Nobody cares about Abu Dhabi 'winning' the league HTH, all their titles will shortly be stripped.  Can we move on?

Already are regardless. But it’s not just the first team

A style of play copied up and down the football pyramid. Pep assistants landing coveted jobs at lesser clubs. Academy chucking out premier league standard players on the reg. 

and all done with a net spend less than United Arsenal etc 

They already are the best team in English football league history, but that will be beyond doubt if they win four in a row, which nobody else has ever done.

I think if they beat Madrid on Wednesday (I'll be there) they will win back-to-back trebles (which I bet on at the start of the season).

I expect city to be awarded some extra trophies by way of apology after the 5 charges are throw out

They haven't had the same level of competition really. Liverpool have been closest but fallen away most seasons, except that one year where they couldn't do dope testing. Arsenal, Chelsea and Man Utd rebuilding / collapsing. SPURS LOL. 

The 2008 Man Utd team with Rooney, Ronaldo and Tevez up front would have given Citheh a proper challenge as would the invincibles.

This will be the first season that the cheats (with their long history of cheating now dating back well over 100 years) can legitimately say they have won a trophy (presuming they do in fact win something, which is likely) 

I wish them well 

They will, of course, never be seen as a proper football club and it absolutely grates those who turn a blind eye to the human rights abuses, tourist fans, silent stadium, pep's long history of cheating, the club's long history of cheating to support a bunch of united fans playing in a light blue kit 

Which makes me mildly heh 

And then I remember they are an irrelevance 

There should be a fanfare for the common man’s club.

They really are putting up numbers that are unlikely to ever be topped. I certainly can't see any other team ever getting close to 115.

There was an interesting quote I read in a local Manchester paper along the lines of 

"With city marred in cheating scandals, the working class Mancunian and fans from further afield take great pleasure in watching this entertaining united side and flock to it's stadium" 

It was written in 1904 or 1905 I think. City never really recovered from that cheating scandal but cheating is in their DNA, just like united were built on entertaining working class people 

I'll dig it out. 

Nothing really changes. 

Agree that forward line was immense.  

Showed my son Rooney's Champs League debut against Fenerbahce (?).  16 year old lad walked out like he was totally meant to be there and battered them.  Scored a hat trick and got an assist but could have been 7 and 7 assists.

What a fvcking player he was.

Both Manchester clubs are convicted cheats in terms of UEFA FFP. It’s a scandal either are still playing their trade in the top division. City obviously may well not be for much longer and I’m sure the Premier League charges for United won’t be far away too.

Did this ‘local paper’ (sure, sure- a proper manc would just say the MEN) also have anything about United’s record attendance being at Maine Road 😂

Although I wouldn’t  expect an upper class Home Counties plastic to know their history…

Yeah I remember that fenherbace game. He was sensational at that age.

That was when United financially bullied smaller clubs and spent insane money but at least spent it well.

Think it was in the Manchester guardian tbf, given the year 

Neither Manchester team is going to face any meaningful sanction for FFP breaches or any form of cheating. I wish that wasn't the case but that is what will happen.

Particularly given Abu Dhabi's pressure for the UK govt to influence the charges 

Really is quite shocking and goes against the very ethos of Manchester 

That's why you only see little kids and tourists in their terrible citeh kit when walking through the city 

They can be forgiven, they haven't had a proper education 

When i was younger in the 1970s / 80s it was Liverpool. Not my team, but the whole Anfield / Rotterdam / Rome European nights were somehow magical to watch.

More recently, fielding two First teams teams thousands of miles apart on the same evening was impressive, one in the World Club final in Tokyo, the other in some premier league game which couldn't be moved.

It is not possible to field 2 first teams.

Hth

How many of the key players 4 years ago are still regulars?

Is the bulk of the team/squad the same?

Showed my son Rooney's Champs League debut against Fenerbahce

Was at that match. Absolute magic. Fener had a decent lad called Tuncay in their team too. 

Rooney that good at 16 and yet still people refuse to accept he wasted his talent somewhat

Later showed he knew what a proper club was when he joined Middlesbrough, did Tuncay.

When I moved back North from London I learned that Tuncay was the reason there was an kebab shop in Crewe which served the only Parmos outside Middlesbrough and Hartlepool).  Tuncay was sold by Boro to Stoke, and he set up his brother with a business nearby.  His brother also had one in Boro, where he discovered the magic of the Parmo.

Gotta love a Parmo!

If we're talking about the best team, I preferred the 2020 City team to watch:

Ederson

Walker, Stones, Otamendi, Laporte, Zinchenko, Cancelo

De Bruyne, Gundo, Sterling, F Silva, D Silva, Mahrez, Sane, Fernandinho, Foden

Aguero, Jesus.

That's the team I associate with City being at their best.

He wasn't 16 when he made his man utd debut ffs. He scored against Arsenal for Everton when he was 16. He signed for Utd at 18 which is still ridiculous to be banging in champions league trebles.

If he had the same ridiculous work ethic as Ronaldo he would have been a better player for longer, but he was magnificent for over a decade and he is who he is and can't change that. 

Ederson

Walker, Stones, Otamendi, Laporte, Zinchenko, Cancelo

De Bruyne, Gundo, Sterling, F Silva, D Silva, Mahrez, Sane, Fernandinho, Foden

Aguero, Jesus.

