Man City’s plea for neutral fans against Real villains goes as well as you’d expect…

Real Madrid’s ‘outright thuggery and whining’ is no worse than Manchester City’s methods, according to the Mailbox. Also: Premier League clubs should look away from Italy for centre-backs.

Get your views in to theeditor@football365.com…

Alien Versus Predator
My friends and I refer to a situation where either option in a crappy choice is an AVP situation. Why? Because the tag line for the film Alien vs Predator was: Whoever wins, we lose.

And that is how I feel about Real or City in the Champions League. Two reprehensible clubs, who treat everyone else with disdain. City have over 100 hundred violations of FFP. Real have used their clout for decades to disturb any opposition.

Whoever ends up winning, will probably win the tournament, and so for that reason, I don’t want to make an AVP choice. I wish they could somehow both lose.
John Matrix AFC

Ways to win
Hi Levenshulme Blue,

“There are certain ways of winning a football match. Outright thuggery and whining, wheeling and yelling at the ref, who’d already decided he was going to help them out, is certainly one of the ways of winning…..”

Frankly too is financial doping. “It’s not the way that I believe any football fan in England would choose, is it?”

Get off your high horse……
Ali Giles, Singapore

…In reply to to Levensbulme blue who poses the question of why anybody would want the “Outright thuggery and whining, wheeling and yelling” at the ref of Madrid to win vs City.

Yes, I’d absolutely prefer Madrid to win it again vs a Man City win.

You wouldn’t happen to be coached by Pep, the master of whining, wheeling and yelling, while at Barcelona? It’s a bit rich, dont ya think?

I’ve witnessed his team’s dive and fake injury all over the place. Van persie was sent off for kicking a ball a millisecond after the whistle, which was obviously corruption, but nobody said sh*t at the time.

“It’s not the way that I believe any football fan in England would choose” (to win).
Is the alternative way, 100+ charges by the premier league for alleged corruption a “preferred way to win”?
Strevs, Afc, Canada

…If you think what Real Madrid do represents outright thuggery, you should take a look at what the owners of Man City do to political dissidents.
Simon, London

Reds singing the blues
As a Liverpool fan, I’ve not really got a lot of skin in the game when it comes to Man City’s game against Madrid and their European campaign in general . To be honest though, I’d rather they succeed than not. I don’t hate City, despite our intense rivalry over the last few years. We’d have won at least 2 more leagues if they hadn’t been as good and as consistent. But they were, so no point whining about it.

I thought a draw was a pretty fair result, though it did seem like the referee was very soft on Madrid. City are probably 51/49 favourites to go through, but there are most likely plenty of twists and turns to come. Madrid are such a pain in the arse in the Champions League, they never know when they’re beaten. And yet it sort of feels like it is City’s time at last. Good luck to them.

Obviously it would be as funny as hell if they won the Treble, but there’s a lot of football to be played before that. Personally I think Arsenal are still in the box seat, given it’s all they have to play for. The Newcastle result was huge and shows Arsenal are absolutely not bottling anything.

As a last thought – it’s been so much fun listening to United fans going on and on about how much better their season has been than ours. And yet here we are finishing fast and they’re choking on their hubris at the last.

And I’ll tell you, honestly – I will love it if we beat them, love it!
James, Liverpool

Read more: Hello, Goodbye: A Premier League XI who could be on the move again after less than a year

Buyer beware
Having read the recent rumours of the likes of Man UTD going for the latest amazing serie A centre back in Kim Min Jae, I initially thought that to be a good idea, it would certainly increase the income from the Asian market.

However, after we all (myself included) spent nearly a decade saying how awesome Koulibaly would be in the premier league, then seeing how far off he was of the pace, surely this should be taken into consideration.

Especially seeing how one of Italy’s best were beaten by goals from a 37 yr old and a 34 yr old this evening. Maybe the old stereotypes of Italian football being slower than the alternative are true.
Dave PVFC

Late review
Pete, Norfolk, there’s already been a VAR decision to potentially change title winners last season.

PGMOL apologised to Everton after a penalty for a Rodri handball wasn’t given in the 80 something-th minute in a game that City won 1-0. I appreciate Everton might have missed it and City might have scored in the moments afterwards, but they never got the change and City ended up winning the title by a point.

That was a tough one to take, so hope your one doesn’t turn out to be the difference maker.
Tom, Andover