My wife's friend's husband is at the Etihad, he's a fireman but they moonlight to build the rostrum for the presentation. 5 minutes ago he thought he was coming home early, now he's on for overtime.
[edit] and the Wolves fans are singing 'Now you've gotta believe us, you nearly won the league'
[edit] and now it's squeaky bum time again at the Etihad
phew....
Football bloody hell!
Glad I wasn't in for the first three quarters of that. Bit like our first title under Mancini.
Sad about Burnley, thought they would stay up. That's what you get for sacking Dyche though.
Wow! Fair play to Villa, never thought it’d be that close (and to City for keeping on going)!
and to Wolves; nothing to play for and they were throwing themselves in front of anything Liverpool attempted. I think Willy Boly took two direct to his namesake alone!
and well done to Heung-min Son who wins the golden boot with no penalties in his 23
Man U ended up with a goal difference of zero, that really isn't good
and well done to Heung-min Son who wins the golden boot with no penalties in his 23
Harry Kane will still get all the plaudits!
Looks like AC Milan are on their way to their first Serie A in over a decade as well!
Fair play Citeh. And to Foden and De Bruyne for their PFA awards. Fully deserved. I have no idea, given their financial constraints, how they’ve pulled it off again. 😀
Good job Villa remembered about the millions in bonus they were due if Grealish won the PL with City... 🙂
Felt for Burnley TBH even though I'm Leeds. Chuffed we've stayed up even though this season has been one to forget.
They might still stay up if the lawyers get involved re Everton’s finances!
Huge relief that Leeds got the result at Brentford - very tense and nervy 90 minutes and lots of swearing and shouting in my house.
Feel sorry for Burnley - sacking Dyche was a mistake IMO. But I hope the Premier League look at Everton's finances as they have blatantly massively broken the FFP rules - there must be some penalty for their overspending and huge losses over the last 3 years, and that penalty needs to apply to this season not the next!
#MOT #ALAW
Football pals on a WhatsApp group congratulating each other (Citeh fans) for the win. What's all that about?
Nice to see us finishing the season in true fashion. Another pitiful defeat
At least we avoided Thursday nights in Kazakstan, which is about the only positive I can take from this season. It’s been an absolute *ing disgrace
I hope that other than Dave, not one of those lazy, half-arsed *s is ever seen in a United shirt again. They’re not fit to wear it.
I watched that with a gang of my scouse mates and though they were disappointed they know they’ve been treated to a season of watching absolutely top notch football. Same as Citeh. As good as it gets! Absolutely head and shoulders above everyone else and I can’t see that changing any time soon
At least we avoided Thursday nights in Kazakstan
Doesn't 7th qualify for the europa conference league?
Yup, Thursday night hell. We needed West ham to win.
Bollocks! Thursday nights in Serbia it is then. Wooohoooo! We get the chance to get battered by teams we’ve never heard of as well as getting battered by Crystal Palace and Brighton.
Something to look forward to
Saw an amusing post on Facebook: ‘these pitch invasions need stopping, or someone’s going to run on the old Trafford pitch and win man of the match! 😂
It’s funny because it’s true.
Just watching MOTD and there are some stunning contenders for goal of the season
Woop woop! Champions League, golden boot and Woolwich get to spend Thursdays in the rectal end of God knows where 😂😂🤣🤣🤣
Very best very well done and thank you city and Liverpool for a lot of incredible football. I mean that. I am very pleased, proud and stunned that we had 6 points off city and shared 2 each with Liverpool.
Now comes the summer of usual media stirring... Headlines stirring Kane and his mood will be joined by stories stirring son. Jeez, cut sonny through the middle and you'd find a cockerel runs through him but the headlines of his departure or 'want away' have been written and banked for the summer I'm sure. With luck we break the habit of an enic Lifetime, paratici shows his worth and we sign the 2-3 key players we need early.... Maybe funded by an immediate announcement of a stadium naming rights deal that clears the debt.
Most of all we need a mid field general. Not convinced Declan rice is really up to it, but he'd be a decent move.
Anyway, great football this season and for spurs fans were end on an incredibly positive note! Oh and pot 2 by my reckoning. Bring it on!
Great season and incredible drama at the end, spoiled a bit by the scenes at the end especially ****s that run onto pitches and hit opposition players. Life ban and assault prosecutions please.
I was a bit disappointed about one thing, that there seems to be a Celtic-Rangers style breakaway happening where everyone else is so far behind it gets a bit dull. Then MOTD last night pointed out that among the top 4, Liverpool didn't win a single game and everyone else was W2 D2 L2. In fact if you (as I did) check the results of that top 4 league, the table would be
Chelsea / 8 pts GD +3 (because they got Spurs on a Spursey day and beat them 2-0 at home and 3-0 away)
City / 8pts GD 0
Spurs / 8pts GD -3
Liverpool / 6pts GD 0
So the next 2 can match them in game play, but don't have the strength in depth to keep it up game after game, particularly over the extended season of European trips and cup runs. Which is then what makes the top two amazing, not only squad strength but unbelievable fitness and recovery, such that City could still in the last 45 minutes of the season have enough in them to rush and harry and eventually blitz Villa.
Don't know what Chelsea can do as the Russia situation is going to cause a revamp in the summer with players leaving; but if Spurs can just stop doing Spursey things, they've got what it takes to be a contender next year.
(wonders what the top 6 league table would look like)
Season ban if you're caught on the pitch, lifetime ban for assault on the pitch.
Feel sorry for Burnley – sacking Dyche was a mistake IMO.
Dyche managed 30 games for Burnley this season and got 24 points.
Jackson managed 8 games and got 11 points.
