In before the inevitable downplaying of a highly suspect decision (referee clearly plays advantage to City late on with the match level only to call the play back for the foul once a City player was put through on goal; all the TV pundits are baffled by the decision, as were the players) that went against City which, if it had happened to Spurs in the game, would have seen rival fans starting 100 threads to scream conspiracy.

The “your club has no history” jibe is a nonsensical concept in general. Nearly every club has quite a lot of history, with or without silverware and nearly every club “bought success” at one point or another (through cash injections that often set them up to then become sustainable businesses later). Arsenal did, City did, Liverpool did, United did, Chelsea did, Tottenham did, Everton did, and so on. It’s just enough time passing since the initial injection that apparently makes it acceptable.

Most comments you see on here, in the stands, or at the pub are a product of juvenile ignorance, often by people that prefer to reject reality in favour of comforting narratives.

And I can’t blame them, the world is a sad, scary place, and it’s easier to deal with if you can create arbitrary groups of “others” to focus your disappointment and anger toward.

He did manage it a few times, City’s players just couldn’t put it in the back of the net (partly do to bad finishing and partly due to Liverpool players blocking shots).

There is a reason he got MOTM from Opta without having scored or assisted.

Yeah, get the highest match rating of any player from Opta by doing “fuck all”.

I am not sure the Walker incident should really be included in discussion given it was very different from the other incidents you have mentioned. And the Tonali and Toney incidents were directly related to football and so had consequences within football.

Most of the time when players have driving related violations there are no consequences imposed in football because the consequences outside of football are considered sufficient (in the same way that additional consequences for most workers who do not drive for a living in other industries are not imposed). This has been the case with players at City, Liverpool, Newcastle, Brentford, and pretty much every other club in English football over the years.

Again, this not to excuse Grealish’s behaviour, but it does fall in line with what I was previously saying about intervention and diversion being the more effective strategy, rather than endless or exaggerated punishment (presumably as a misguided attempt at deterrence).

In Grealish’s case, he pleaded guilty to two charges for incidents that occurred whilst he was with Aston Villa (though neither were drink driving), was fined £82,500, and was banned from driving for 9 months. He also paid for all damages related to crashing in to the parked vehicles and made direct apologies to the owners, to the court, the public, and to the club itself for his behaviour.

As far as I am aware he hasn’t repeated such behaviour, even going so far as using a car service for his now infamous post-treble bender, and by all accounts has been a lovely bloke whilst at City.

He deserves continued criticism for doing what he did in the first place, as well as continued scrutiny of his actions moving forward as a role model for young people, but accepting responsibility and changing one’s behaviour after making bad and dangerous decisions is actually what we want to teach young people. And we also want to teach them that if they respond appropriately, they can be accepted as having “done their time” in those cases, as well.

Everyone is going to have a worst mistake in their lives—you and I do—and most of the time it is not so egregious as to warrant the total destruction of our lives as payment for the mistake. I think we tend to hold footballers and other celebrities to an exceptionally high standard that we wouldn’t advocate for ourselves or our loved ones. Sometimes that is appropriate, given their status, and I certainly don’t support celebrities being held to a lower standard than non-famous people. But sometimes I think we forget celebrities are human just like us, that they all make mistakes as we have (especially the young ones) and we go a bit too far with our expectations of how they should be punished.

I think it is probably overblown, but I don’t think today is a particularly good example of why.

Apart from the goal, TAA wasn’t actually especially good all-around today, particularly in direct comparison to Doku, who had a higher Opta match rating (MOTM) and FPL BPS total (tied with Ake for most in the game) than TAA despite not having scored or assisted. Without the goal, he would have been in the 6 out of 10 range along with most of his teammates (only Salah got above 7 because of his nominal assist for TAA’s goal, which was more poor defending from City than exceptional play from TAA).

Doku actually created quite a few good chances throughout the match, most often by beating TAA, his teammates just couldn’t put them away or TAA’s teammates were able to cover to stop a shot on goal. Another day and Doku could have had two assists.

TL;DR

TAA is not nearly as bad at defending as often portrayed by pundits or rival fans but today’s match isn’t particularly strong evidence (other matches this season would be).

Oh, absolutely. That is why I said he deserves continued criticism for that behaviour. But at a level that holds him accountable to not do it again, not at the all too common level of making it a chain around his neck for the rest of his life which often actually only acts to incentivise the behaviour, as what is the point of trying to be and do better when no matter the effort you’ll always be punished for that one mistake.

It’s the underlying problem with how we approach bad or dangerous behaviour in general. Sometimes the bad decisions or dangerous actions deserve more permanent consequences, but more often than not the more effective approach is temporary consequences and a focus on intervention and diversion.

