFS swear I typed oil… :see_no_evil:

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For me it’d be the Veron and Ferdinand deals. The Rio deal is 1 of the highest of turnover/transfer fee ratios of all time. It was nearly 3 times our transfer record at the time. I remember there was a time when they had something like 20 signings in excess of our transfer record.

Longer run, it might be the Sheikhs at City. They are on the way to turning the EPL into the Bundesliga where everyone else is playing for 2nd place.

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You’re right.
Man U, especially Ferguson, broke the transfer record consistently.
Players like Ince, Pallister, Cole, Keane, Stam, Van Nistelroy, Veron, Rooney, Ferdinand etc, were all either record, or very close to, record signings.

The difference between clubs like Man City, Chelsea and Man U, compared to us, is that they spend our record signing fee on squad players.
When Mourinho went to Chelsea he bought around fifteen players that cost more than our record signing, and several of them were just squad players.

As much as I dislike Man U, at least they spend what their revenue is.
Chelsea and Man City have spent a lot more than they get from supporters.

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Can’t see it. Maximum three years which has happened in this league before.

The competition in that league have nowhere near the pull, resources and quality across the set up that the Premier League top six do.

Bayern are in a different stratosphere to Schalke, Hoffenheim, Dortmund, Leverkusen and Leipzig. It’s not a comparable case at all.

Furthermore this City side aren’t likely to have Pep for any longer than he’s been elsewhere. He has been a crucial element to this idea that they can walk to the title season upon season. They also have to move beyond some key players in their spine too. It can and should cost them one or two seasons within the next five.

The ongoing competitiveness of the Premier League is one of its great strengths.

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Yeah even if you want to play the poverty card as an Arsenal supporter, United are fully capable of competing with City and have been for the entirety of City’s successful period. The way United have operated for the last 5+ years has really been a total shambles.

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A lot of that is on Real Madrid too. Paying what they did for Ronaldo and more Bale after that.

Never knew Guardiola had so many leadership issues, I no longer rate him as a good coach. This was an interesting video.

I only briefly watched that video but seemingly all the players in it are players who have always had big personalities and big attitudes. It’s no surprise they wouldn’t fit in with Guardiola’s vision tbh

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Such things happen.
I am sure if they were in a neutral situation Pep would be nice to them; but since he is the one who has to decide who sticks with his football and who doesn’t, he is bound to wind few players up.

You no longer rate him on the back of one video and in contrast to the football his teams play and the 731 trophies he has won?

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