The FA Cup final is like something you'd see in a schoolboys league match where one side is just far too good for the other. For all the weirdness of the CL semifinals, this is probably more representative of what football has become. Sad really.

Financial doping has ruined football.

Didn’t watch the game but I’m assuming nobody even mentions city’s money

6 nil in a cup final is ridiculous

It happened with Chelsea and then with City. The media rarely mentions the amount of money they have in relation to their success since 2004 (Chelsea).
As soon as Roman stopped spending as much as when he first arrived, voila, they aren't winning as much.

Ha ! I’m unblocked !

where are you sourcing your lens from currently ...... Carl Zeiss , the Hubbell telescope ....?

No way in the world I'd want to be seen as taking Yankee Doodle Dandy's side on anything .... but you might have wanted to read passed the first meaning Brom

allotment ..noun
1.
BRITISH
a plot of land rented by an individual for growing vegetables or flowers.

2. the action of allotting something.
synonyms: allocation, issuing, issuance, awarding, grant, granting, administration, earmarking, designation, setting aside, budgeting;

3 . an amount allotted to a person or persons
synonyms: quota, share, ration, grant, limit, portion, allocation, allowance, helping, batch, slice, stint, lot, measure, proportion

Says something if I've got elbow problems John .... you'd cop the same in the wrist ...... ?

The days of getting 80 some odd points and winning the title may be over. A couple years running now, we are seeing incredible point totals .

The little spoken of feat of the season is Watford making it to the FA cup final. The way the league is, the League Cup has now become incredibly competitive when it wasn't not too long ago with the major clubs fielding weakened squads but now its possibly the only viable trophy of even big clubs like us or Chelsea.
From my understanding from posts on here years ago, the league cup was a big deal. It lost its luster when I became a fan.

I am not confident we will see another "Watford" get to the final again for the foreseeable future. Tottenham are hungry for any trophy. It's now a trophy we should seriously consider now that the league is a bridge way too far and the FA Cup is still a huge trophy that City, Liverpool and Tottenham have the squad to field strong sides, with the exception being early rounds against lower division sides.

Not from us

Morning Kiwi not wishing to be pedant or anything, but the word you're looking for is 'past', not 'passed'.

Also I'm obviously going to stick with the dictionary definition of allotment that begins with the word 'BRITISH'

Very glad you seem to be feeling better now!

Fresh fruit will give you a chance of keeping those bowels open in the future. But thanks for the update.

??

Greetings Brom .... I think you've cacked in your own nest again ........they are all 'BRITISH '

I said you should have looked "passed" the first interpretation of allotment ....... that's a verb

Prof Paul Brians explains .....

passed / past
If you are referring to a distance or a period of time before now, use “past”: “the police car drove past the suspect’s house” (distance) or “the team performed well in the past” (time). If you are describing the action of passing, however, you need to use “passed”:

“Past” can be an adjective, a noun, a preposition, or an adverb, BUT NEVER A VERB .

If you need to write the past tense of the verb “to pass,” use “passed.”


Okay that's sorted that little upstart ...... adding up the score ... hmmm that's ..... Bromley 0 NZ 2 ... too easy

In your sentence, 'read' is the verb. Past is a preposition.

Other examples:

Trump passed the Big Mac to the Queen.
(here 'passed' is a verb)

I can look past your political ignorance, but must draw the line at your grammar.
(here 'past' is a preposition).

Quite right Decaf. Take that Kiwi

Clearly well enough to partake of rum again

He didn't do it as a reply to you, so perhaps he would claim it was pure coincidence that his post immediately followed one by you on the same topic. In other words, that his post had nothing to do with your one?

Probably but it clearly showed he read the previous comment. The great big loonie

Just had a peek and we haven't scored more than 80 points since the '07-'08 season!

Nothing a few private jets can't take care of for those 60k corporate types, sponsors, comp winners, families to Baku.

Manchester City’s sky blue smashing of Watford proves football is broken

https://www.theguardian.com/football/20 ... _clipboard

bastards .......... white hankerchief appears above the trench on this ocassion . Thought I could bluff you with that one .

however ... don't worry ...... little Decaf's 'political ignorance' jibe is going to be jammed directly up his ***^%$# followed by a Lberal dose of liquid nails behind it ; when I've finished reading a book I got from the Op Shop a couple of weeks back ..... " Legacy of Ashes " Tim Weiner 's History of the CIA .

The really scary part about this is that the guardian and media have apparently just realised this. Where have they been for the last ten years. The media have joined politicians, priests, banks and many others who are not and never to be trusted. When it suits them they are on the pulpit but when it doesn’t it is all wrong.

When an English club is battering a Johnny Foreigner in the CL the EPL is great, brilliant and wonderful but when little old Watford get smashed and make the whole thing look unbalanced. Woe is me..

Thought exactly the same yesterday after Dec saying "how sad" the Cup final .

Dickwacking commentators never touch on this .

.... if your club has more money than the rest of the Premier League put together is it any surprise they win trophies .

The sooner Man City f $$**&^ off to some super league the better for English football .

