Man City would be easier to warm to if they felt any fear. Like John McClane or Indiana Jones…

One Mailboxer is left cold by Manchester City’s lack of spontaneity, while another sees the modern day superhero in them. But they’re no John McClane or Indiana Jones…

Get your views in to theeditor@football365.com…

Klopp, refs and accountability
Let me start by saying, I do not think there is a vast conspiracy theory against Liverpool by referees or the PGMOL. Unfortunately, in the case of Paul Tierney there are a few high profile examples where big calls have consistently gone against Liverpool, particularly in the Spurs game which Liverpool drew during an incredibly close title race last season. The fact is there are decisions which can be used to invent conspiracies for people inclined to do so. It’s numerous poor decisions by one referee against one team.

Tierney and Liverpool hit the headlines (again) a few weeks ago because of comments made by Klopp about the refereeing during the Spurs game and his reaction to Liverpool’s winner. It was clear Klopp was frustrated by a poor decision to not only fail to give Salah a free kick but to award one against him in the run up to Richarlison’s equalizer. The entire incident caused a media storm involving Klopp, Tierney and the 4th official Brooks (easily the blameless one in the scenario). Klopp was made accountable and rightly so.

Referees must be as fair as they can and must be seen to be fair. The same goes for PGMOL in their appointments. It emerged after the Spurs game that Tierney had refereed Liverpool more than any referee had refereed any other team this season. Seems strange and given the history a bit careless by PGMOL. Surely if there was a previous issue between a referee and a team you’d just schedule them the average amount of times. Why would you put a combination with history together more than normal? Why make it an outlier?

After the Spurs incident, Liverpool had 5 games left this season. It would seem to me that the easiest and sensible thing for PGMOL to do would be to not increase the Tierney outlier of refereeing Liverpool more than average and to completly neutralise the issue, probably not appoint Brooks as referee for the remaining fixtures. Let tensions ease and take the heat of the situation before everyone starting afresh next season. It just seems like common sense. Like a player not dangling a leg in the penalty box, don’t leave yourself open to an accusation.

Referees are human and humans have bias both conscious and unconscious. Brooks is human and given the proximity of the Klopp shouting incident to the weekend’s game, it would take superhuman levels of self-awareness for Brooks not to bring some unconscious bias into the game. I’ve watched refereeing (and laterly VARs) for 30 years… none of them are Superhuman! For PGMOL probably better to be aware of unconscious bias and try to mitigate it (i.e. not appoint Brooks).

In your piece on David Maddock’s column on the issue you seem to interpret Klopp’s post-match comments as some sort of endorsement of the decisions taken by Brooks. I think that is a huge leap. Fundamentally, when the FA censures managers for what they say about officiating it has a chilling effect on what managers feel they can say and I’m sure that effect is heightened when speaking after the game in which you’ve served your suspension. Klopp’s being careful what he says does not mean he agrees.

On the decision itself, as your column notes it was debatable and was subjective. It didn’t feel like a clear and obvious error therefore I don’t know why the on field decision didn’t stand but it was debatable ( in contrast say to the Mings ‘tackle’ on Gakpo).

It strikes me that referees, VARs and PGMOL have huge influence on games and who wins what, yet they are the only actors in the game who are largely unaccountable for their actions. If a manager fails to succeed or criticises a referee, he loses is job or is suspended by the FA. If a player fails to perform they are dropped and/or sold. To be honest, media figures seem more accountable for their actions now than referees.

Never being held to account means never learning from your mistakes. No accountability means no progress. That’s why games continue to be refereed poorly.
PL from DL

Embrace the fear
Reading John Nicholson’s piece, it occurred to me how similar Manchester City are to contemporary Hollywood action movies and how I regard them in similar fashion.

Hear me out. Hollywood action movies today have the money and the technological means to show you anything: dinosaurs, giant robots, giant robot dinosaurs, all convincing.

But action movies today can rarely compare to classics of yesteryear. Die Hard, Predator, Aliens, etc.

And that’s because of a diminished sense of peril.

Action heroes today seem impervious, rarely flustered by the mass violence and spectacle they find themselves caught up.

They never seem scared, or vulnerable. They offer lazy quips in the face of enormous danger. They rarely suffer any kind of significant physical harm.

Compare that with Indiana Jones, who could take a punch and definitely get hurt. Who definitely got scared or a bit worried.

Or John McClane, who was terrified for about 70 percent of Die Hard and definitely got hurt and showed it.

These elements, fear, pain, vulnerability make those action heroes compelling and draw out our sympathy.

Heroes that don’t show worry or fear or seem convincingly under physical threat are boring. They make for boring, uninvolving action movies.
Sure, we know that the good guys are going to win and the bad guys are going to lose.

But heroes showing that they are scared and yet keep going despite that, make for compelling watching on the journey of the good guys’ inevitable victory.

