Mud Sticking, Rearranged Games & Fighting On All Fronts - Weekly Thoughts Part 1.

Tales From Wembley Show That Mud Sticks.

Sunday felt weird, really weird.  For the first time, I was not at Wembley to watch City play (excluding Community Shields, which I don’t feel guilt for missing), on orders of my bank manager. A spare became available on the morning, and I would probably have taken it if I wasn’t still asleep. And so it was a day on the couch, counting down the hours until kick-off, rather than enjoying beers in the Exmouth Arms and making the trek to Wembley. It’s only four stops, but the gap between two of the stops seems to lengthen every time I visit, just like the Altrincham tram back home after a night game does too. Anyway, from what I hear, it was another day of simmering aggression from an opposition fan base. How very weird that they get so riled up by the presence of Manchester City and their fans. Why could that possibly be?

It’s perhaps more understandable after the game, as sports fans of all colours can be sore losers. But it is still clearly exacerbated in recent times, across the whole day, as many attested to on social media after the game. And it’s because the mud sticks. My football club are not blameless in many respects, and I do not expect adoration from rival fans. UEFA have found them guilty of “serious” breaches however much club officials protest, and we await the decision of CAS at some unknown future date. But the nature and tone of some media coverage of the club, spanning well before UEFA handed down their judgment under three weeks ago, has clearly had its effect. Its persistent nature, by a minority of journalists that clearly resent much of what the club represents, has shaped many a narrative in other clubs’ fans. The mud has stuck, and it will continue to do so. It should not bother us what is said on social media, as words will never hurt us, but when it transforms into snarling, spittle-drenched knuckle-draggers at football matches, it becomes something of a problem.

No journalist who has ever shaped such a narrative will admit so or acknowledge the influence their words have, or how the industry has changed to rely on tribalism and conflict – they are far too removed from the real life of a match-going football fan to have any idea of the consequences. So I guess we’d best get used to it, especially at our second home. It can be of little surprise either that fans are so easily controlled to believe such narratives. This is a population that requires government advice on washing your hands or believes any old bullshit in a meme or on the side of a bus. That stops drinking Corona because they think it might give them a deadly virus. And if you’re not a City fan, you want to believe, because it’s easier to discount the team that has won 8 of the last 9 domestic trophies rather than accept any measure of superiority in another team.

And of course, they do all of this totally ignorant of their own hypocrisy. We all know the misdeeds of other clubs that are rarely mentioned, plus the insanity of Villa fans making attendance taunts when we had more fans at Wembley anyway, and considering their own history of pitiful attendances periodically (like most teams). But looking at Villa fans, they don’t even have the moral superiority in terms of ownership and rule-breaking. Villa made a £69m loss last season, in the Championship, and it would have been a lot more if their billionaire owners had not spent £57m buying Villa Park. Then they splurged £130m in the summer, all for a relegation fight. Anyone care to question if this money was “organically” earned in the second tier of English football. Another fan base who can sod off, though obviously I should not tarnish the entire support because of a few idiots.

One last caveat to any aggression from Villa fans must be the fact that many will have overdone it on the day, recreationally. Giddiness will have led to over-consumption, which for many will lead to aggression. I’ve seen enough blue-on-blue fighting at Wembley over the past decade to know all about that. And for that first semi-final against United, the outdoor area of the Green Man resembled a war zone by 3pm. I’m amazed so many made it to the match. But now we’re the Wembley veterans, going there almost a matter of routine. For some other teams, less so. If we’d lost that 2011 semi-final to United, I am sure a minority of our fans would not have handles it well. I certainly would not, but my modus operandi is to sulk and refuse to speak to anyone. Others are a tad more vocal.

Klopp Fails Again

Every day, something I see/read will baffle me. An opinion, or a team line-up from Pep, they are two sides of the same coin. But it was not Pep baffling me on Tuesday, as Jurgen Klopp decided to play a weakened team in a big FA Cup tie at Stamford Bridge. They lost, and that’s another trophy gone, though as we’ll see it’s par for the course with Klopp domestically.

