Danny

My answer is no, not off of the back of how they’ve got their success and will most likely keep getting it. But that’s just me

I completely agree with you regarding the monopoly clubs at the top have and the difficulty in breaking that. I’ve also said before Chelsea and City are a symptom, not the root cause of the Premier League’s problem with money. But it doesn’t change the fact that these are sides that have built their success in a time where they have been handed money. There is so much more to football than just the present, and clubs like Bayern, Barce, Juve, Liverpool have been a force long before the introduction of the oil club. You just cannot buy that history and the feeling of what a big club is. Arsenal have been big for decades, even if they’ve had a poor couple of decades, they’re still a footballing institution in this country. And when they next win a league title they will go back to being a dominant footballing institution. City and Chelsea don’t have that.

Look at Liverpool mate, no title for 30 odd years but still an institution. Football heritage shall we say, Chelsea lack it, regardless of how much they might win due to whatever billionaires money

Not really. Arsenal for pretty much all of their existence have been a top club, consistently winning league titles and FA Cups. They have won 13 league titles, most FA Cups in the country, they have a bigger stadium than Chelsea and a bigger fanbase. They have been on a title drought now yes, but for Arsenal all it takes is one manager in the way of a Klopp, Wenger, Ferguson etc to come in, wrap up multiple league titles and domestically you have a club on par with United and Liverpool. Chelsea atm are miles off of that, look how much money they've spent since Abramovic has come in just to get their title tally up to half of what Arsenal's is. And even then, if Chelsea were to go on and beat Arsenal's record, powerhouses like Man Utd, Liverpool, Barcelona etc are held that highly out of a respect for the work they've put in to get to that position. For Chelsea there is no work, that respect doesn't exist, they can carry on being the most powerful club in London but they will never be the biggest. Chelsea lack prestige, clubs like Arsenal have it in abundance even if they don't have the financial power over Chelsea atm.

How are the new owners expected to run Chelsea? Operate off its own profits? Pump shit tonnes of money in?

Ineos wanted Chelsea to have the same stature as Bayern, Real Madrid, Man Utd etc. Only one club in London that has the possibility of that and it’s Arsenal, regardless of how many titles Chelsea have bought for them

Chelsea eventually won the CL but did so being bang average and finishing outside the top 4. Part of it is the joke these owners dig for themselves, they have contributed to the hysteria of the Champions League and the commercialisation of it by wanting it so badly. But City could win the league again this season and it will be a better achievement than winning the Champions League because an English or Spanish league title will always generally be a bigger achievement. But the era of football we live in now perpetuates the myth that the Champions League is the big one, which it is in Cup competitions, but not in comparison to two of the biggest leagues in the world

I’m not even sure last night was his fault really, City were dominant for 90 minutes and none of the changes made should really had led to losing a 2 goal lead so late on and so dramatically. It was just that magic of the cup moment, and more magic of Madrid in this cup. The mentality is an interesting one because clubs like Liverpool and Madrid have it built in that if they are at home and are in a serious game the fans will help them through. But clubs who don’t have that history, don’t have that from their fans, even if like Atletico Madrid’s fans they are going mental.

No but what I mean is when City play with a world renowned recognised striker it used to be Ageuro who was a centre forward. Your equivalent of Aguero is Salah. City don’t have a singular world class focal point going forward in the way you do, or the way they used to. And just ignoring the how’s and why’s of why that’s the case cos I’m just talking about coaching, it’s very good coaching from Guardiola to have a team as a whole grab 82 goals in the league when their two top scorers have about 11 and 10 goals each this season. Not many managers would be able to get that many goals from so many different players to make up for the fact that they don’t have a forward that can score 20-25 in the league alone and supporting strikers who can grab 15-20

I don't want this to be misconstrued along the lines of me saying poor Pep, he has no money etc. This is purely away from the financial side of the game. Manchester City's top goal scorer this season in the Premier League is Kevin de Bruyne who has scored 11 goals. That is 3 goals less than Liverpool's 3rd top goal scorer of the season. Man City have played this season without a recognised centre forward playing as a centre forward and have somehow still scored 2 goals less than Liverpool in the league who have Salah, Mane and Jota leading the line. Pep Guardiola's coaching (his coaching to any Liverpool fans in here, not his transfer business or his net spend ) is genuinely incredible, other than Gabriel Jesus who is not a prolific forward, Man City have been playing this season with a collection of wingers and attacking midfielders. Pep has had his front 3 playing with a number 9, a false 9, two false 9s and even no central forward/9/false 9....just two wingers and 3 centre mids behind them. They've been so powerful because each winger/attacking mid has seemed to manage to grab about 10 goals each. I'm not sure I've ever seen a team top of the table at this point in the season who do not play with a recognised centre forward. That is truly mad and a testament to Guardiola's coaching. It will be interesting to see how they get on next season with Haaland, whether he improves the team in the way they are already playing or whether they have to reduce some of the current players playing time/ability to play in dangerous zones to allow for Haaland to take up a greater role.

We'll forget the 3 goals at the Brentford Community Stadium

Allison, Robertson, VVD, Matip, Fabinho, Thiago, Henderson, Mane and Salah will all be around 34 years old when his deal ends (Robertson and Fabinho 32). That will be him most likely getting the very last drops out of the core of this side until 2026. And then you have Konate, Trent, Gomez, Jones, Keita, Elliot, Diaz and Jota all with about 8-5 years at the top level still left in them, and then there will of course be younger signings along the way to freshen that midfield and elsewhere up as times goes on. Liverpool will be dominant for another 4 years yet and even after that they'll probably be in a really good condition if he does leave then as opposed to the condition United were left in. Things look good for Liverpool.

