
Retro world football writing and nostalgia. Part of The Guardian Sports Network. Sister account @Brut_Football
Craig McCracken
Joined July 2012
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English football needs more positive stories beyond the mega-club dominance, so I've always had the impression that most neutrals greatly admire Bournemouth, Brighton & Brentford for their smart management & resourcefulness. I certainly do.
People seem upset at Bournemouth doing well in Europe. Suddenly PL money is ruining football and dominating.
AC Milan spent €74m on Ramos and €50m on Moreira this year, both above #AFCB's record fee. Spanish clubs have won 8 of the last 15 UELs.
Where was this outrage then?
To suggest 20 years ago that Man Utd would start a game second favourites against Como and lose it 4-1 would have been absurd to the point of comical. There is no bigger evidence of how football has transformed than this astonishing scoreline.
Utterly historically illiterate
Remember when Serie A relegated their biggest club, Juventus? The league fell off so badly that nobody watches it again. Even when Juventus returned, the league has continued struggling till today.
That's the same thing that will happen if they relegate City. They need to look at the bigger picture before destroying the very league they're trying to protect.
Replying to @Jim__Douglas
You don't think that's a bit of convenient hindsight going on? I think McTominay had gone as far as he could there anyway and Ugarte has been injured most of the time which could not have been foreseen.
Replying to @lemmacantor11
Well they still spent £150m in the summer. Their issue is that they sell so much more poorly than the other major clubs.
There's little more tedious (outside the many Man C apologists) than ex-coaches who try to shift blame by implying that they failed only because they weren't backed because they could not get every world class player they wanted - but did get plenty of others.
Solskjaer was same.
Barcelona’s Frenkie de Jong was Erik ten Hag's first choice for midfield. United were in negotiations for several weeks, but the player declined to join.
Ten Hag pressed for England midfielder Declan Rice instead.
Rice, then 24, ended up moving to Arsenal in the summer of 2023 for a package worth £105m.
He was instrumental in Mikel Arteta’s side winning the Premier League for the first time in 22 years last season, often wearing the captain’s armband, and has made the 30-man shortlist for the Ballon d’Or.
During that same window three years ago, Ten Hag had one name on his lips at centre-forward.
Instead, Harry Kane moved from Tottenham Hotspur to Bayern Munich in a €110m deal.
The England captain has since scored 157 goals in 155 games for Bayern, twice lifting the Bundesliga, and is also nominated for this year’s Ballon d’Or.
📝 @lauriewhitwell
🔗 nyti.ms/4z9cp9d
Replying to @GentlemanUltra
They lose 4-0 at home to Atalanta just 18 months ago.
‘The right perspective’ just happens to be his perspective too. What’s the odds…..
Joe Cole is the only one with the right perspective on @ManCity
The faux outrage about arbitrary accounting rules that have been broken get away from the whole point
If you want a fair and competitive league, the rules need to change
Whilst we shouldn’t condone breaking “rules” you can’t separate the fact that the rules are entirely uncompetitive and unfair
They broke rules to be able to compete with the incumbent teams who basically have been given a “moat” around them which means they can outspend everyone and no one else can compete
That feels more like “cheating” than what City have done in my view
I actually wonder if this went to a High Court ruling, the focus might turn to anti-trust and competitiveness laws which the Premiership FFP rules clearly fall foul of
I thought City were 100% confident they would win on appeal. If they truly thought this why are they publicly warning about the potential severity of the punishment?
🚨 EXCLUSIVE: Manchester City’s lawyer, Mark Howard, sends strong warning to the Premier League after appeal!
🗣️“The Premier League must understand one thing: whatever decision they make, they must not take the punishment too far. Manchester City will not simply accept a disproportionate sanction without challenging it through every available legal avenue.
We expect fairness, not an attempt to make an example out of our club. The consequences of this decision could be enormous!”
Readers added context they thought people might want to know
The quote attributed to Mark Howard is fabricated. The account posts football fiction and satire, and no such statement exists in City's official appeal announcement or coverage of the lawyer's role.
mancity.com/news/club/manc…
mirror.co.uk/sport/football…
x.com/JohnBrewin_/st…
This is incredibly naive. Of course City are going to stonewall and deflect regardless of the strength of the evidence. Better PR strategy for them to claim it’s all a conspiracy rather than admit guilt- their owners are never going to show weakness to the world.