Manchester City aren’t John McClane or Ellen Ripley or Indiana Jones, heroes who showed that they were scared and vulnerable, but pushed on despite their fear and vulnerability.

They’re The Rock, a juggernaut who never even pretends that the situation is scary or that he might lose.
They’re a poorly written movie with all the best special effects but a dull narrative where blood isn’t spilt and the hero never seems in doubt.

And that just isn’t a good movie, no matter all money spent or the resources used
Regards,
Justin

Read more: Manchester City are best of all time and nobody gives a f***; take note, Premier League

City robots
I’m in full agreement with the various mails and articles that have been published on F365 recently regarding the various reasons why City and their successes is quite so dull: the amount of money spent over the last ten years, the lack of challengers, the lack of jeopardy in individual games, and so on.

However, I’d like to add another, no doubt highly controversial reason to the mix: the football itself. This is of course very much a matter of taste, and I’m sure some faux-intellectual types will respond with something along the lines of ‘If you don’t like watching 300 ten-yard passes strung together, maybe football isn’t the sport for you!!1!’. But – I don’t. I find it really, really boring, and I’m sure I can’t be the only one.

The main attraction of football for me is the use of wit – original, quick thinking, the ability to do something your opponent didn’t expect and that perhaps you didn’t even plan yourself. Moments of spontaneous genius. As mentioned in a recent F365 article about Kalvin Phillips, it takes a long time to get used to Pep’s methods, where every pass is pre-planned on the training ground. We’re seeing a team that simply isn’t allowed to express any form of spontaneity or wit – unless Plan A is being countered with a solid defensive plan, in which case KDB (or Vincent Kompany) is allowed to spaff one in from twenty yards.

Other than those scenarios, Pep’s teams (to make it clear I’ve got nothing against City – I’ve always hated Tiki-taka and its subsequent variants) will, 99.9% of the time, pass the ball a short distance, with no goalscoring intent. Just keep the ball, and wait for the opposition defence to switch off for a moment. If a professional footballer, whose entire job is to concentrate for 90 minutes, can’t stay awake while the Pepball machine does its boring robotic churn, what chance do those of us watching at home have?

It may be technically very impressive to keep the ball for so much of a football match. Equally, I’m sure it’s very impressive that production lines for filling and sealing bags of crisps can run at thousands of packets a minute (I imagine). Do I want to watch one running for 90 minutes? Nope.

I’m sure defenders of Pep’s football will point to the number of goals the team score. Is scoring the same goal over and over again (get the ball out wide, put it into the middle, Haaland knocks it in) entertaining to watch? If you’re the Premier League, or if your job is to promote the Premier League (e.g pundits) then apparently it’s enough to work you into a frenzy of excitement. If you want to try to convince people you’re a footballing purist, you’ll say that a team ‘controlling the game’ is all the joy you need from a game of football. For someone who wants to be entertained, it’s impressive that Pep’s teams win so often, but I don’t need to see it happening as I know how the play will unfold, how the goals will be scored, and most likely the story of the match.

The last exciting City match I can remember watching was the 3-2 comeback against Villa last season, which I’m guessing became exciting because there were emotions involved – nerves at getting over the line in the title race. Generally, Pep’s football is free from emotion, wit, spontaneity, and as a result, entertainment.

And just so I’m not accused of envy/generally being miserable, I (begrudgingly) enjoy the blood and thunder of Klopp’s gegenpressing, and intricate passing if it actually goes somewhere (e.g that Jack Wilshere goal for Arsenal; the Ramsey backheel finish against Fulham that followed about eight incisive passes and some ball-juggling; the first-time Fabregas pass to Schurrle, etc). There’s so much I love about watching football – and Pep’s style offers none of it.

Perhaps if the media weren’t constantly telling me how great it is, I wouldn’t mind so much – like being forced to listen to Ed Sheeran every time I go in a supermarket resulting in me hating him far more than is reasonable. Who knows. Either way, the Premier League will be a much more entertaining place, for lots of reasons, when Pep moves to PSG in two years’ time.

Cheers,
Dan (not a footballing intellectual), Worthing

Good viruses
I quite liked Dave, LFC’s missive about City being a virus in the game that needs eradicating.

But I think he’s also missed a few other salient points, like how there are potentially bigger more deadly virus’s already in the game.

One of these being namely Man Utd, Liverpool, Arsenal and the likes of Mr Levy trying to stitch up the system so they continuously stay at the top in perpetuity. They don’t care what other teams survive, only that they flourish and grow, to the point where they were quite happy to jump ship to a European Super League, and let their original host wither and fade away

Just maybe fans of other teams in the pyramid consider teams like the Utd, Liverpool & co as the Smallpox virus of the game, and MCFC & Newcastle as the Cowpox virus.

Sometimes some viruses can have their good uses
Scott, North Yorkshire

History repeating
City fan here.

