Man City myths busted: Spending, wage bill and squad strength not through roof

Man City are no Lance Armstrong…they still spend considerably less than Chelsea and Manchester United. They are just run by a genius.

Send your mails on this and other subjects to theeditor@football365.com

Man City are no Lance Armstrong
In response to William of Leicester and Andrew M, Streatham and them both calling Man City “The Lance Armstrong of Football” can I please retort.

Armstrong cheated by juicing himself with various performance enhancing drugs to his advantage over natural non drug taking cyclists. His body was then stronger, faster and with more endurance, which allowed him to perform at a level no one else could complete with. That is clearly cheating by gaining an unfair advantage over everyone he is competing against.

What Manchester City have done is spend similar amounts of money to the established Big 4 from the 2000s, Manchester United, Chelsea, Liverpool and recently with their transfer spend, Arsenal. Having investment into the team to allow City to compete at a similar level financially, doesn’t sound at all like the same as what Armstrong did to be honest.

City haven’t spent a disproportionate amount of money compared with the rest of the big 4 like Juventus, PSG or Bayern Munich did/do in their leagues. City don’t have a wage bill double everyone else (in fact City were third behind United and Chelsea for the 21-22 season). City don’t have a squad that is twice the size of everyone else’s so they play a different XI in each competition (in fact City have the smallest sized squad in the league). City haven’t agreed with the Premier League that they can play 12 players in their side each game. These would all be massive advantages and clearly a parallel with the Armstrong’s stronger, faster and with more endurance angle. And yet none of them happened. What happened is City are managed by a genius and are extremely well run.

Your comparison with Armstrong is just a lazy extension of the fairness idea purported by FFP. The ‘fairness’ that comes from the biggest clubs being able to out spend everyone else and rules in place to limit investment, which means no amount of ‘organic growth’ can compete with the established elite. I’d hazard a guess that William of Leicester and Andrew M, Streatham are fans of Big Red teams and the ‘fairness’ they want, is for their clubs to have less financial competition and less football competition. Or coming back to their analogy, they had the best performance enhancing drugs, and don’t want anyone else getting their hands on them.
Andy D. Manchester. MCFC

READ: Premier League five-year net spend table sees Arsenal double Man City outlay

What you need for a title challenge: A squad
Note to teams: Don’t try and mount a title challenge without a squad. Result would be heartbreak like Gooners coming so close this season. Man City have x2 starting 11s every season with the cream of crop talent from the Premier League and around

Europe – this after weeding out and selling on the have-beens. Pep has created a ruthless winning monster in City. I’ve felt you Gooners pain and heartbreak the seasons they pipped us (Liverpool) to league. Just pray next season Liverpool can come back hard like when 2Pac joined Death Row… otherwise Premier League would become another one-team winning circus show like Bundesliga and Ligue1. Thank goodness for Osimhen and the Napoli boys for sticking it to the ‘establishment’. Europe were you watching 🙂
Michael O

…Honestly these guys mailing in again and again to say that “Arsenal had no excuse for all the draws and losses in the last few games” are continuously ignoring valid points that have been repeated beforehand ad nauseam. Many mailers had already mentioned the squad depth issue and the injuries sustained but many of you have tunnel vision and refuse to acknowledge this. Open your eyes and try reading something other than “banter” on twitter.

Let’s have a timeline of what the naysayers have said about Arsenal this season:

1. They certainly won’t be contenders and may not even make the top 4.

2. Ok let’s see how long this lasts.

3. Ok they’ll make top 4 and they’re contenders now but may screw it up because City are formidable.

4. Haha I told you so they “bottled” it by TOTALLY SURPASSING EVERYONE’S EXPECTATIONS FOR THEM.

The season is a marathon, this Arsenal team doesn’t currently have the capacity or resources to outdo City in this marathon. It’s as simple as this. Have a good day gentlemen and ladies.
Vish (AFC), Melbourne, Aus

Hating the bottle talk
I admit that I hate the term ‘bottling’ because I’m very disappointed with how lacklustre Arsenal have been towards the end of this season.

Fellow rival gloating fans (bar certain admirable ones) are using that term without actually looking at the points difference between second and third….and beyond. Have those teams ‘bottled’ the title?

Arsenal haven’t won the league for 19 years. Liverpool, for example, waited longer to win the Premiership. I was four years old when I first started supporting Arsenal and waited 15 years to see us win the league….it was all bloody Liverpool and David Fairclough and Ray Clemence in those days (and Forest) and I backed them in Europe! What did I know about tribalism then.

