Haaland

[LERam]

Just watching back the highlights 

He's going to demolish that league if he stays fit,  such a complete player and athlete. To be that bug and strong, but then accelerate over 5 yards, its terrifying how good he looks.

Imagine him with us in league one

[LERam]

16 minutes ago, LERam said:

Just watching back the highlights 

He's going to demolish that league if he stays fit,  such a complete player and athlete. To be that big and strong, but then accelerate like that over 5 yards, its terrifying how good he looks.

Imagine him with us in league one

Fixed it as it wouldn't let me edit. I should proofread more as I make so many mistakes now I'm getting old. My brain says one thing and my fingers don't keep up

[maxjam]

I thought he was a bit s41t ?

 

 

[Ambitious]

The last player I remember seeing with his short-area quickness was Gareth Bale in his prime. He's going to be a massive problem for teams this season. I did think City were trying to force the ball to him at times and that's something that will be their downfall but ultimately I don't think it will matter too much. 

[Reggie Greenwood]

He is a physical beast looks like the 6ft kid in the 10 year old age group just running through players knocking them out of the way 

[Sparkle]

Well they have won the league the last two years without a centre forward and now they have decided to get the one they wanted

[TigerTedd]

I feel like Pep has been trying to ‘complete’ football for a long time. Literally build a team that will win every single game in a season. Just imagine if a team did that, would it completely break football? I think pep is probably as close as he’s ever going to get now. Haaland is an absolutely goal scoring work of art. Like a genetically engineered super striker. He will smash countless records before he’s done. Put that into the Man City team that already won the league last season, that were already amongst a handful of teams that are probably the best we’ve ever seen, and they’ve just gone up another gear. 

in a way I’m interested to see them absolutely murder every team put before them. In another way, I think it’ll be incredibly boring and another nail in the coffin of football. 

[FlyBritishMidland]

Cracking signing for them.  You can see why they could Jesus go.

Although it does sum up how mad football is.  During the commentary they referred to the £51M fee being a bargain and I think Gary Neville called it mates rates.  In PL terms it is a bargain, but 3 months ago we couldn’t get anyone to pay that for the entire club, including the stadium!!

[bimmerman]

51 minutes ago, TigerTedd said:

I feel like Pep has been trying to ‘complete’ football for a long time. Literally build a team that will win every single game in a season. Just imagine if a team did that, would it completely break football? I think pep is probably as close as he’s ever going to get now. Haaland is an absolutely goal scoring work of art. Like a genetically engineered super striker. He will smash countless records before he’s done. Put that into the Man City team that already won the league last season, that were already amongst a handful of teams that are probably the best we’ve ever seen, and they’ve just gone up another gear. 

in a way I’m interested to see them absolutely murder every team put before them. In another way, I think it’ll be incredibly boring and another nail in the coffin of football. 

Isn't that what arsenal did in their invincible era? 

[Chellaston Ram]

Joe Worrall will stop him, they aren’t Barcelona 

[TigerTedd]

5 hours ago, bimmerman said:

Isn't that what arsenal did in their invincible era? 

They were invincible, but they weren’t actually mega dominant. They didn’t win anything else that season, and they came a long way short of city’s centurions in terms of points scored. City lost one game that season, but apart from that, they were far better all round than the invincibles.

I reckon with haaland on the team, city will be ridiculously dominant. I don’t think even the other ‘elite’ teams will be able to touch them now.

[May Contain Nuts]

7 hours ago, TigerTedd said:

I feel like Pep has been trying to ‘complete’ football for a long time. Literally build a team that will win every single game in a season. Just imagine if a team did that, would it completely break football? I think pep is probably as close as he’s ever going to get now. Haaland is an absolutely goal scoring work of art. Like a genetically engineered super striker. He will smash countless records before he’s done. Put that into the Man City team that already won the league last season, that were already amongst a handful of teams that are probably the best we’ve ever seen, and they’ve just gone up another gear. 

in a way I’m interested to see them absolutely murder every team put before them. In another way, I think it’ll be incredibly boring and another nail in the coffin of football. 

By complete football, you must surely mean completely break football.

Absolutely disgusting what Man City have done to the English game over the past 15 years.

Took an awful precedent set by Abramovich's Chelsea, outstripped and smashed even that over its head to become what they are today, raising the prices across football for everyone else, widening the wealth gap and helping to create the very trap we fell into which almost saw us go out of business chasing the PL dream.

[TigerTedd]

6 hours ago, Coconut's Beard said:

By complete football, you must surely mean completely break football.

Absolutely disgusting what Man City have done to the English game over the past 15 years.

Took an awful precedent set by Abramovich's Chelsea, outstripped and smashed even that over its head to become what they are today, raising the prices across football for everyone else, widening the wealth gap and helping to create the very trap we fell into which almost saw us go out of business chasing the PL dream.

That’s what I said. They’ve broken football. And if they go on to dominate everything this season, then that’ll just be another nail in the coffin for football. 

I kind of want to it happen at this stage though. Like I want the parachute clubs to go in every season. The more evidence there is that football is broken, the more likely it is that someone might fix it. But I won’t hold my breath. 

[richinspain]

1 hour ago, TigerTedd said:

That’s what I said. They’ve broken football. And if they go on to dominate everything this season, then that’ll just be another nail in the coffin for football. 