That's the team I associate with City being at their best.

Yeah no wonder they have 115 charges against them if they had 18 players on.

I may be wrong Roger,  but I think they did. Klopp was in Japan with most of them (which they won), the u23s coach led the rest to an EPL match in Burnley or somewhere.

Liverpool fans are adorable sometimes.

Yeah agree with RR’s 13.28 tbh

I don't doubt they managed to get 2 teams playing simultaneously. That's not hard.

I do doubt it was 2 lots of the 1st team though

Think Rooney was 18 by the time that Fenerbahce champions league debut came around. Was 16 when at Everton and beat Seaman from distance for first prem goal.

Quite funny a thread about the Manchester cheats 

Becomes a thread about Liverpool and United 

Yep that's happens

The two big clubs dominate 

As usual 

Everyone respects us and everyone wants to be us 

And those little cucks will never know what that's like 

Well you have to remember Davos that Fergie ruined the childhood of most of these sad sacks and they have been chippy ever since.

Most of them have some fun times with Esher blues though 

Before moving to Abu Dhabi light blues in the late 00s

Plastic reds: no history!!!! Sob. Founded in 2008! Sob.

Also plastic reds: everyone! Look at this thing city did check notes 120 years ago!!!

Tom, for the benefit of the ignorant (me), what is the significance of the founded in 2008 thing? 

Is it something like with Glasgow Rangers where Celtic fans argue that everything which was won prior to when they went bust (2012 ish) was an achievement of the old Rangers and the current Rangers entity has only won the league once (or something like that)?  

Quite sad I have to educate you on your own club cuckorded 

More sad still you choose to support them with all the issues 

115 FC

They are bang to rights and are going to be stripped of everything, it's an open secret at this stage.

The troubling thing is how few of the football journos question the integrity of it all when they talk about how great City are.

Windy- happy to help. 2008 is when the current owners took over. This has led to banter lords and clueless melts who think football began in 1992 suggesting the club had no history prior to then.

Of course, the heads know eg that city first won the fa cup in 1904, 5 years before United and a incredible 64 years before Liverpool.

There is glory mixed with farce. What other club ca win the title one season then get relegated the next. whilst being the league’s top scorers? 

The irony is that the victory in 1904 was shortly followed by suspensions aimed at the club as it was breaking all the financial rules and bribery scandal

As per City's own player admitting it, billy Meredith 

History does repeat itself and amazingly city fans actually celebrate this stuff!!!!!

The same Billy Meredith who went to united when his ban was over and brought success to the proper team in Manchester when he realised football was for the working classes and not just city's cheating owners 

What is actually amazing on many levels is Meredith exposed that the club were paying players off the books 

The same thing the current iteration of citeh was exposed as doing with all those payments from CFG, Etihad etc etc 

Amazing circularity. And I actually wonder whether abu dhabi just thought it's what the club did? Like united have entertaining football for working class people, stoke have long balls and city/citeh have cheating?

Interesting Davos! Of course  a precursor to the 1915 match fixing scandal when Liverpool and Manchester United players conspired to fix a game.

When I watch Harry Maguire I wonder whether it could happen again 

they are already considered the greatest english club side ever 

Thanks Tom. I read a book about the history of Man U up to the early 90's when I was at school (stupidly, I thought this would endear me to Man U supporting classmates who found the fact I supported Port Vale deeply odd). 

Will have to try and read up about the history of City. 

Pretty short book.

Well you have to remember Davos that Fergie ruined the childhood of most of these sad sacks and they have been chippy ever since.

As a Boro fan Fergie didn't ruin my childhood.  In fact we beat United loads of time, once when I won a bunch of money and once when one of my best mates scored past Barthez in the FA Cup.

The reason I hate United and always will is how fvcking ungracious you were while being so good and dominant.  There was absolutely no need to be so khvnty, particularly in the way it affected the England team, which might otherwise have won something.  It's absolutely beautiful how sh1t you are now, and how rotten the club and stadium are while you look over at the blue side jealously (but also have to pretend you're not jealous somehow to justify it to yourself).

"Not in my lifetime".  Well you're still alive (just) Fergie you red nosed old tw4t - I hope you see four in a row too.

Yeah Face has knocked this out of the park. End of thread.

Windy- Gary James is a good place to start. 

Crazy history with dizzying highs and equally dizzying lows.

Even as a United fan, I have to begrudgingly accept that this city side (last 4 or 5 years) is the best ever football team the English domestic game has seen in my lifetime (I don't know how they compare to Liverpool in the 70s and the Busby babes), regardless of the end result this season.

They're stronger as a whole than United and Arsenal's best sides and they're objectively great to watch. 

I hate watching City play Liverpool and enjoying the football more than the dross United are serving up at the minute.  

Pretty much hit the nail on the head there, tbh. 

Fergie didn't ruin my childhood

Says this and proceeds to go on massive rant about how much he hates Man Utd. We even won the league at the Riverside in the year Keegan and the Barcodes bottled it all. Happy days. 

The arsenal team petite viera and that crew were very special.

Man city are the most watchable team of my lifetime, by miles 

United and the hassle the referee mob were just khunts