Has the balance of power shifted?

[SincereTheRebel]

Man City have finished above Man Utd for five years straight
Tottenham have finished above Arsenal for the past two years

Has there been a power shift between the rival clubs. I cant see Man Utd finishing above Man City anytime soon. Tottenham killed Wenger off and Arsenal. Even with a new man in charge, Arsenal lack any type of league consistency to harm Tottenham, even if Kane went elsewhere.

[Lewis]

No.

[phonics]

Spurs over the last 3 years:

Manage to finish third in a two horse race. Are the best of the rest but nowhere near challenging. Struggle to get into fourth competing against the worst Chelsea and Arsenal teams in 15 years.

POWER SHIFT.

[-james-]

It depends what you're asking really. City and Spurs have been superior for the last two seasons, and will be superior next season in all likelihood. Bigger budgets and better players.

[phonics]

Also Pochettino going out of his way to repeatedly assert that never winning anything is fine is proof of a small club.

[Spikey M]

Well that produced a quality seethe in record time.

[Lewis]

United had a better season than City last year. Obviously not this year, but POWER SHIFTS (as with what phonics said) take time.

[Gray Fox]

United could quite easily match City with 1 or 2 signings this summer. Arsenal would need Tottenham to sell Kane and Eriksen off to get back to their level.

[phonics]

Arsenal would need Tottenham to sell Kane and Eriksen off to get back to their level.

lol. What is Spurs' level exactly? Finishing 3rd and getting knocked out of Champions League Quarter Finals? Wasn't that what Arsenal were being mocked for doing repeatedly 2 years ago?

[Gray Fox]

Comfortably in the top 4 best teams in the league.

[phonics]

So where Arsenal were 2 years ago and were told they were underachieving? Yeah I can see how the power has shifted there.

[SincereTheRebel]

Man Utd have made super signings, and its still not enough.

[Gray Fox]

So where Arsenal were 2 years ago and were told they were underachieving? Yeah I can see how the power has shifted there.

You could argue Spurs are underachieving now with them winning fuck all again. But the question was just on the power shift between Arsenal and Spurs. It can't really be denied there has been one.

[phonics]

Was there a power shift when Everton finished above Liverpool or was it just a blip? This stuff takes time. No-one reports Spurs losing a match as SPURS IN CRISIS. When they get knocked out they get given the 'well they tried' reaction. When they're treated like a big club, that's when the powers shifted. Until then it's 'Plucky Spurs'.

[-james-]

The power surely lies with whoever is more likely to win a Premier League title next, and Spurs are clearly ahead of Arsenal in that respect.

[SvN]

This is great

[Giggles]

Triggered.

[Baz]

Dont make a thread again, with thise nonsense:lol:

City are comfortably better than United, not least because of their respective managers, but Arsenal and Tottenham are about on par. Although that would still suggest a shift because Arsenal used to be streets ahead of Spurs in every way.

[SincereTheRebel]

:lol:

City are comfortably better than United, not least because of their respective managers, but Arsenal and Tottenham are about on par. Although that would still suggest a shift because Arsenal used to be streets ahead of Spurs in every way.

Facts.

[randomlegend]

Man Utd have made super signings, and its still not enough.

We still have some pretty glaring holes. Our full-backs being 32 year old converted wingers who can't cross being possibly the chief amongst them.

[Spikey M]

City are comfortably better than united and Spurs are comfortably better than Arsenal at the moment. I don’t know how you define a POWERSHIFT, but that has been the case in the first instance for about 5 seasons (bar last year) and 3 seasons in the second.

[Pepe]

Who gets more mentions on Twitter?

[Pepe]

Would a top (top) player rather sign for arsenal or spurs?

[Pepe]

Who has Fellaini in their ranks?

[Disco]

Someone got out the wrong side of the cuckoo clock this morning.

[mugbull]

Phonics is a caricature of a deluded Arsenal twitter troll. Glad we have one of them here, at least

[Kikó]

United are the best and have 69 billion fans globally.

[Shindig]

Power doesn't shift like that any more. Not with the new money types filthing it up.

[ItalAussie]

I'm wondering whether London will ever catch up to Manchester. As the money got bigger, you sort of expected footballers to start to want to be in London based on the destination alone, but that doesn't seem to be happening.

[Jimmy Floyd]

Football and crap music from 25 years ago are all Manchester has. London doesn't need football.

Liverpool is even more extreme than Manchester, they get completely hysterical about it.

[Kikó]

Fuck off. We've got the warehouse project as well.

[Jimmy Floyd]

And that bloke who shouts poems. I've done you a real disservice.

[ItalAussie]

I agree that London doesn't need them, but I'm a little bit surprised that they didn't go there anyway. My rationale was almost precisely the other way around - I expected that footballers would want to live in London, based on the reputation of the city alone, if nothing else.

[niko_cee]

As a professional footballer you don't really live in the city your club is based in, so then you're just left wondering whether Cobham is really any less dreadful than Alderley Edge or wherever the fuck everyone lives 'up north'.

[Gray Fox]

Cheshire.

[Lewis]

London clearly did have an appeal of its own twenty years ago, because shit teams like Chelsea and Tottenham had pull they wouldn't have otherwise had with big name foreigners. Now what - at least in terms of what footballers like - does it have that Manchester doesn't? Even if there is stuff, could - in this day and age - an elite footballer actually benefit from these exclusive London things? Frank Leboeuf won't have had to put up with Fifa nerds and phone-wielding roadmans every time he ponced into one of the cafes that no other city had in 1997.

