Jurgen Klopp has lost the plot. Just before Liverpool recently beat Manchester City 1-0, their irritable and tetchy manager launched a maniacal tirade [Liverpool FC] about Gulf states PSG, Newcastle and, most of all, City – three clubs who can ‘do what they want financially’, thus skewing football universally.
It was called ‘borderline xenophobic’ [The Times] by a City source and raised, yet again, the whole unsavoury issue of that old hobby-horse Financial Fair Play and alleged financial doping, just when it seemed to have gone away – buried finally it was thought by CAS overturning the two-year Champions League ban on City imposed by UEFA in 2020.
So what has changed not only in the last 10 days but seemingly this season?
Well, a lot.
Suddenly City are, thanks to Klopp’s surreal outburst and following on from the massacre of Manchester United, the universal whipping boys once again, even though billionaire clubs like MU, Chelsea, PSG, Real Madrid and Barcelona (borrowing money they don’t have to the point of extinction) spend vast and roughly equal amounts of money – hundreds of millions annually – mostly without City’s success both on and off the pitch.
And nasty Newcastle are about to join this spending elite.
A phalanx of journalists had already gleefully joined this new 2022/23 round of City-bashing after the 6-3 thrashing of United. Jonathan Wilson wrote disingenuously in The Guardian, “City have won four of the past five titles.
“The question English football has to ask itself is: are they doing this because of the unique gifts of this particular manager and this particular set of players (and perhaps the ineptitude or questionable priorities of certain other owners who might financially compete)?
“Is this a golden age, like Arsenal in the 30s, Liverpool in the 80s or United in the 90s, that will be celebrated as such by decades to come?
“Or is there something more insidious at work, a financial determinism that, by relegating football itself behind foreign-policy objectives and profit, erodes the game?
“A world in which 6-3 wins feel unexceptional is not a comfortable one.”
This media hatred of City knows no bounds. It goes on and on and on.
Javier Tebas, the president of La Liga has, like the proverbial broken record, weighed in yet again about City and PSG killing all competition and endangering football’s ecosystem – Klopp, and the likes of Wilson, lending renewed but false credibility to Tebas’ perennial tilt at the Etihad ogres, in particular.
Pre-season, Tebas said [Inside World Football]: “The clubs owned by States, and it’s not a problem to be owned by a State, are hard to control and they are endangering football’s ecosystem.
“It’s inflating the wages system and are inflating UEFA’s control and the FFP system which is why it is important to report it.”
However, such talk just doesn’t add up.
It’s no accident that Pep Guardiola, the greatest coach in the world, with the planet’s best squad and 9 major trophies in five seasons, has been so dominant – his unique vision designing particularly complex strategies built on the multiple qualities of his supremely gifted players.
Barely a City mis-step in the transfer market, yet just look at the decade of recruiting chaos on the other side of Manchester at United. And managers everywhere are shamelessly copying Pep – the greatest compliment of all.
Crucially, there is no record of such constant success in any of the other financially elite clubs – not even Real Madrid, despite their superior CL record.
Haaland, who joined because City had the greatest manager and best squad, cost less than Fred. Remarkably, his 17 Prem goals so far this season are more than Chelsea and MU, both on 16.
Add him, the world’s most prolific goalscorer, with more strikes at his age than Messi and Ronaldo, to the team that had already scored more goals than anyone else for the last 5 seasons, and that hugely potent mix will inevitably drive out the one remaining elephant in the room, and finally bring the Holy Grail of the Champions League to Eastlands – the last remaining piece of the jigsaw.
And let’s not forget Sir Alex Ferguson’s famous words about the Premiership being by far the toughest competition in the world to win as Pep’s fantasy football relentlessly lines up its 5th Prem title in 6 sensational seasons. Eat your heart out, Javier.