I kind of want to it happen at this stage though. Like I want the parachute clubs to go in every season. The more evidence there is that football is broken, the more likely it is that someone might fix it. But I won’t hold my breath. 

But who is going to fix it?
The clubs outside of the Prem haven't got a chance of changing things because the teams in it will always outvote them.

Teams that go up and down are happy to keep receiving their parachute payments with the hope that one day they'll manage to stay up.

Teams that are constant mid table Prem are happy to receive their money and flirt occasionally with Europe or a cup.

Then there's the top clubs. The only changes they are going to make will be in their favour, feeding a few scraps to the middle clubs to keep them on their side. If in the future smaller clubs do try to pressure them they'll flex their muscles with threats of breakaways so that they back down. At some point a European super league will be feasible logistically and when the minnows don't play ball then the giants will go away with theirs and ? the rest.

Football is broken. There is no fix. There is no reset button. It's gone beyond that point. If only one club each season could survive and prosper after being promoted, and three or four of the also rans relegated (but we would be talking Tottenham, Arsenal and that's not going to happen), then perhaps it would cause some kind of restructure. The days of Manure in the second are long gone. In my opinion it's just too far gone. Football as we knew it is on a life support machine waiting for Dr Guardiola and friends to switch it off.

[TigerTedd]

Are those middling teams happy with just mooching around competing for the glory of maybe finishing in the top 10 though. Surely if you’re in the premier league, you want more from life than that. 

often makes me wonder if I’d ever want to see us promoted. What’s the point, to just survive every season and see that as an achievement. 

I’d actually quite like the super clubs to piss off to a breakaway league, and leave everyone else to have a far more sensible league structure. 

I think it might come down to an almost rugby league vs rugby union breakaway. Or afl va nfl in America.

there needs to be some sort of evener, like a draft system, that favours the clubs that finished lowest, and gives them a chance to catch uk with the clubs that finish highest. But at the minute the clubs that finish highest wouldn’t agree to that. But the other 92+ clubs in the football league dar out number the 6 at the top. I say kick them out and let us restructure a more sensible, fairer league. 

[Leeds Ram]

At some point the finances will slow down and football will pop like an almighty balloon. It's currently propped up largely on broadcast revenue that requires exponential growth that physically cannot happen and like every bubble clubs (even successful ones) are struggling to turn a profit and at times are even borrowing against projected future revenues. It has all the hallmarks of a financial calamity waiting to happen- overpriced assets (players and their wages) that their owners are struggling to service even with an unprecedented level of income that now limits ownership of such assets to a staggeringly small number of people (or in some cases even countries). Yes, Chelsea and Manchester City have broken the old model of football, but they've not created a new sustainable one that will break the game. They've done something potentially much more dangerous to my mind, created a system that inevitably will collapse and could take a lot of clubs with it in the wreckage that they've made. 

[Leeds Ram]

Also on Haaland, Manchester City have taken an almighty gamble. They've offloaded a number of their strikers and put all their hopes on a bloke whose injury track record is hardly promising. It's great if he stays fit, but if he gets injured they've not got Jesus or Sterling who were really good backups. 

[Ambitious]

20 hours ago, Chellaston Ram said:

Joe Worrall will stop him, they aren’t Barcelona 

I'll be at that game too... 

[Ambitious]

11 minutes ago, Leeds Ram said:

At some point the finances will slow down and football will pop like an almighty balloon. It's currently propped up largely on broadcast revenue that requires exponential growth that physically cannot happen and like every bubble clubs (even successful ones) are struggling to turn a profit and at times are even borrowing against projected future revenues. It has all the hallmarks of a financial calamity waiting to happen- overpriced assets (players and their wages) that their owners are struggling to service even with an unprecedented level of income that now limits ownership of such assets to a staggeringly small number of people (or in some cases even countries). Yes, Chelsea and Manchester City have broken the old model of football, but they've not created a new sustainable one that will break the game. They've done something potentially much more dangerous to my mind, created a system that inevitably will collapse and could take a lot of clubs with it in the wreckage that they've made. 

I'm not so sure - the money in football is only projected to go up. The Premier League is at the forefront of it too. 

The ambitions of fools (Mel Morris) will cause causalities along the way but I'd imagine the Premier League will be broken away soon enough in order to avoid such instances going forward. 

The fact is that the worldwide interest in football is absolutely beyond comprehension and if anything the Premier League are underselling their product as it stands - although I think they will get it right soon enough. It should rival the NFL considering the viewership and it doesn't even come close.  

[Bris Vegas]

I can’t see how you can criticize City for what they have done. They haven’t done anything which any other ‘big’ team in the league can’t do.

They haven’t spent any more than Man Utd for instance. The difference is City just have an amazing manager and an amazing recruitment team.

Those complaining about City and Chelsea spending money. If they hadn’t, the PL would have just become like the Bundesliga with Man Utd winning every year as Arsenal faded away.

As for Haaland himself. He is amazing. City’s first XI may be stronger. But I think City’s squad is weaker allowing Jesus, Sterling and Zinchenko to leave.

I still think Liverpool will win the league this season. 

Edited August 9, 2022 by Bris Vegas