[Spikey M]

If I was a professional footballer in my teens I’d have wanted to play for Unithed, Barcelona or Real Madrid. I think the history of the club matters more than it’s location. But then, that’s because I’m in my 30’s. For those in their 50’s it’d have been Liverpool and fucking Derby. For the next generation, the Mbappe’s of this world, sadly, I think it’s only about money, otherwise him and Neymar wouldn’t be wasting their time in a joke league.

[SincereTheRebel]

History does play a big part. Similar to yourself in relation to foreign teams. Its about the real madrid, Barcelona and both milans. Money does play the biggest factor, however I feel wanting to be a star and also being in the best position to win. French league is the weakest off the the big 5 and playing there at this stage is a weird one. Regardless, if you are truly elite. You could go to any league in the world and dominate. Zlatan came to the premier league at 40 and literally took the piss.

[Kikó]

No one cares about the two Milan teams.

[SincereTheRebel]

From my perspective. If I had the correctly mentality to make it as a pro-player. AC and Inter have both been poor for many seasons now. I would still want to play for them because its AC and Inter Milan. History, heritage and all that.

[Spikey M]

From my perspective. If I had the correctly mentality to make it as a pro-player. AC and Inter have both been poor for many seasons now. I would still want to play for them because its AC and Inter Milan. History, heritage and all that.

But that’s because you’re old enough to remember them being good. I bet you wouldn’t be arsed about playing for Derby or Nottingham Forest. Kids these days wouldn’t give a shit about them, but I bet there’s a few that jumped on the Leicester wagon that are in for a life time of pain. :drool:

[SincereTheRebel]

But that’s because you’re old enough to remember them being good. I bet you wouldn’t be arsed about playing for Derby or Nottingham Forest. Kids these days wouldn’t give a shit about them, but I bet there’s a few that jumped on the Leicester wagon that are in for a life time of pain. :drool:

Yeah, that's exactly the point. Its generation knowledge.

[igor_balis]

It's not just money, Neymar moved to PSG because he'd rather be a big fish in a small pond, right? I hate the obsession with individual glory, you should want to win trophies, not ballon d'ors. I blame Thatcher.

[niko_cee]

Even from a personal glory perspective, that transfer only makes sense for Neymar Sr. Being Brazil's star man, there is always an opportunity for Neymar to step out of Messi's shadow via the international stage. Now, if they win the World Cup, and he's a star in it, he's not the shoe-in he probably would have been had he been slaying goat herders for Barcelona rather than PSG.

[Disco]

You could also question how much input the player has in these kind of moves, half the time they go where they're told and that will be wherever their reputation/potential can be leveraged for the most money. The more high minded concerns being thrown about in here don't come into it.

[Spikey M]

Which China, The Middle East and the USA prove, I suppose.

[SincereTheRebel]

It makes little different really. Players like that, go to any league within their peak and run the show.

[ItalAussie]

London clearly did have an appeal of its own twenty years ago, because shit teams like Chelsea and Tottenham had pull they wouldn't have otherwise had with big name foreigners. Now what - at least in terms of what footballers like - does it have that Manchester doesn't? Even if there is stuff, could - in this day and age - an elite footballer actually benefit from these exclusive London things? Frank Leboeuf won't have had to put up with Fifa nerds and phone-wielding roadmans every time he ponced into one of the cafes that no other city had in 1997.Remember, a lot of footballers are foreigners. Manchester is an outstanding city, but London has a global reputation. I would expect that would count for something, at least to footballers from outside the UK.

[Spikey M]

I expect there are few cities more famous than Manchester in the football world.

[Lewis]

Remember, a lot of footballers are foreigners. Manchester is an outstanding city, but London has a global reputation. I would expect that would count for something, at least to footballers from outside the UK.

I expect that still counts for something if you have a choice between equal clubs (Brendan Rodgers accused 'Alexis' of turning Liverpool down for London, and it must happen lower down the table), but if your choice is between Manchester United (and now City) or a London club then their reputation presumably comes first. I'm not overly familiar with Italian cities but wouldn't Turin and Milan be roughly equivalent to this?

[Boydy]

Weren't Sunderland or someone like that talking about moving their training ground to London in order to attract players who wanted to live there and then just play their matches in Sunderland?

[Lewis]

That always sounded like Sunderland having delusions of grandeur and scratching around for reasons as to why nobody shared them.

[Raoul Duke]

City-wise, Milan is alright but Turin is shite.

IF it were just to do with the coolness of the city then Union Berlin would be donning it in Germany.

[phonics]

Most of the fun stuff you can do in Berlin couldn't be done as a professional athlete tbf. Not sure how much approval there would be of Cristiano Ronaldo doing E and downing pints in Kreuzberg.

[Lewis]

Rui Faria has left United. Power: SHIFTED

[Raoul Duke]

Rui Faria has left United. Power: SHIFTED

Next Arsenal manager

[SincereTheRebel]

Man Utd needs to do something asap. Looking really blue in Manchester.

[Kikó]

We've signed Fred the Red up to a new four year deal.

[Lewis]

ITV have got five former United players booked for their World Cup coverage, but not one City old boy. Enjoy your shitty little Premiership trophy you small-timers.

[ItalAussie]

I expect that still counts for something if you have a choice between equal clubs (Brendan Rodgers accused 'Alexis' of turning Liverpool down for London, and it must happen lower down the table), but if your choice is between Manchester United (and now City) or a London club then their reputation presumably comes first. I'm not overly familiar with Italian cities but wouldn't Turin and Milan be roughly equivalent to this?

Yep, and if the Milans weren't so chronically mismanaged, I'd have expected a similar thing there too.