cosmicway

Same with the English and the Spanish but I think the player's hand ws on the ground for support.

No, the hand was on the ground.

Sack-sack-sack.

I 'm trying to understand what is the real crime -or potential criminal activity- when M. City breaks those financial rules. Let's take for example the case of the sponsorships. Qatar airlines paid them say 100 million, they declared 150 million. What could be hidden behind this ? Tax evasion by somebody maybe ? The same for the other types of breach. Or if you don't like criminal activities, what breach of fair play ?

Here is a video:

The point is those financial rules exist to do what ? To prevent tax evasion, money laundering, embezzling, what ?

I mean what do those breaches represent in terms of unlawful activity ?

Yeah but what are these charges tantamount to in the real world ? Match fixing ? Does n't look like it. Tax evasion ? Money laundering ? A somewhat similar situation was the one I described with Trevor Ross and AEK Athens. But this had to do with the president cheating the other board members, or allegedly doing so. The president had to step down but there were no implications for the club, actual or anticipated. Another one was the notorious Koskotas case in 1989. Koskotas was the president of Olympiakos Piraeus and also the president of the bank of Crete. He inappropriately used funds of the bank of Crete to buy Lajos Detari from Eintracht Frankfurt as well as he inappropriately used more funds for other financial ventures. In that case Olympiakos was in trouble but the club managed to avoid punishment. Koskotas stepped down (and went to prison) and the new board had to sell the player and give the money to the bank (Detari moved to Bologna). But all this again was a case of fraud against the bank really - a criminal case. In the case of City what is the crime ?

I remember a somewhat similare case back in 1983. AEK Athens signed Trevor Ross from Everton. They said the cost was 250,000 pounds but after investigation it was half that amount. The reason ? AEK club president had already borrowed 650,000 to the club and to get some of it back he inflated Ross's trasfer fee. The PASOK government did n't like this man because he supported the opposition party so they investigated things and found the irregularity. But this had no implications for the club - only the club president (Panagidis) had to resign. Nowadays this sort of thing is punishable ?

What exactly did City (and Juventus) do ? Where is the offense ? I know we received a transfer ban once for spending too much money (breach of fiinancial fair play) and another time for bringing too many youngsters from Africa. But this is different. What sort of offenses did they commit ?

It's a fact that they all struggle to score goals lately: The Klop team is a distant memory. Pep spanked by Spurs. Arsenal. Newcastle do nothing but hoof. Only Real Madrid know how to play attacking football. They are not a team of the premier but can we copy them ? Yesterday they were very poor againt Mallorca but that was an exception.

JOURNALISTS Would you agree with this maxim: - From all the journalists put together you may learn some truths. - Every individual journalist is a liar.

We are not better than Fulham and the team is not ready. I was hoping we were going to ride on the wave of the recent successes in the transfer market and win this one but I was proven wrong, Some good signs but also it's been established that Mount continues his long spell of underpar performances, Kai is useless as a striker and Potter is a coach for lower divisions.

Facebook is buzzing with Mourinho.

Oh dear ! We were champions league winners back then, not 9th in the league ! But Haaland did well to maintain a neutral stance re. Chelsea when his German club said "not this year". He knew we were going for another striker and he did n't know that Lukaku or whoever was going to be pronounced a failure by January. We also could n't really keep Werner and wait for summer 2022 to go for Haaland again as there were more clubs who wanted him. Then in the summer of 2022 apart from our problem with the sanctions, his agreement with City was all but finalised. Erase those two stories, Haaland and Lukaku. But for some reason when it comes to choosing a striker we seem to be stuck like it is an unsolvable mathematical problem.

A future agreement with Haaland might have been possible at that stage. But seeing that Werner was not filling the ticks the board-Tuchel-fans wanted a striker asap. I don't remember names talked about at the time other than the three I mentioned.

Haaland himself was neutral about it - a diplomat. It was Borussia who did n't budge.

Look Roman tried for Haaland but Dortmund wanted to keep him for one more season. Then as the money was spent on Lukaku we did n't return. In fact Haaland agreed with City sometime in Ocober 2021. About Lukaku there were three names in the market in the summer of 2021: Lew-Kane-Lukaku (and Haaland whom I already mentioned but it was rejected). Lew was 32, then Bayern decided to keep him and they gave him to Barcelona in 2022. So what do we do ? You may argue in favour of Kane but some others here maintain it was impossible. I have posted something about strikers a few posts back and it seems to be the most difficult of areas for the scouts.

We have scored only 22 goals so far and only some of the strugglers are doing worse. We have conceded 21 and only the top trio Arsenal-City-Newcastle are better defensively. So you can see where the big problem is. Tuchel had the same problem, probably did not anticipate and probably did n't have time to look into it as he left the team early in the season but Potter has proved himself useless time and again.

What is an offensive bust ? Cheapies don't count. Agreed that some of the world's superstars were cheapy transfers at first, but the cheapies don't count. I have a real case and it needs an explanation.

No, you lose: KK - tend to agree Wes Fofana (subject to change) - ? CuCu - agree Malang Sarr - backup player, unimportant Bakayoko - agree Emerson - backup player, unimportant Baba - backup player, unimportant Drinkwater - backup player, unimportant Zappacosta - he was a second choice attacker under Sarri Papy Djilobodji - backup player, unimportant Attackers that cost a fortune / made transfer headlines in recent years (>= 2015) and did n't really perform: Oscar Morata Timo Kai Pulisic Ziyech Lukaku and Abraham from the youth squad. The likes of Remy-Bats-Demba Ba-Falcao-Pato-Aube I don't count. But the same story is true for other teams as well.

Kai like Abraham does not have centre of gravity. If some coach could turrn him into a cb he could do better.

I have observed this over the years: When we buy an attacker it's fifty-fifty he will make it, more likely twenty-eighty. When we buy a defender he usually turns out to be good bar exceptions.

Kai and Mount are the frauds. The other three you mention just can't do any better. James was also very bad, Chilwell a sad spectacle for the last ten minutes he played and also Azpi is not up to it anymore. He is abused by being asked to play. That leaves 1/2 team on the pitch and Mudryk was out of his depth today.

Potter really has to go.