The point I’m really making is that, for those saying: “goodbye Arsenal, that was your only chance!” we’ve had lean spells throughout history but have won titles in the 30’s, 40’s, 50’s, 70’s, 80’s, 90’s, 00’s….. probably the most consistent title winners in the league rather than ‘binge’ winners….also the most successful FA Cup winners… hopefully we can make amends for our poor European record going forward… that’s my main goal. I think Arsenal have proved themselves in England now we have to add to Fairs Cup and the Cup Winners Cup to REALLY prove ourselves.
Chris, Croydon

READ: Ranking the Arsenal bottle jobs from Martin Odegaard to Thomas Partey

You did bottle it though
Now that the dust has settled on the weekends results, I just want to make sure that the fans of Arsenal, the fans who have been the great purveyors of the word ‘bottled’ over the last 10 years, haven’t forgotten that their team completed their 6 week long choke of the Premier League

Yes I know plenty of journalists who have been cheerleading for you and refusing to report on certain things have come out with their platitudes about how you’ve been a breath of fresh air, in lieu of the aforementioned media blackout story and the anti Semitism storm surrounding the club amid their non action with the Ashburton Army whatsapp group, but let’s leave you in no doubt that you are chokers and have not only been top of the league for 93% of the time this season, but Arsenal have four of the five biggest periods top of the league without winning the league in the Premier League era

No other club have had as many points as Arsenal at the halfway point and not won the league

Your points per game in the first half of the season was 2.63. The next 8 games was 2.5. The last 9 games 1.66.

So remember, stop fighting it. Stop denying it. No flowery language from Henry Winter or wistful looks into the distance from the Alice band toting Oliver Holt will cover it up.

Anyway, you’re welcome. Just providing a service.
@Birkenshaw_Spurs

Heeeeeeeere’s Stewie
Reading the torrent of gnashing, angsty Arsenal fans in the mailbox has been comedy gold. For a group of fans who definitely are “delighted” with the outstanding season they had, and considering what a “success” this season has been…they sure seem angry and defensive, considering the success! (But sure I’m the angry one! 😂). This reminds me of angry Brexiters, lashing out at all and sundry despite their “success”. You won right! Why the anger?

I do want to add a couple of things:

1) This “young team” thing is now becoming a robotic norm to excuse Arsenal not winning major titles. If you take a shot of tequila for every “Young team” you hear referenced by Arsenal fans, you will be plastered within 20 minutes! Arsenal’s young players were not picked up in Highbury fields, local lads like Ashley Cole that came through their academies. The club chose to invest large sums on young players like Odegaard, White, Pepe, Tierney, Saliba and Gabriel etc. Saka is obviously the exception but ultimately, Arsenal chose to not buy experience despite their huge budget, and went with youth. Commendable strategy.

What you don’t do however, is choose to invest large sums on youth, and then use that as a shield to excuse any, and all legit criticism. Arsenal fans never, ever learn. It is almost a copy-paste of the “Young British core” team that were going to conquer the world ynfer Wenger (Walcott, Ramsey, Oxlade, Djourou Diaby et al. remember?). You Gooners are reprising the Greatest Hits of excuses! We heard this under Wenger in 2007, and ultimately, that team won sod all!

2) I find it hilarious for Arsenal fans to suddenly be interested in making evidence-based cases. Really? Because I could have sworn the mailbox has been dominated by “Citeh’s financial doping” and “100 breaches”. Where is the evidence for this? Aaaah right. There is none! It’s another excuse. Must be Citeh’s fault Brighton pulled Arsenal’s pants down, again.

3) Why will Arsenal not get another chance? Pretty simple one this: because Arsenal despite the good players, does not have a single world-class player. Their major rivals, in the main, all have at least one. Citeh take your pick: KDB, Rodri, Haaland, Dias, Ederson. Liverpool still have Salah, and Alisson. Etc. Arsenal do not have a single one. Lots of very good players, none world class. Oh and no physical leaders on the pitch. Declan Rice alone won’t change that, they are minimum 2-3 big players short. You are not winning the league without a world class player. Even Leicester had Kante.

4) The other obvious point, is Arsenal’s ineptitude in the transfer market! We all know how the Declan Rice saga should go – and even if he signs, will the other long overdue areas be addressed? Will Holding, Nketiah, etc still be hanging around? Would Pep keep an underperforming player like Holding as long as Arteta has? There is abundant evidence of Arsenal’s transfer market negligence – e.g. the failure to sign a proper DCM last summer, then lowballing for Douglas Luiz last-minute. The failure to upgrade Holding with a signing even Stevie Wonder could see was needed. Then there is Pep Guardiola. Arsenal have never beaten Guardiola in a league fixture. Ever. Home or away. And that will never change, he has a stranglehold over that.