Interesting more and more commentators are beginning to balance their reporting on @ManCity by pointing out City's continued and 100pc insistence they will win on appeal. This fact needs to be more than a sentence at the end of every news story - the club's case is that the Premier League has got the entire thing wrong and they have never veered from that. The seismic consequences of a win on appeal need to be looked at and not simply ignored. What a story that would be.... but what do I know? I'm just a Blue! 🩵
Replying to @afneil
Well said. If nats came out & stated that they understood independence would bring turmoil and lower living standards in the short to medium term, but this was a cost they were willing to bear as the price for building their own future then I would have some respect for them.
Replying to @KieranMaguire
Thanks. Haaland is interesting because if relegated City would still value him at 150m+ & then there's the 500k weekly wages, so it's hard to imagine any club than PSG affording this. City might be forced as you say into a firesale which will have another huge £ impact on them.
Am thinking a bit like Nico Williams people insisted on a release clause if Barcelona could not register him a couple of years back, a term that scuppered the deal.
Hi @KieranMaguire A Man City question I'd be interested in your thoughts on the pod - do you think their players who have signed / extended contracts since the charges were first announced will have negotiated clauses that allows exits on fixed terms in case of relegation?
You might think that a 'cartel' keeping plucky minnows like City down might be a lot better at dominating than they have been: Liverpool - 2 titles in 36 yrs. Man Utd no titles in 13 years. Arsenal 1 title in 22 years. Chelsea 2 titles in 16 years.
If Manchester City supporters are firing back, it’s because we refuse, as Simon Bajkowski of the Manchester Evening News so eloquently put it, to “play the sad clowns that the deluded circus demand.”
And let’s be clear: this entire legal process, together with the relentless outrage from partisan media and punditry, has become a circus that stinks to high heaven.
Before Sheikh Mansour bought Manchester City in 2008, the Cartel was firmly in control of English football. The established Incumbent Four had won 15 of 16 Premier League titles. They occupied every Champions League qualification spot for three consecutive seasons. City had won none.
Then City emerged as a genuine challenger to the established order, thanks to an owner with the resources necessary to compete with the Incumbent Four.
And suddenly, protecting football’s “financial sustainability” became the great crusade.
Shockingly, the rules that emerged—tying permissible spending to existing commercial revenue—overwhelmingly favored the Incumbent Four. The clubs that had spent decades building their financial advantages could continue spending accordingly. Challengers seeking to close the gap would face an entirely different set of constraints.
The established order had built its advantage. Now the rules would help preserve it.
In March 2019, the Premier League, with Richard Masters serving as interim CEO, opened an investigation into whether City had violated its financial rules. Masters would later become the League’s permanent CEO through an appointment process reportedly influenced by United and Liverpool.
Nearly four years later, on February 6, 2023, in the midst of what would become City’s historic treble-winning season, the Club was formally charged. The timing alone raises legitimate questions about the influence of partisan interests within the League.
The commission tasked with hearing the charges was then constituted under the authority of a Judicial Panel chair appointed through a process involving Masters and the Premier League.
And so the cloud hanging over City continued for an absurdly long time.
Finally, on September 29, 2026, we received a guilty verdict.
But that verdict came with a few rather extraordinary asterisks.
First, we don’t get to know who actually rendered the verdict. The identities of the commission members remain undisclosed.
Second, we don’t get to see the underlying evidence the commission supposedly analyzed—at least not yet.
Instead, we’re given a 40-page, heavily redacted decision setting out the commission’s findings, while the evidence underlying those findings and the supporting appendices remain outside public scrutiny.
We’re simply expected to accept on blind faith that an anonymous commission conducted its proceedings without bias, fairly evaluated the evidence, and reached conclusions fully supported by that evidence.
Perhaps it did. But how is anyone outside the proceedings supposed to make that judgment?
1/2 #mancity
The irony is that Man City's actual commercial revenue stripped of owner additions is pathetic, way less than it should be for a club that successful. The owners have been cheating so long and so blatantly that they haven't even bothered to seek actual market value.
At this stage Liam Gallagher's regular all-cap profanity dumps provide more coherent Man City commentary than this guy.
This quoted post is unavailable.
The Man City situation throws up so many new and uncharted stats. They are currently 2nd favourites to win the title and simultaneously 3rd favourites to be relegated.
A fascinating stat in The Times from @BillEdgarTimes today is that Everton have a higher historical average League finishing position than Man United.
Everton are 3rd highest overall (behind Liverpool & Arsenal) and Man Utd are fourth.












