Worlds best footballer spotted at the Etihad.

[Chippy_Tea]

To be honest I don't know how people can afford to go to games regularly especially if they live many miles from the grounds, the ticket prices, travelling expences etc are too much for people on low wages.

 

[Chippy_Tea]

I doubt they would spend the money if they thought there would be little gain, I don't think he will end up at city but if he does it's going to be good.
Clubs would be queuing up for him if the price wasn't so hig even at 33 years old.

Looks like we will never find out just how he would have coped in the PL.


BBC Sport -

Barcelona's all-time leading goalscorer Lionel Messi says he is staying because it is "impossible" for any team to pay his release clause and he does not want to face the club in court.

The Argentine, 33, sent a fax to Barca last Tuesday saying he wanted to exercise a clause in his contract which he said allowed him to leave for free.
But the club said his 700m euro (£624m) release clause would have to be met.

"I thought and was sure that I was free to leave," Messi told Goal.

"The president always said that at the end of the season I could decide if I stayed or not.

"And this is the reason why I am going to continue in the club. Now I am going to continue in the club because the president told me that the only way to leave was to pay the 700m clause, and that this is impossible."

Messi, whose contract expires next summer, says the fact he did not tell Barcelona he wanted to leave before 10 June was crucial, and had he done so his release clause would not have had to be met.

"Now they cling to the fact that I did not say it before 10 June, when it turns out that on 10 June we were competing for La Liga in the middle of this awful coronavirus and this disease altered all the season," he added.

"There was another way and it was to go to trial. I would never go to court against Barca because it is the club that I love, which gave me everything since I arrived.

"It is the club of my life, I have made my life here. I know that it never crossed my mind to take Barca to court."

Messi, who has been at Barcelona for 20 years, told the club he wanted to leave nine days after their 8-2 aggregate defeat by Bayern Munich in the Champion League semi-finals.

That meant Barca ended the season with no silverware, and they replaced manager Quique Setien with former Everton and Netherlands manager Ronald Koeman.

Messi, who finished as top scorer in La Liga for a record seventh time last season, has not trained with his team-mates in recent days and admits the club's lack of success influenced his decision.

"When I communicated my wish to leave to my wife and children, it was a brutal drama," he added.

"The whole family began crying, my children did not want to leave Barcelona, nor did they want to change schools."

 

[Cheshire Cat]

O well that's another season without a Champion league win for poor old City. Plus they'll do well to qualify for the 2021/22 Champions league.

 

[Chippy_Tea]

O well that's another season without a Champion league win for poor old City. Plus they'll do well to qualify for the 2021/22 Champions league.

Wow your hatred of my team knows no bounds.

O well that's another season without a Champion league win for poor old City.

And another season without a Champion league win for the rest of the PL clubs!

Plus they'll do well to qualify for the 2021/22 Champions league.

And that will also go for the rest of the PL teams.

I cannot wait for your next sweeping statement. (actually that isn't true)


Who do you support i seem to have missed why you are so venomous towards little ole citeh.


While we await our first CL win (which may or may not happen in my lifetime) I will console myself with the recent success we have had.


It’s worth reminding ourselves of just how City have consistently raised the bar in English football.

Having ended our 35-year wait for silverware in unforgettable fashion with our 2011 FA Cup triumph over Stoke, the Club has never looked back since.

That first FA Cup win came under the stewardship of Roberto Mancini who was also at the helm as City secured our first Premier League title in the most dramatic circumstances possible in May 2012 via that unforgettable 93:20 climax against Queen’s Park Rangers.

His successor Manuel Pellegrini built on those solid foundations, overseeing further additions to the City trophy cabinet by leading the Club to a second Premier League success in 2014 as well as guiding us to League Cup glory in both 2014 and 2016.

And in the wake of the arrival of Pep Guardiola in the summer of 2016, City’s appetite for success has only accelerated.

The Catalan oversaw another iconic title triumph in 2018 with City becoming the first side in English football to break the 100 point barrier, as well as claiming yet another League Cup triumph.

And that was followed by our historic 2018/19 Fourmidables campaign, which saw us re-write the English record books once more by becoming the first side to life the title, FA Cup, League Cup and Community Shield in one season.

Indeed, such has been our remarkable consistency under Guardiola’s leadership over the past few seasons that of the past six major domestic trophies on offer - Premier League, FA Cup and Carabao Cup - we have claimed five of them, only missing out on winning the 2018 FA Cup.

 

[Cheshire Cat]

Chippy
I support United and have done for 60 years, I also supported Northwich Vics until they were taken over by a drugs dealer so I now support the reformed club 1874 Northwich in the Northwest Counties League. I do not hate either City or Liverpool but my comments are what any rival fan would say. What I do hate is the ownership model that clubs like Chelsea, City and PSG have with foreign owner bankrolling the clubs. I know United are owned by the Glazers but they take rather than give.

 

[Chippy_Tea]

So it's ok for rich clubs who were successful and who had plenty of money rolling in because of that success before the foreign investors moved in to buy the top players to keep them at the top and keep the money rolling in but it's not ok to have a more level playing field.

 

[foxy]

To be honest I don't know how people can afford to go to games regularly especially if they live many miles from the grounds, the ticket prices, travelling expences etc are too much for people on low wages.

Aussie rules we have to fly to games. Who is United, who is City?

 

[Chippy_Tea]

Aussie rules we have to fly to games. Who is United, who is City?

The Blue and Red halves of Manchester.

 

[foxy]

The Blue and Red halves of Manchester.

I used to have the autographs of the Manchester United soccer team before the Munich air disaster.

 

[Chippy_Tea]

I used to have the autographs of the Manchester United soccer team before the Munich air disaster.

Why.

 

[foxy]

Why.

I collected sporting memorabilia, and was sent the Manchester United team autographs by a back packer I met here. Something her Dad had given her.

 

[Tim Wilkes]

I'm a Wolves fan of fifty plus years and the next superstar has just arrived at the Molineux.... Fábio Silva!