Re: Football : Season 08/09
 

If Ronnie was going anywhere, it would (and will) be Real Madrid.

Bet Chelski fans are gutted now there's a team who can outbid them on any player. Still, at least they set the trend for sugar-daddies buying them silverware.

Re: Football : Season 08/09
 

Not for your lot who will be pocketing it.

Re: Football : Season 08/09
 

Not a chance. Just the Arabs trying to flex their muscles.

Re: Football : Season 08/09
 

Just heard that they have made a £250 million bid for the Arsenal first team, they want them to replace Man City's reserve team.:p:

Re: Football : Season 08/09
 

I would be very surprised if that went ahead, especially to our neighbours.

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The Arabs seem to be talking big at the moment, as they have something like 1.3 Trillion at their disposal. It makes Rio Ferdinand's £30 million pound transfer from Leeds to Man Utd in 2002 like a dip into the pick & mix at the Sainsburys checkout :erm:

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Things seem to be getting all out of proportion at the moment, and I can't say I am a fan of all this silly money talk.

Enter Mr Blatter (not that I am a fan of his)

Re: Football : Season 08/09
 

The thing is, i can 100% see them making a bid like this in January. I would rather sell him to Madrid for half that money then sell him to what looks like is going to be a proper rival in years to come.

It will be intresting to see who the money grabing players will be come January and the end of this season, signing for a club who havn't won anything for 32 years, are not in the Champions league and in my opinion still wont be next year with the players they currently have.

Re: Football : Season 08/09
 

And what will be even more interesting is in 2 or 3 years once City have probably won the league (or anything significant), is if their fans will do what Chelsea supporters do and say things like "No, we didn't buy the league, it was a combination of good players and an expert manager".

Re: Football : Season 08/09
 

Any team is a combination of players and manager but most of the time them two variables are dictated by money..

What does get me though is that the big clubs have had the money to go out and buy the best for a long time now and suddenly when another team has that ability they start moaning...

Come on guys it simply means that hopefully the games will be a lot more interesting, and ther'll hopefully be more teams in contention at the end of the season for the premier league title..

What's happened to City is gonna happen to more and more clubs in the future....

Re: Football : Season 08/09
 

We've been over this countless times in the past - we moan because we don't have a sugar daddy to come along and buy us the league whilst we spent year in mediocrity. United have spent big over the years but this came from established and built-up success on the pitch and from commercial ventures - something which would not have worked had we not done well on the pitch. No-one is begrudging a team from spending millions from when their results have earned them that money.

Chelsea, and now Man City spent years doing not very much with a handful of decent players. Then a rich bloke comes along, gives the manager a virtual open chequebook and suddenly success appears.

I'm not too worried, Roman tired to buy dominance in the premiership and he hasn't achieved it. True his billions have made Chelsea one of the top teams but United are still the team to beat.

All we ask is these clubs with new-found success is that they acknowledge without their mega rich new chairman's billions they wouldn't have the success.

Re: Football : Season 08/09
 

You could always count uniteds commercial success off the pitch and also outside of the UK as thier sugar daddy ;)

In the end whether he'd bought city, or one of the other clubs he was looking at (newcastle, everton...etc) it will make the premier league more interesting....

What's the point in having a commercial success if on the field you've already bought all the good players that no-one else can afford which means that you dominate by default. Makes the game very boring....

Also if it fails for the "nuevo rich" then quite simply you have better gloating rights....

Re: Football : Season 08/09
 

in some ways I see this as a good thing, the top four have been virtually blocked off for the past 5 years or longer so this means another club has the chance to break into the top four.

The problem is it means the only way to break into the top four is to get taken over by a billionaire and then spend like crazy. A team like Spurs or Villa don't stand much of a chance of breaking into the top four on merit alone

Re: Football : Season 08/09
 

You could but you'd be spectacularly wide of the mark. United's commercial success in no way compares to the sort of money Roman has thrown at Chelsea or the Arabs are apparently offering City.

Remember United are in debt to a rumoured figure of £700m - I can't think of any commercial venture which could wipe that out the way an oil-rich Russian or Arab conglomerate could.

Re: Football : Season 08/09
 

And they forget how they spent big money in the past...

Re: Football : Season 08/09
 

Read above.

Re: Football : Season 08/09
 

Name a football club that isn't in debt, you know that it's standard practice in finance ;)