St. Maximin

I was there, naturally didn’t see it like this though . As a Bromley local since 2022, I’ve very much jumped on the bandwagon and went wild celebrating. Have enjoyed seeing them live though. Lower league is great.

Been brilliant for most of his time playing centre-back. If we’re judging centre-backs on the odd game they’ve had a shocker Schar would have left years ago!

I don’t disagree about them being bad (not sure about ‘by far the worst’ though) but as I said I think that’s symptomatic of there being so many of them, so it’s hard not to notice them on social media. Similar to India fans in cricket for example. You’re only going to notice the worst types and if there’s lots of them then there’s more idiots giving a bad impression of the rest of them. Even if you make size less of a factor, I’m sure you can make comparisons to Newcastle and things people have said about ‘deluded Geordies’ or even those who were recorded wearing tea towels and getting upset whenever someone criticises Saudi Arabia. The fans (including yourself) who are critical of these people and show awareness of sportswashing will never get noticed. I also think most of these fans and managers (including Klopp and Arteta) that are most annoying are used as a reason to hate teams and say why it would be unbearable to see them win, but the reason they’re so unbearable is they don’t stop whinging. Once they do well they’ll stop a lot of the whinging, hence why nobody has anything major to complain about City fans. They have next to nothing to complain about given how the last decade has panned out. But also if you enjoy seeing people you don’t like struggle I get that too!

Where does this view that Arsenal fans are entitled come from? Sure, some of them are. But when there’s so many of them you’ll always come across more wronguns in the media, online etc. And we all know there’s a stereotype about Geordies being deluded with unrealistic expectations. There’s no smoke without a fire, but we know that perception isn’t accurate overall. Another weird thing I see is Arsenal (and other teams) fans being ‘glory hunters’. It’s a stupid term imo. You’re a ‘glory hunter’ because you picked a strong team as a kid when you didn’t know any better and stuck with them, even when they stopped winning titles.

I have long has a soft spot for Arsenal but I’m not sure what makes their fans more ‘horrible’ than anyone else. Well actually I suspect it’s because there’s so many of them, so you’re naturally going to come across more idiots on social media. City don’t have nearly as many and have also had very little to worry about the past decade, so their fans are more likely to seem irrelevant/harmless. Watch them stop winning the league and they’ll become annoying though. City will win it again and it will be so boring.

Obviously they do have fans. I was attempting to paraphrase Lordshola in his post I quoted, though I did miss out the word ‘real’. I can still understand why he has that view though. As Froggy said their attendances are significantly below those of the other biggest clubs. Seems impossible to get tickets to most games here in London. People have such a desire to see clubs fail based on a few actions of their managers or the small sample of fans they’ve met of those teams. Each to their own, but it just means the same team wins every time and that is surely really boring for football.

Well it’s exactly that which confuses people. It’s not good for football that a cheating, manufactured club without fans gets to win arguably the best league every year, just to ensure teams with real fans don’t win it because they have a manager that annoyed people.

I think it’s all the same really. Every fanbase has its share of idiots that don’t represent them in general. We’re no exception, but it’s not stopped others from wrongly having this idea we’re all deluded with unrealistic explanations. City fans have seen their team go from nothing to dominant in pretty much no time during the last 15 years. No surprise we don’t come across many annoying fans given what they’ve been able to enjoy. Given how poor their atmosphere and attendances can be also, in many ways I prefer a more annoying fan base that seems to care than an irrelevant one.

Each to their own here - I get why Klopp and Arteta aren’t liked but I really struggle to see why people would rather Man City win the league again. Even if you don’t have hatred for their manager, it’s surely really boring seeing the same team win again and again and getting to where they are through being able to spend extraordinarily before the other big teams could surely doesn’t help. Klopp and Arteta are just whinging idiots. A club goes far deeper than that the person managing. Surely nicer just seeing them not having something to complain about too.

Yeah I’d say in his defence, losing to the best teams isn’t a new thing for England (and there are plenty of things I maintain he deserves praise for). I don’t think you can argue he’s had favourable draws though (Sweden and Ukraine in particular as quarter-finals). I get the argument anyone can beat anyone at that level, but surely it becomes a theme when you typically beat the weaker teams and lose to the better ones over a few years. I’m all for humble pie if he can lead us to victory this summer mind.

If we’re talking about Southgate’s record of typically beating weaker teams and losing to the better teams in big tournaments, then I’m not sure what’s nonsensical about it. He’s our second most successful manager but you move the goalposts based on the standard of the squad and opposition. Colombia and Sweden sides missing their star players and Germany and Denmark sides at Wembley (all inferior sides) have been the biggest big tournament challenges he’s succeeded in.

Yeah the football was horrendous without doubt, though my point was based on results he wasn’t a disaster and ultimately on paper we’re looking at eventual outcomes. I would say 15/16th didn’t seem terrible anyway with that squad and injuries we had. Bruce had a mare with Schar and Joelinton (even Howe didn’t initially think he was a centre mid though), but our star players were arguably Dubravka (a good midtable keeper then), Wilson (a great striker but often injured) and ASM (at times brilliant, but also regularly frustrates and was often injured). I seem to remember us finishing above Brighton, who weren’t far from relegation, yet their manager got a lot of praise and quite a few players were rated highly.

I know I’m not towing the party line here and of course results don’t tell us the bigger picture, but Bruce was not a disaster from a results perspective until the start of his final season. I think 13th and 12th was reasonable on paper given the squad he had and I’ve yet to see anyone suggest otherwise. His tactics were dreadful (or non-existent) but I think the main cause of hostility was he was a classless and lazy idiot.

I think the idea you should be defensive to win tournaments is a bit backward tbh. France weren’t great to watch in 2018, but I think it’s fair to say they were playing to their strengths. Portugal were pretty unwatchable in 2016, but I could understand as even with Ronaldo they didn’t seem to have the quality of other teams. On the contrary I would say Italy in 2021 were, perhaps uncharacteristically, not that defensive and the same with Argentina in 2022. I’m all for balance and being sensible, but surely an element of playing to our strengths comes into it. Often seemed Southgate would overcompensate by removing attacking players and play more defensive players.

He looks no more out of position than Burn tbf. Burn has played quite a lot at LB, but he is a 6ft7 CB that just happens to be left-footed. He often drifts into a CB position and nowadays the high number of right-footed LWs makes right-footed LBs more effective imo. To me it just looks like the classic case of a manager who wants a player he can ‘trust’ because the more exciting and seemingly more obvious option is risky, which is a bit of a shame. Surely you try and mould the way they play to complement the players around, because whatever he’s trying to do with a very sluggish and easily targeted LB isn’t working.