Grealish definitely deserves pelters for that, but by all accounts he has cut that sort of behaviour out and I think we can also all agree that most people probably shouldn’t be judged solely on their worst mistake.

I have an ad for gambling (UnderdogFantasy) on this very post on Reddit.

Andros Townsend v City.

Username checks out.

Just watched the extended highlights back and I have one question, ignoring the farcical refereeing:

Why—in the name of all that is good and right in the world—does Southgate continue to select Maguire?

This is one of laziest arguments in modern football.

I can accept many other criticisms of Manchester City (or Chelsea), even if I may disagree with some of them, but this one is just nonsensical. There is no evidence that high spending alone guarantees success. In fact, all evidence is to the contrary, particularly in the Premier League.

Many clubs, including Manchester United, Arsenal, Liverpool, Everton, Blackburn, PSG, Real Madrid, RB Leipzig, Galatasaray, Zenit St. Petersburg, and many others have spent exorbitant amounts over the decades (United, Liverpool, Blackburn, and Real Madrid were “inflating the market” well before City were bought by ADUG) with mediocre or horrible results. Some have had limited success before crashing down to earth, others have tread water, and still others have essentially set money on fire with not even a warm glow to show for it. And in the Premier League, the difference in net spend in the top half of the table is negligible now.

Obviously the biggest spenders in world football tend to perform the best in the top competitions overall, but once you are in that top echelon, spending itself is not enough to win you silverware, especially regularly.

That takes spending the money wisely, acquiring high quality managers, players, coaches, medical staff, and even director level management. It takes competent, forward-thinking leadership and holistic operational structures.

You just have to look at the likes of United and PSG, who have spent as much or more than City over the past 10 years, to see how big spending can play out when you don’t get that mix right.

TL;DR

Obviously spending is required to compete at the top levels of football—all data supports that—but once you are there, data indicates that money itself is not enough for ultimate success.

To be fair, most their players do need a new hair stylist.

Messi this year is up there for me, but take your pick from almost any time it coincided with the World Cup.

[waits for downvote oblivion]

Sterling not sent off for endangering Foden, Cucurella not sent off with second yellow for some of the most egregious simulation you will ever see (right after Doku was given a yellow for simulation), Caicedo being allowed to foul repeatedly on a yellow, Gallagher not getting a yellow after committing six or more fouls (at least one of them worthy of a yellow on its own), and Chelsea awarded a penalty at the death to equalise (I think it was an obvious penalty, but if City are paying off the refs surely Taylor doesn’t give it on the technicality of Dias getting the ball).

But yeah, there is a conspiracy to help City that is so clandestine every Tom, Dick, and Bertrand not only knows about it, but start five threads a day in this sub to discuss it.

My post is about the scoring rate of both players (especially combined) potentially being an indicator the start of the season is an outlier, given the rates themselves are outliers, even for the Bundesliga.

I was just also pointing out the Bundesliga has a higher per game scoring rate this season largely because of Kane and Guirassy. Between them they have scored (32) nearly 10% of all goals up until now in the league. The next four players below them in the scoring rankings combined have scored one fewer goal (31).

You are agreeing with my post, then?

Having two 2023/24 players on the list may be an indication that the start of this season is a bit of an outlier in general, especially given Guirassy has a higher goals per app rate (1.67) than Kane (1.55). It gets even more pronounced when you calculate by minutes played: Kane is averaging a goal every 57 minutes whilst Guirassy is scoring every 44 minutes. They have a very similar G/A rate, with Guirassy just edging it.

It will be interesting to see if both players maintain that same scoring rate of the first third of the season through the next 23 games.

A very simple answer to an admittedly complex question, so only one part of the cause for what you have described in your OP, but I think much of it is due to there being little-to-no suspense to the affair now.

All of the winners—even the main one—are leaked well in advance of the ceremony, meaning most of the players attending are only there because their image management company has forced them to go (mostly to make up the numbers). The vast majority get nothing out of it aside from a little bit of exposure for the few watching live and avoiding being seen as not supporting the winners. Most of those in attendance would rather be sleeping or training or on holiday; anything but sitting on their arses watching other people get awards everyone already knew they were going to receive.

I think this year’s event was an especially dire example of this as pretty much everyone that followed football to any extent knew Messi would win the Ballon d’Or as soon as he lifted the World Cup trophy in Qatar, regardless of what any other player did during the away period after (see Haaland).

Perhaps next season will have more energy if they can suppress the leaks and the contenders are more evenly (and fairly) assessed.