The Yanks for all their evils ; at least have a decent system of fair play in their NFL .... the teams that finish bottom of the leagues get first choice at any incoming talent .

Burning question would be .... if they formed some super league Barc , Man C , PSG , Juventus , Real , Bayern etc etc ..... would we want to be part of it ...?

Yes but Goonie this isn't a single owner who gets bored / tired and decides he'll move on to wind surfing , Tai Chi , stamp collecting or building a hot rod to occupy his time .

Man City is owned by a greazy bunch of shitbag sheiks who see out a day out at the Etihad as a pleasant little stop over between jetting off to some Carribean island , visiting a casino , tripping around on a yacht with fifty bikini clad play girls .

They be in it for ever .

Only way things might change if the Yanks start a war with Iran and they in turn decide to stick a few missiles into the Emirates / Saidi Arabia to really disrupt world oil production .

Goonie, I've discussed your optimism with you before. If we're relegated next season I'm sure you'd see it as an opportunity to rebuild at a lower level. If we sold all our best players for peanuts I'd expect you to say there might be better youngsters in the youth set-up. Kroenke's ownership? To you, 'not all doom and gloom'. The stadium falling down? To Goonie a chance to build a better one.

Is there anything at all that would make you think 'Arsenal is f*cked? Anything at all?

I'm not even talking about the City issue, by the way. If City dominte and it stops any of Manchester United, Tottenham, Chelsea and Liverpool winning things, I'm comfortable with that.

Shhh...it's against forum rules to speak complimentary about Fabregas judging by posts since his first 'Brexit'.

I didn't actually say Arsenal was f*cked if you read my post again. My question was whether there was anything at all that would make you think it was? Time and time again (plus a few hundred other 'times'), you have put a positive slant on practically anything bad that's happened. The floor is yours. Is there anything that would make you think that Arsenal was f*cked? Losing the Europa League final wouldn't, as I couldn't even go that far.

So how about going broke? I'm not even sure you wouldn't see the club going out of business as a chance to rebuild a brand new club called 'The Arsenal'.

I agree, kiwi, the infrastructure they have put in place around Manchester suggests they are not going anywhere anytime soon.

It feels like something of a watershed moment in football. If City are found guilty of inflating sponsorship deals and other ways of circumventing the FFP rules (effectively cheating) then they should be stripped of any title and trophies they have won and a marker laid down for what will happen if you cheat. Juve were stripped of a title so why not City.

That said, such is the might of City's legal teams that they could probably make anything look legit with a bit of creative accounting so it will be hard to prove and may not stand up in a court of law, even if it is obvious what is going on. Have the football authorities got the balls or even the financial means to take them on?

Sadly, allowing foreign ownership of clubs has basically made them a rich man's plaything and it is too late to try to shut the stable door now because the horse has already bolted.

100%. They are in this for the duration.

Suprised not more people have picked up on Abramovich's loss of interest in Chelsea. When the sanctions were tightened after that Salisbury incident, he didn't have his visa renewed. Similarly, Usmanov sold his shares not long after. Definitely some kind of squeeze on the oligarchs post Salisbury.

I suspect City's reserve side would probably finish in the top 6. That shows you the gulf in quality that teams without City's financial might are up against.

Yep.

I also think City have taken spending to another level and Abramovich probably looked at them and thought it was just impossible to compete.

I just looked Leeds up. They were last in the Premier League in season 2003/4, when they were relegated. So it would take not only relegation but fifteen years of failure to get promotion to make you see Arsenal's position as 'pretty disastrous'. Okay, thanks for explaining what it would take to stop you being positive. It strikes me as a fairly extreme down turn in fortunes.

Wonder if Man City fans, and Chelsea supporters considering all the succes they've enjoyed under Abramovich, share your view? I doubt it somehow.

I don't think any of these rules are really enforceable especially about inflating sponsorship. Who determines a proper value of sponsorship? IMO the only way restrictions can start making a difference is with restrictions on how many players you can own. Chelsea have players all over the place as I expect do Man City. If you make it that you can loan out up to 6 players who must have come thru your youth squad, only have 25 players in your squad of which 10 must be from GB or originally a youth player and anyone else you own or have an interest in incurs a 5 point deduction of points from your league total. If you are found to have an interest in a player that is undeclared then the following season you start with minus 30 points per player. Might make a few people focus a little better. I have not suggested a salary cap because people in every sport find ways to cheat on the cap. The exact same situation needs to be rigorously enforced against places like Real and Barca who often have large debt levels. Plus I would like to see some recognition given to clubs who actually own their own stadium and are not owned by a government or someone else.

Number of people including itk types are linking us with Zaha who Is just the type of player we need.

Odd one as surely signing him would consume our whole budget . I wonder if this talk of a 40million budget is bluffing as a negotiating tactic.

We seem to be getting linked with tons of players

There are rumours that between them, Arse & Chavs have only sold 6,000 tickets for Baku.

Bet they've gained many, many more fans than they've lost since Abramovich took them over. That's what winning trophies does to your fan base.

I read Saturday Arsenal have sold 2600 and Chelsea have sold 600