Stuart Brennan
May 03, 2012
How many times have you heard the following said over the last two days, in pubs, offices and factories all around this great city?
“Yeah, but it doesn’t count as much because City have bought the title.”
Putting aside the obvious response, which is that the title is a long way from being over, it is breathtaking nonsense.
If you’ll forgive the mixed metaphor, you get the feeling that this particular pot, blackening the name of the kettle, is stuffed with sour grapes.
Of course City, if they close out this season, have bought the Premier League. But then again, which Premier League winner hasn’t?
The problem that United fans have got is that, under the austerity of the Glazers, they HAVEN’T bought the title, as they have been doing for the past 20 years.
In the history of English football, United have broken the transfer record five times. City have done it three times – and one of those was on super-flop Steve Daley 32 years ago.
Under Sir Alex Ferguson, the Reds have set new highs in the transfer market to bring in Andy Cole (£7million), Juan Veron (£28.1million) and Rio Ferdinand (£29.1million).
Since the Abu Dhabi takeover, City have done it twice, on Robinho (£32.5m) and Sergio Aguero (£38m).
And if that is not enough, United’s team on Monday contained the most expensive goalkeeper in English history, as well as the most expensive defender and the most expensive teenager, not forgetting the fact they had a £30million striker sitting unused on the bench.
Monday’s game pitted a £300million squad against a £250million squad, hardly prosperity versus poverty.
When Fergie won his first league title in 1993, it came on the back of a £6.75million spending spree on Gary Pallister, Danny Wallace, Neil Webb, Paul Ince and Mike Phelan. That sounds like peanuts today, but in 1989 it represented a huge outlay.
It paid dividends too, as the Reds won the league two years running, and they have continued to spend more than the vast majority until the relative austerity of the Glazers.
The only teams who have hitherto challenged United’s hegemony have been Blackburn, funded by Jack Walker’s fortune, Roman Abramovich’s Chelsea and Arsenal under Arsene Wenger.
Perhaps only Arsenal could claim to have won the title on anything resembling a budget, but they also spent big ahead of their title successes, splashing out over £20million on talent such as Marc Overmars, Patrick Vieira and Emmanuel Petit in 1996.
Wenger has a reputation as a manager who doesn’t spend, but he has flashed the cash when necessary – remember Thierry Henry (£10.5m), Sylvain Wiltord (£13m), Jose Reyes (£13m) and a chap called Samir Nasri (£15.8m)?
The bottom line is that the top flight of English football ceased to be a pure football competition many years ago. If you want to win the title, you need a top manager and top players, all of which cost.
City didn’t ruin football, as some sniffy fools have suggested. They have just joined the game, and started to play by rules not of their own making.
Once the notion that City are doing something wholly new and horrendous is nailed, there is an even more scurrilous nonsense dragged up.
“Well, yeah, everyone spends money, but United’s money is their own – they earned it, and weren’t just given it by some Arab sheikh.”
Of course, this is specious nonsense, the kind of tripe spouted by the fans of rich clubs who don’t want upstart oiks elbowing their way to a place at the trough.
This is where UEFA’s financial fair play rules come in. You would like to think they are a genuine attempt to rein in the financial madness which has enveloped football, and stop clubs spending beyond their means in a vain grasp for glory.
But when a club like City, financially secure through owners who are pouring millions into football and their community, is under scrutiny, you have to doubt UEFA’s true intent.
Blame
That makes it look like a charter for the establishment, trying to ensure that global brands like United, Real Madrid and Barcelona will NEVER be challenged.
United fans, and UEFA, should be looking at the priorities of the Old Trafford owners, rather than the benevolence of Sheikh Mansour, if they want to see where the blame will lie if the balance of power shifts over the course of the next 10 days.
There are plenty of grounded Reds fans who know this. One of their number said, three years ago, that City’s owners were supplying the Blues with ‘rocket fuel’, while United’s rulers were forcing Sir Alex Ferguson to drag a tractor behind him.
United rake in more money than anyone else, but sizeable amounts of their income comes from the pockets of their own fans – who have suffered huge price increases over the past five years – from concentrating their efforts to become a global brand, and from trading on the club’s name.
City have tried to maintain their local identity and support as well as expanding their horizons, and are active and purposeful in engaging with their community. The Glazers, meanwhile, seem most preoccupied with trying to re-balance their balance sheet.
That should be a far more important argument than petty nitpicking about how the money was made – it should be a case of ‘Where is the cash going?’ rather than ‘Where did you get it from?’
City didn’t beat United on Monday because their owners have bigger bank balance.
They won because they deserved to win it.
Roberto Mancini out-thought Sir Alex Ferguson, and his players showed a desire and determination, as well as a level of football, which proved beyond the Reds on the night.
No-one should forget it was the greed of United, who were instrumental, along with Arsenal, Liverpool, Everton and Tottenham in forming the Premier League, which led directly to where we are today.
To win the Premier League, you need to be both financially stacked and football savvy, and the two are inter-dependent.
So for any fans – Red or otherwise – to start bleating about it now is pathetic.
http://menmedia.co.uk/manchestereven...now-thats-rich
Originally Posted by Man_Citizen
Stuart Brennan
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