5) Finally, the reason Arsenal cannot win the league next season, is because the fans of Arsenal are always happy to turn any situation into success and the pressure to deliver titles that exists at big clubs, isn’t present at Arsenal. I literally said this in 2008, and nothing has changed. “Happy to be here and enjoy the day out” is the mantra. Always successful! So this season? Success! No choking (even though business end of the season shows otherwise.) Last season? Another success! “Nobody expected us to compete for top 4”. Years of spankings in the CL under Wenger? Success, because forget the 10-2 scorelines etc they were “competing at the highest level”. Then when they fell out of the CL? Success!

“Seven hundred years of consecutive years of European football, most clubs would kill for that” they proclaimed! So you see, unlike say…a Madrid, a Bayern, a Man United, a Liverpool etc there just isn’t any culture of expectation or pressure to deliver anything. They usually hide that behind some banal Fake humility “no soy has the divine right to win” (wtf does this actually mean?) Whereas at the big clubs, fans would definitely be asking serious questions about the manner of Arsenal’s predictable implosion. Still. YOU SHOULD BE THANKING US. Uh huh, sounds real humble!
Stewie Griffin (I told my boss “Nobody expected Stewie to turn up to work at all today, so the fact I was three hours late is sensational”! Oh and if I need to face a firing squad, I want Jesus shooting!)

On those Keys and Gray PFMs
Just reading the article on pundits mistakes this season, and it suddenly struck me – isn’t BeIN sports a ‘foreign’ channel? Aren’t the majority of their viewers ‘foreign’? How do Keys and Gray get away with saying this rubbish?

Far be it from me to lecture others on how to enjoy football (or hate every aspect of it if you are Stewie Griffin), but surely the viewers must get riled if they are being told that, just because they aren’t British, their views on football, specifically the Premier League, are somehow less valid? I might be over simplifying things here, but don’t the owners of BeIN sports have an analytical team that will test viewers response to things like this? I work for a major grocery retailer, and if we consistently told shoppers they didn’t know anything and were fortunate that we let them in to ‘our shops’, we would be bankrupt within a few months.

Nothing particularly important here, just strikes me as odd that they can sit on a platform and basically just insult their key demographic – anyone who regularly watches the channel able to shed some light on it?
Jack (still very nervous about Liverpool pipping us) Manchester

Weirdos
No, you aren’t wrong, it’s a very weird way to enjoy football.

Perpetually through the lens of a player’s international rival or something along those lines.

Just enjoy something glorious in the moment for what it is.

And absolutely, well done to Arsenal for pushing City this season.

It has been quite the ride to watch, hard luck.
Manc from SA

Don’t moan about Twitter
I hope this doesn’t come across as overly-bitchy in turning Dave Tickner’s article’s headline against him, but truly and genuinely, If your response to Alexander-Arnold playing well involves checking what’s trending on Twitter you’re part of the problem.

Most of us football-loving ‘civilians’ (those who are not in the football/media industry) are not on Twitter. If we cared what people said on Twitter, we would be able to find it… on Twitter.

I understand Dave’s point that this kind of discourse spills over into real life, but honestly if you dig a little deeper, I think you would find a high correlation between “football fans who act/think that way” and “football fans who are active Twitter users”.

I don’t mean this as a complaint or a criticism of Dave’s article. I mean it more like “guys, you are in a Twitter bubble, and you don’t actually need to take that nonsense seriously”
Oliver (still wants to comment on Arsenal, has yet again used up all his paragraphs) Dziggel, Geneva Switzerland

Well done Luton
As a fan of Always Sunny in Philly, I wish Wrexham well, but we’re looking at their story right now, everyone who watches the Wrexham show, buy a DVD of Luton’s resurgence (or watch YouTube vids or something), because it’s actually happening. It happens with Italian teams a lot, something similar happened with Bournemouth a decade ago, but this is quite astonishing.

Still a game to go, and if Coventry beat Boro I’ll want them both to go up, Coventry were always entertaining in a West Ham kind of way, not spectacular, but had players who’d score worldie’s every so often. It’s potentially a great final round in the championship, I hope it’s between the two of them, the premier league gets it’s critics for being separated from the rest of the English football pyramid, but unexpected teams flow in with a good bit of regularity (last year Forest, before Brentford, Leeds before that) and it’s always a breath of fresh air if they turn out to have their good days.

Well done Inter Milan too, good luck!
Dave, Dublin

…This one may have been lost in the debate over whether Arsenal fans should be miserable or not but well done Luton.

Their story is amazing. They were non-league less than a decade ago and now they are on the verge of returning to the top flight for the firsttime since players played on their plastic pitch.

If this Arsenal fan with no link with the club can be this happy, you have to wonder what the atmosphere is like in around the town.

Roll on the play off final and good luck to the hatters!

P.S. Have a pop at Arsenal fans all you want but stop telling us how we’re supposed to feel. If you want to spend your miserable existence in silence in the stands because your team has had the temerity not to win the quadruple then fine, we’ll just congratulate our boys on progress made.
Graham Simons, Gooner, Norf London