You wonder if Klopp was blinded by the thought of managing a team of invincibles. Blinded by the opportunity to smash records and secure his place in history in the league. Why else would his team for Watford be stronger than his team for Chelsea? Many records will still be smashed no doubt, should the season end, but this week has not been his finest, nor the past fortnight. Looks like those energy drinks have run out of stock, allegedly. The league will still be won at a canter, probably with a record points tally, and it will remain an amazing achievement, even if it is their sole trophy, which it may not be. Nothing can be taken away from what they have done. But surely this was an opportunity for even more glory? With the league secured, and the Champions League second leg a week away, was there any need to rest any of their favoured players? What was there to lose by going for it? After all, by the end he had to sub on some key players anyway in a desperate attempt to retrieve the game. Has he become so confident of his team’s powers and ability to win under any circumstances that he thought the team he picked was easily good enough to prevail against Chelsea? Surely not, especially after the chastening experience at Vicarage Road. Maybe on another night the side would have prevailed,  but he hardly gave his team the best chance.

But this has approach has always been Klopp personified. This is the furthest he has been in the FA Cup during five years at Liverpool. It just astonishes me the free ride he seems to get not only from the media, but his own fan base. That’s a disgraceful record, and proves his disdain for domestic cup competitions. I expect it from managers fighting relegation, but not him. There’s only one manager who takes all competitions seriously, and yet he only seems to attract disdain by doing so, talk now of the Carabao Cup being fatally devalued by City’s success in recent years. Damned if you do……

Not Easy Is It Jurgen?

Klopp juggled his team and paid the price. Managers do this all the time, and sometimes it works, often it backfires. What this week should have shown though, if it wasn’t already blatantly obvious to the many dullards that frequent the internet, is that it is not easy to win multiple trophies, whatever your resources. City’s crawl over the line in Sheffield shows it is not easy. In fact it’s damn tricky, to the extent that Jurgen Klopp doesn’t even attempt to win many of them. Thus he too must have an asterisk next to his achievements if City are going to have to have some next to their own deeds. All this should focus minds on what Pep has achieved in the past couple of seasons. Rather ironic too that Klopp lost to the two teams this week that City defeated in domestic cup finals last season. Funny old world.

Another Rearranged Game At Short Notice

And so news broke on Tuesday evening, late in the day, that City v Arsenal has been scheduled for next Wednesday evening, with a 7:30pm kick off time for no particular reason. It seems to be the accepted time for rearranged evening games. This became possible after Arsenal were knocked out of the Europa League, freeing that week, and once Chelsea progressed to the quarter finals of the FA Cup, ensuring our game against them will be postponed later this month, the announcement was quickly made. I heard a rumour about this at the weekend, but clearly the FA Cup results sealed the deal.

When the likes of Pep Guardiola or Jurgen Klopp talk about how there are too many games in the domestic calendar, they tend to get shouted down by the media and fans alike. And yet now we see the consequences of what they argue against. With so many games, there is nowhere else to put this game unless both teams face a huge backlog at season-end. And let’s be honest, at the back of the minds of those in power at the Premier League must be the possibility of a certain virus causing cancellations in the coming weeks or months. The thought of getting games played as soon as possible has some logic to it.
But as always, it’s the fans that suffer, especially Arsenal fans on this occasion. It’s possible to accept that fans have been shafted whilst acknowledging that we don’t have a solution to this particular problem. But hey, we’re used to being shafted by now. Even many City fans will struggle to make this game at such short notice, as people have work and pleasure commitments, and in a global economy many of course travel far and wide to see their side. The empty seat masturbators are going to pass out at the thought of what awaits them next Wednesday. Oh no, I’m devastated. #sarcasm

Whatever the rights and wrongs, with City drawing Newcastle in the quarter final of the FA Cup, two teams due to play each other on quarter-final weekend in the league, that means another game that must be postponed. So the Arsenal rescheduled match looks even more logical, not that anyone at either club could have foreseen a specific cup draw made after the decision.

I’ve got a lot more to say! So Part 2 is to follow tomorrow…..