I’m struck and somewhat surprised by the number of mails, followed up by Johnny Nic’s latest moan, whereby the authors wish to point out that they couldn’t care less about City either winning the League or, indeed, the treble. That City’s ‘juggernaut’ leaves them cold, is not exciting but is instead ‘sterile’ or as some have stated, just ‘meh’. That they wish Arsenal had won, want United to win the FA Cup, and hope Inter win the CL. (*On the last one, so do I).

I’m surprised not because I harboured any illusion that every other fan had a warm, cuddly feeling about City. I’m surprised because this is far from being a new phenomenon.

I watched my first match at Maine Road in 1972. That season, Liverpool won the 1st Division. Over the following 18 seasons they won it again 11 times. Twice back-to-back and once, three in a row.

From the start of the Prem, and in the 21 seasons that followed, Manchester United won the title 13 times. They won back-to-back victories twice, and three in a row, also twice. In the same period, and apart from Blackburn Rovers, the only other teams to win were Arsenal and Chelsea. (On a side note, how DID Blackburn Rovers manage that? Nothing to do with money I take it?)

Starting to see the pattern?

Which brings me onto the next point. Apart from the 1976 League Cup Final (Newcastle, winning goal scored by a Dennis Tueart overhead kick. Ahhh). Since 1972 until 2012 I, like my fellow City fans of the same vintage, have had very little to be excited about whilst the relevant ‘mentality monsters’ of those decades utterly dominated English top flight football. Our main focus was on trying to stave off relegation. And look how well that went.

During most of that time, I personally couldn’t have given a flying f*ck who was winning the League. Simply because we were nowhere near being in the mix and, therefore, had no dog in the fight and because, with a few exceptions, it was generally accepted that the ‘juggernauts’ then were ‘bound to win it’. And, more often than not, they did. Actually, my only exception, as a Manchester lad, was wanting ABU to win. A hope very rarely realised. Sound familiar?

This isn’t rocket science boys and girls. The utter, ruthless dominance of English top flight football isn’t new. Nor is the negative reaction to it from a lot of other fans. Not in my lifetime anyway. It’s simply this. It’s just City’s turn.

There’s a process here. In the here and now, pundits and aficionados alike can look back at Liverpool, Manchester United and, to a lesser extent, Arsenal and Chelsea of yesteryear and wax lyrical about how great those teams/managers were (and they were). Giants! Legends!
Well folks, what you’re seeing now is the 21st Century equivalent. Nothing more, nothing less.

You can hate it because you’re not going to win the League and you can hate City because of their ‘boring, sterile dominance’ and also wish that ABC wins any competitions they’re in. All of that is fine. But if you’ve been writing in to F365 in the last couple of weeks thinking you’re breaking virgin ground with your thoughts then, I’m afraid, you are very much mistaken. What’s on SM now is no different to what was being said in pubs and football supporters’ clubs back in the day. Sorry to disappoint.

As the fabulous Shirley Bassey would say? “It’s just a little bit of history repeating”.

Oh, and for those itching to go down the ‘115 charges’ route, with the F365 MC’s permission, I’ll address that later as I fear I’ve already outstayed my electronic welcome.
Mark (*Not a shred of evidence to back it up, but I think if Pep wins the CL, he’ll be off.) MCFC.

Get the memo
It’s almost like City fans have had some kind of PR briefing – any email must reference the 5 year net spend figure. Why is it that we’re looking at 5 years only? Are City saying they won the league without, I dunno De Bruyne, Stones, Gundogan, Laporte, Walker, Silva and Ederson? So we don’t count those players’ costs?

Actually, check this – if you only look at 5 years, they’ve also made a huge profit on Jesus, Sterling and Zinchenko! What brilliance, bought for 0 (in the last 5) and sold for more than 100m!

Get our own house in order
Listen, City are well run, well managed, and have a brilliant squad. But that squad is the most expensive ever assembled. No random timelines will change that. And looking at the age of some of those above, you really think City aren’t going to be top of the net spend tables again very soon?
Ryan, Bermuda (wish I could wipe away the cost of anything I purchased 5 years ago)

…Reading about the treatment that Vini Jr was subjected to, I was going to write a long missive on how it must be awful to be a black player in Spain. To be subjected to monkey chants and have the FA, the pundits nor anyone else support you or find it offensive. It must be demoralising. All the money in the world does not immunise you from abuse. Being a millionaire doesn’t make it fair game to racially abuse them.

But then I thought, you know it is probably no different here, not really. We have a veneer of respectability, but it took a solitary penalty miss by Saka to go from Golden Boy to being showered in racist sh*t on social media. Sure, our pundits may take offense on his behalf, and raise it as unacceptable, but nothing seems to stop it.

When I was growing up, racists were made to feel ashamed. I’m not saying the late 90s were some halcyon era, but at least racists had to hide their fascist lights, they weren’t given their own news channels! We need to, as fans, name, shame and boot out any instance of racism. We need to self police as a society because our leadership, be it football or government, seem incapable of this.
John (that black Arsenal kit deserved more!) Matrix AFC