Let’s just call Manchester City what they are: cheats

Matt Stead

Send your thoughts to theeditor@football365.com. And have a good weekend. In whichever order you like.

 

Cynical City
I’m reading with interest the arguments (all within partisan lines) that City are cynical if you aren’t a City fan, and they aren’t if you are.

I’m a City fan, and I know we are, but given the choice between an ankle tap that stops an attack forming or the all out assaults that our players are subjected to – Cardiff’s 2 attempts in their 2 games (cup last year v Sane, this year v Gundogan), the constant fouling that super Kev endured last year, that Sterling gets.

I was reading about 2 Crystal Palace players that both put themselves out for months by trying to foul the same player (Super Kev) – why not ask them. Yes I know Vinny v Burnley wasn’t great but when a tackle is aimed at a knee, they are so many ligaments and tendons that can go.

So ask a football player whose career has been ended by a knee high assault if they would have preferred to have been tripped. It may break up play and frustrate fans , but no one’s career has ever been halted by a few months by them have they?
Keith, Alty( fans would applaud a assault no doubt- weird)

Kerry Culchie, stats can tell you anything. I also wrote the following mail as an addendum which unfortunately the MC didn’t print but I present it verbatim below.

“Also an addendum to my earlier mail. All these stats are taken from WhoScored.

This year, City have an average possession of 63.9% in the league. Meaning opposition teams average 36.1% this year. Over 90 minutes this means the opposition team has the ball for 32.49 minutes. At 8.5 average fouls committed this is one foul every 3.8 minutes.

United have an average possession of 54.2%. Opposition teams then have 45.8%, and are in possession for 41.22 minutes over 90 minutes, United average 12.4 fouls per game, meaning one every 3.3 minutes.

Now I wonder why my good friend Kerry Culchie decided not to compare this years stats??”

And the perceived cynicism of these alleged fouls are Ally’s and not mine.
Martin Todoroski, MCFC

 

It is slightly worrying to see the debate around cheating be so wrongheaded.  Our entire society (which hopefully just about still includes football) is built on the premise the intentionally breaking the rules is ethically wrong.

The fact someone is willing to take the punishment for cheating does not absolve them of cheating.  If that were the case, it would be fine to commit the most heinous crime if you were also willing to do the time.   There would be nothing ethically wrong with murder, if you were willing to take the life sentence?  It would not be cheating to con the life savings out of a pensioner if you were willing to go to prison?  It’s patently nonsense.

The whole point of punishment is to deter the crime; not absolve it.  If a person is willing to face the punishment when doing the crime, then all that tells you is that the punishment is inadequate; not that the person has behaved ethically.

If someone deliberately breaks the rules to gain an advantage then they are cheating.   It is their bad intent that makes them a cheat.  They may not care.  They may be willing to cheat and take the punishment “for the team”.  But they are a cheat, nonetheless.  They have a choice how they want to be remembered: as a winner or as a “winner”.
Harry Hotspur

 

Better the Neville you know
Excellent article by Stead on why the Valencia stint being used against the Neviller is absolute bullcrap. If punditry was to come down to a stage where you could only criticize if and only if you’ve won something big, then we’d have lost half of the pundits on the telly by now (doesn’t seem a bad idea on second thoughts) and we’d be hearing the same old cliches over and over again. And as rightly pointed out – if a pundit was told to “only cast a stone if you’re without failure” – then we’d be tuning in to the best of Sir Alex and Pep day in and day out.

What baffles me is how touchy the ex-managers and players get when criticized by both Neville and Carragher. The both of them have been absolutely spot on with their discussions and their analysis and have managed to form a bond that seemed unthinkable during their playing days. The sheer amount of games they’ve played and trophies they’ve won and managers they’ve played under would suggest that their words are carefully measured critiques that have been thought over before being delivered – not five minute soundbites being barked through a half open car window or over a podcast. You don’t like their analysis – go listen to Keys’ drivel from his ivory tower.

Sure he was shit at Valencia and probably way over his head. But he had the guts to want to try that job (even if he was unprepared and found out) and I’m sure that he’s learnt more from that experience then he has by managing clubs in the relegation zone and jumping ship when convenient.
Budhaditya

 

While I agree whole-heartedly with everything that Matt Stead wrote in his peice on Gaz, I just have to defend Harry Redknapp a bit. While, yes, he is not as eloquent as Neville, you can see why he would take exception to such comments. Redknapp’s Spurs, you could argue, were the foundation for this team, the spark that made people think Spurs could break the Top 4 at the time, which they eventually grew into.

And yeah, your man Steve McMahon came across as quite the moron on The Debate with his comments though!
Néill, (Schwarzer seemed like a good pundit though), Ireland

 

What Matt Stead said.
John Collins, WWFC, London

 

I’m a law student, and that ‘Neville’s advocate’ headline made my day.
Robert, Birmingham. 

 

Bolt from the blue
So what started out as a good news story – Usain Bolt, one of the greatest athletes ever to walk the planet was looking to make a success of himself in the world’s most popular game, a sport he says he truly loves … and he has managed to turn into a fiasco.

No doubt he deserves the opportunities afforded to him by his success elsewhere, he has earned the privilege to try out for a professional football outfit because of who he is. I’ve no problem with that. What really gets my goat though, is that one of the world richest sports superstars has turned his nose up at the opportunity to play professionally in the sport he supposedly loves (at a level he really isn’t technically good enough for) … because they’re not paying him enough money.

WTF is going through his head? You can bang on all you like about professional sportsman’s having short careers and needing to maximize their earning opportunities blah bah blah … but I’m calling bullsh*t. This guy isn’t just famous, he’s an absolute megastar, a multimillionaire, and for the rest of his life he could earn buckets of money by just turning up to anything he wants for a fee. Pricing himself out his own dream is frankly idiotic, self-defeating, and short sighted. Actually maybe he is the perfect footballer.

I’ve lost a lot of respect for him. (A situation I expect he’s gutted about).
David Moore – Added my parentheses above.

 

Stadium security
There’s a bit of a strange story ongoing about the whole toy guns in Old Trafford event. The press are certainly sensationalising it.

But… it would have been just as easy to bring actual guns into that or any other stadium. I recall in the weeks after the Paris Atrocities there were flares still going off in various top tier stadiums. As a Liverpool fan I recognise that my own fanbase is probably the worst for smuggling in flares. Honestly, we light them up for goals, winning a corner or a forward pass from Henderson. Any excuse.

But it’s a serious problem in my opinion. At a time when I would expect stadium security to be ultra tight it wasn’t and still isn’t today. So the toy guns the flares, while not inherently dangerous, do demonstrate that there is no real security in a day and age when targeting crowds is a popular tactic of the spiritually deranged.

I know stadiums do a lot of security sweeps. Remember the fake ‘bomb’ left in the toilets a while ago during a sniffer dogs test? But I do think a little more entrance security wouldn’t go amiss.
TM (Paranoid much?)