Manchester City ARE Lance Armstrong and nobody likes a cheat

Manchester City have been defended and now they have been attacked again. Plus, more on Arsenal and whether it’s a bottle job.

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

Man City ARE Lance Armstrong (allegedly)
I have to respond to the latest Man City defender from this morning claiming that City’s net spend and wage bill are comparable to the “big clubs” in the league.

What he should be claiming is that City’s DECLARED net spend and DECLARED wage bill are comparable.

I have no doubt that City maintaining two first XIs of better and more sought after players costs exactly the same as maintaining one first XI of not so good and not so sought after players.

That’s my only point. Actual spending vs declared spending. Very different. You can believe Man City’s declared figures if you want to. Innocent until proven guilty and all that. We do live in an almost free country (for now). But let’s be realistic…
Super (Pep is the Ultimate Chequebook Manager) Fly

…You’re right to say that on paper, City haven’t spend vastly disproportionate sums on transfers and wages in relation to other clubs both domestic and abroad. This is totally correct. On paper.

They have been found guilty of circumventing those rules though, meaning they were funnelling money off the books to bolster the clubs financial position and paying staff via other undeclared means. Mancini’s wage was said to have been doubled the official declared amount and no doubt he was not the only person benefitting from such an arrangement.

City had a European ban overturned but crucially were not acquitted of wrongdoing in 2020 in relation to some of these activities. The Premier League has also found over 100 occasions of financial cheating.

They do have a genius of a coach with brilliant players and staff to execute the meticulous plans. It can also be true that they are allegedly prolific cheats, accelerating their progress illegally with funds no one else can hope to match (before Newcastle anyway). Both things can, and likely are, true. This is why the Lance Armstrong analogy is so accurate.

Truth hurts I guess.
AD – Scouser exiled in London

…Andy D’s passionate defence of Manchester City is trampled on by the elephant in the room that goes by the name of “charged with 115 breaches of financial fair play rules”

Funny how he never mentioned that.
Seán

…Andy D. is correct when he says that Manchester City are managed by a genius and extremely well-run. But he’s wrong to point to their wage bills as evidence that they are not financially ‘doping’.

We’ve already seen via the Der Spiegel leaks how utterly committed they have been to circumventing the rules related to finances. Every time someone points to their wage bill, I think of the nonsense sponsorship deals that pays for those wages, and the ‘consultancy’ work Mancini was doing for one of their satellite clubs that amounted to more than his actual wages at City. Let’s not be disingenuous here. They took unlimited funds and then got the best manager in the world to run the operation, and the best accountants and lawyers to hide the chicanery. Those things can’t be seperated.
Pablo, MUFC, Dublin

…Andy D MCFC is right. It’s just impossible to compete with ‘the cartel’ unless you flagrantly cheat the FFP rules that all other clubs abide with. That’s why those cartel clubs West Ham, Aston Villa and Everton all have a higher net spend over the past 10 years than Liverpool who, let’s not forget were days from being put into administration, won it all in that time and would’ve won more had it not been for poor old downtrodden City who had no option but to cheat.
James Outram, Wirral

No room for facts here
Andy, I wish you’d understand, the Mailbox isn’t interested in facts or the truth when it comes to Manchester City. They prefer lazy assumptions, inaccuracies, false assertions and downright prejudice (without knowledge), to the facts.

Essentially, it’s easier to carry on, furiously blind, than acknowledge that City, under Pep, are doing the right things and doing it bloody well.

Basically, we make other clubs look incompetent and they just don’t like it.

As ever, helpful.
Levenshulme Blue, Manchester 19

Arsenal: Not a bottling, just a tiredness
I remember studying for my A-levels way back when. Wanting a good place at Uni I put extra effort into my revision. Worked for longer, took fewer breaks as the exam dates got closer and the pressure mounted. By the time I got to the exams, I was so burned out by the effort that I made fatigue-based mistakes that ended up costing me several grades and, despite predictions that I would get into my first choice university, in the end I had to settle for my second choice.

Did I bottle my exams? No, pressure I was not used to or experienced in handling forced me to overwork myself and try to hard which led to mistakes. I had older and wiser people to help me and offer advice because they had been through it themselves, but it didnt really help.

I worked at a popular fast food chain over that summer at the time when they were doing buy 1, get 1 free on their burgers. We shifted a butt-load of burgers every hour. By the end of my shifts, I was tired and stressed from the need to make up-to-standard burgers over and over for hours on end. Mistakes crept in, burgers got burned, ingredients missed off or dropped. Experienced colleagues around me couldn’t prevent it. Did anyone say I ‘bottled’ it? No, of course not because that would be idiotic.

That is what has happened to Arsenal – they’ve been performing at such a high standard for so long that the pressure and fatigue has started to affect them. They have ‘bottled’ nothing. They are in a situation that is new to a lot of them, they are young and most importantly, they are human. They have done brilliantly and have been far superior to 18 other teams in the league. All the players can hold their heads up high and the fans should be allowed to celebrate this achievement. If it wasn’t for Lance Armstrong, they would be champions.

Which brings me to Andy D. Manchester.: Your analogy is close, but just off. Yes, Man City have spent less than Utd and Chelsea, squad size blah blah. Problem is, the drugs Armstrong took to be better than everyone else is comparable to the alleged financial shenanigans Man City used to be able to spend almost as much as Utd and Chelsea.

Armstrong took drugs to be better than everyone else, artificially raising his profile which made him much wealthier as a result.

Man City finanicially doped the team to be able to artificially raise the club’s profile which made them much wealthier (in sporting terms i.e. trophies) as a result. Same thing. We can even say Armstrong’s one bollock is the half-empty Etihad as well if you like.

Regards.
Clive LFC

Is Stewie actually Piers Morgan?
I wrote in recently following another predictably awful email from the resident troll suggesting he wasn’t in fact an Arsenal fan. Having accidentally listened to some TalkSport yesterday I think Stewie is actually something worse. He is Piers Morgan, isn’t he?

Think about it, he’s constantly trying to provide an opposing (and generally wrong) opinion (in my opinion). Not giving two sh*ts to what other people think. Even the other Arsenal fans. Loves being in the limelight and talked about endlessly (ok, I’m guilty of contributing here). Makes up facts to suit a narrative. Basically an attention wh*re.

Why else would someone write to your esteemed website using a pseudonym? Either he’s Piers Morgan, another fan(troll) or a writer from F365 using it to stoke the mailbox..
JazGooner (I recognise the irony in my pseudonym point)

…The big surprise from this morning’s mailbox is that Stewie Griffin has a job.
Robert, Birmingham

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