It not a huge difference but they definitely played better and picked up some massive results since Dyche was sacked. Still wasn't enough though - a team punching far, far above their weight for too long heading back to where they belong. If the rumours of an immediate repayment of a £65m loan and 9 players out of contract, I'd say the future looks pretty bleak for them.
Leeds meanwhile 😀 #MOT
According to my deep understanding (I read a couple of posts on Twitter) Everton have been working with the PL for ages making sure that they were within agreed limits, so if Burnley and Leeds want to complain (and I guess Leeds will go quiet now) their beef will be with the PL and not EFC.
Anyhow, EFC have probably only had a stay of execution. Their final day drubbing by Arsenal shows why they were down in that part of the league - complete lack of pride, professionalism and not least quality. If they now have to sell their best (well, least bad) players they will be even deeper in the poo next season.
Feel sorry for Burnley – sacking Dyche was a mistake IMO.
The manager is now the least of Burnley's worries
The way the finances of the leveraged takeover of the club are structured has the potential to send them into freefall. The money was borrowed to buy the club and that debt then loaded on to the club. The Glazers/Man Yoo business model that has worked so well at Old Trafford.
There is a clause in it that says if they're relegated that a chunk of that debt has to be paid off immediately to compensate the creditors for the loss of revenue for TV rights. This means Burnley owners now have to come up with £65 million payment. So thats their parachute payment gone and more besides. The owners have already let it be known in January that any player is for sale, and some have run their contracts down and will leave on free transfers anyway
To put no too fine a point on it... they're absolutely ****ed!!
I still find it incredible that these leveraged buyouts are legal. This is another club being destroyed by parasitic carpetbaggers.
Yeah, it's crazy to think that they were well run, debt free and had cash in the bank at the time of the takeover, and they used that structure to get the loans to buy it up, then used the cash to pay the interest and set up fees on those loans.
They are in real trouble as they only really have 3 or 4 players worth much and they have a lot of players in their 30s who are running down contracts, they'll be lucky to scramble £50 million with their squad, and after pay offs and so on, they'll only bring in 2/3rds of that, add the parachute payments in and they'll be teetering on the edge.
Amazing to think that one of the 12 founding clubs of the Football League could go to the wall like this, you have to wonder why that US company bought them, there can't be that much profit in what they've done, i could see it if they'd been hammering kit contracts and so on, but it just seems to be a badly run enterprise?
MOT indeed - I woke up yesterday morning thinking it was all over and was dreading a painful afternoon. I ended the day several tins of Stella and a bottle of red in, fell asleep before the MOTD highlights came on and feel like shit today. But do I care? Nope.
It will be interesting to see who stays for next season and we need to sign Pope and Cornet!
This almost makes me wish we still had this cheeky so-and-so.
https://twitter.com/sportbible/status/1528448920187195393
Almost.
Lol fab finish from an absolute enigma
ALAW, MOT!!!
^ I concur
^ as do i
Lollocopters
No need to apologise - fair, factual and impartial journalism.
Its like when you're a kid and you're made to apologise to your brother for calling him an idiot even though he is 😀
So if you're the Liverpool wouldn't you now look to sell Salah as good as he is?
No, he's their best player and if they intend to keep challenging at the top they should keep their best player.
Anyway, who could afford him atm? Real Madrid maybe? Can't think of anyone else outside England and can't see Man City wanting him, Chelsea or Spurs affording him or the player wanting to move to any of the others.
So if you’re the Liverpool wouldn’t you now look to sell Salah as good as he is?
No, fraid not.... Even if he leaves on a free, Liverpool have done amazingly well out of Salah. I'd take that as a win either way.
Thing i don't understand is, where would a player like Salah, De Bruyne etc actually go to and why.
He'll have tens of millions in the bank and is at the club most likely to pick up trophies year in year out (at the moment), so why leave and go to say Barcelona to be knocked out in the last 16 and battle for 3rd place in the league. It was different when Barca and Real were a true dominating force in football, but currently you'd argue that goes to Liverpool and City.
Simple things like nice weather, nice city etc might be the reason to move from the rainy NW to Spain.
agree with that yes.... a simple change of scenery and a city would deffo give that.
While he has been their best player for a few years, I am not sure he is as effective now that Thiago has started to control games. He has thrived off the chaos, with controlled possession further up the pitch he doesn't have quite the same ability to panic defences with his runs. Everyone states his season petered out after the afcon, but I really think it has been Thiago coming into his best and the difference that has made to Liverpool's style of play that has hampered his effectiveness later in the season.
From his point of view, I am also not sure he replicates what he has done for Liverpool anywhere else either, he was the perfect fit for how Klop had moulded Liverpool.
Hard decisions all round, I think he will still be a very good player for anyone, but probably now has to show he can adapt when the system doesn't perfectly fit any more, whether at Liverpool or elsewhere.
Clubs take huge loss when players just run down their contracts. As to where'd they'd go, I'd say they are already so rich they can take a pay cut to move to warmer climes.
Next season will be interesting, Salah, Mane and Firminho all out of contract, the focus is on Salah, but Mane wasn't exactly forthcoming about his future, and what he said yesterday was more negative than Salah.
I think Liverpool have a huge task ahead of them over the next 12 months to not only keep challenging Man City, but to stay ahead of the Chelsea/Tottenham/ManU's, if they offer Salah a new contract, then Mane and Firminho will want the same, if they don't offer contracts then it'll cause friction in the club, especially with your big 3 front men all out of contract at the same time.
Firmino is fifth choice forward now - he’s hardly going to be seeking parity with Salah. Liverpool are run well, I’m not sure they’ll be held to ransom by Salah, given the discord it could cause. Especially if his form over the past few weeks is the start of a drop in standard. I hope not, I hope he’s just knackered after playing non stop almost for four years.
The main man at the club is Klopp, great business done extending his contract recently.
The rumours are that Mane has already agreed to move to Bayern