I literally deleted a paragraph because I was about to go full on and create more questions than answers hence me asking you to specify. Away from internet induced arguments, I've just nearly completed an essay for Uni which is based on the connection of race and racism which has been very interesting to read and understand the origins of the creation of a racial hierarchy.

@Spike in fairness my writing style online can be quite intense and come across as a lecture rather than me giving my opinion, which is completely different to how I operate in person which is much more conversational/curious. In my head when I'm writing it is just an opinion forward but I think it comes across much more direct than that. I think it's the dopamine hits and what I understand to be undiagnosed ADHD that force me into chucking 3 paragraphs of arguments out every time a real world issue is brought up...if that was a conversation in a pub it probably would have ended quickly in an "oh, fair enough" at some point or another

I am one

It's hard to tell with you

Racism is a global problem with global equivalencies...it's also difficult to talk about racism in Australia and disconnect it from the UK considering Australian racism was literally imported from the UK.

I didn't state all working class people are racist, I just broke down the two main types that I think you'd encounter. Being the people in positions of power who have money to gain from it (generally upper middle/upper class, but can be anyone thats worked their way up financially to that point) and then people who are taken advantage of as a voting block who are generally, but not always, apart of the working classes, that's just how politics works. When I used personal examples I was using them to further explain the point of people who are taken advantage of by wider systems, not stating all working class people are inherently racist or that all working class people contribute towards it. I used it in reference to what you was saying because it seemed similar to what you was saying, not because I was assuming all working class people in Australia are racist dumb dumbs. And no I didn't assume that.

What specifically makes you think that?

Essentially this. People complain about favouritism with England but Southgate has proven that if you stay consistent you will get opportunities. With that said he has also proven that if you perform well for him he will put trust in you when the public says he shouldn't. Maguire will get opportunities for England until he is shit for England, and that's when other CB's will get a look in. You only have to look towards Kane and Sterling to see how he reacts to players going through bad form, Sterling performed well for England in the Summer when he wasn't for City. Kane ended up picking up steam as the tournament went on and finished joint second top goal scorer. If we had a tournament again this Summer both players would be guaranteed starters because they have been our best two players two tournaments in a row now. And the same is truthful for Maguire, he has been a solid and dependable centre back for two separate tournaments. I don't really buy into this Dan Burn nonsense either, Dan Burn could barely get a look in at Brighton and now he's a better footballer than Maguire? In better form maybe, form will most likely have a jump if you get a bumper wage deal at your boyhood club that has barely any expectations on it at this point in time.

I think there's mainly two types of racists, the first group gain some sort of power from it be it political or even just socially in a local setting and so use it for their own benefit. Then the second group generally grow up in impoverished areas, part of the white working class that generally don't do too well at school, and whilst they may not specifically hate or dislike anyone in person, they will repeat slurs and believe in wider conspiracies or stereotypes that are delivered to them by politicians, or by their friends/family network who will eventually get it from politicians/public figures. I grew up around people that would use the P word multiple times in a day and then at the same time were close friends with people of south Asian heritage, and then when they were alone again would go back to using the word. There doesn't really seem like much logic to that, but I think it's a collision of nature vs nurture where both sides seem to have a 50/50ish hold.

How can you talk about being a temporary custodian of a club and in the same breathe be chucking 4 billion around. Football is such a myth

Do you think that has something to do with the calibre of player you have now? Not so much from last year, and that was more an issue of poor planning a wider squad than anything, but Klopp had that thrown at him from day one at Anfield. Do you think if you give Klopp those players again the injury issues that used to occur still occur? But because he's brought in not just better footballers, but much better athletes, the injuries are now reduced with the same demands put on them? It's an issue I think about with Leeds though @Lucas might be able to say...their current manager mentioned the players had been overworked, but a lot of those players were generally Championship standard. Had Bielsa of been given more footballers who are high level athletes then would Leeds' season have been better managed with injuries? Or do you think it's difficult to improve on the athletic performance of the players at Leeds already? This makes me think about when we got promoted last season and our DoF was slated for saying that the quality difference between midtable Prem and top of Ligue 1 is fairly minimal, but what sets the players apart is how good an athlete they are. It's one of the reason we looked to sign high level athletes in the Championship and then again in the Premier League, and why we have settled into our first season with some comfortability, because we have a team with a good range of athletic performance on top of their playing ability.

A lot of big acts do something similar in America I believe, but generally big acts will just have onsite security who will take phones or people out of the venue.

Watched the fight at Wembley. Stadium fight basically means you’re watching the big screen, not live. Atmosphere was good for Sweet Caroline and the walk ins, otherwise very boring. Brawl broke out in front of me before the fight started, not particularly great to be surrounded by Conor McGregor wannabes but it is what it is. Vast majority well behaved. I think there’s a level of sad dick head achieved when you go to the boxing to fight specifically, even though there are people trained to fight literally in the ring and you’re just giving it billy big bollocks. There was a bloke shadow boxing and telling Tyson Fury what to do, in the top tier, but fair play he was having a good time. The fight wasn’t very entertaining, boring and I was hoping Whyte would come in with more body work. Neither boxer actually had to do a lot and Fury got a sweet KO. Got a new found respect for Fury tbh, put on a decent show when he was walking in and end of fight too. But also been fairly classy throughout most of the fight and you can tell he wants to retire, even if he doesn’t.