billymumphrey

Is he going to bring Beanie as his assistant?

Seagulls get a mention here...

Mooy scores in the derby against Leeds!

I would disagree. That is prefaced by taking, at face value, the assertion made by his agent that the loan at the Terriers was for City to assess his level and then determine whether there is a spot in the squad for him. No matter how good Mooy can continue his development I don't think he will be able to find a spot competing against Silva, KDB, Nolito, Sane, Sterling and Ihenacho in playing as a number 10 or attacking midfielder. And that doesn't take into the young players that City already have in the academy (the two Garcias, or Brahim Diaz) on loan (Jack Byrne and Patrick Roberts) or the young players they've recently bought (Zinchenko, Gabriel Jesus and Moreno). Further, he wouldn't be able to unseat Fernandinho, Gundogan or even Toure for the central midfielder role. Where he can make an impact is to play the Delph/Fernando role. The water carrier or defensive midfielder. And the only way to show that he can is to play a similar role for Huddersfield.

So not sure how relevant this is, but saw an assessment on Pep's new tactics for city this coming season ==> http://www.mcfcwatch.com/2016/08/10/tactics-previewing-pep-guardiolas-first-season-at-city/ Makes for an interesting read, but of more relevance to this thread, the guy who compiled it, Tom Payne, works for Huddersfield Town as a football analyst. Might be worthwhile reaching out to him to get the inside scoop about Mooy's progression. His twitter handle is @TomPayneftbl

This is such a laughable assertion. That a loan fee for Aaron Mooy is part of plan to sidestep FFP. I suggest you actually spend some time researching Manchester City's financial situation before making such ill informed statements.

Danny Allsopp actually had a fairly decent career with Victory after coming through Manchester City's academy...

Absolute showbags...

For some reason that quote made me think of that Grinspoon song "More than you are"...

For all those advocating Canberra - think again. As a current resident (yeah yeah get your jokes in now), the city is characterised by fair weather supporters. The raiders barely get decent crowds at all, and the running joke is that each time they announce the crowd figure it's a cumulative total for the season, and includes all staff, cheerleaders and the players themselves.Not only that but it is extremely difficult to retain quality players, (carney, duggan, ferguson, zilman, milford etc) because frankly they don't want to live in Canberra when they could live in Sydney or Brisbane. The Brumbies are not that much better in terms of ongoing support, despite being fairly successful in recent years (something that the Raiders haven't be able to maintain). Again fans come out of the woodwork when the teams scrape into the finals, but dwindle when the mediocrity sets in - which for w new football franchise the chances are that they'll have to crawl before they walk and the crowds won't support them Granted that both the Raiders and Brumbies play over winter (which to anyone who has had the misfortune of attending a game at Bruce stadium in july - it is colder than a witches tit) and an A League franchise playing over summer wouldn't have to deal with that I still can't see them generating the critical mass of fans to become a viable club. There is some extensive support, Ivan Slavich a prominent businessman in the region has been a great advocate and has put his money where his mouth is. He also secured some support from other business leaders but again failed to secure a license when they were previously up for grabs. Maybe if the local government pushed through with plans for a stadium in the city as part of the City to the Lake plans rather then stumping up for a useless light rail project then that might make it a more attractive proposition. But for those expecting Canberra to be a viable option in the short to medium term, think again...

Its stuff like this that gets me most excited about what City can provide for all of Australian football. A rising tide lifts all boats.

No need to apologise. I agree 100% about the on field succcess, balancing the books means nothing if you aren't constantly performing and challenging for titles. People will decide to go to the games or watch on TV based on the onfield display and not the accounting and financial chicanery behind closed doors. I can see short term wholsesale changes to bridge the gap (think of the big name signings lured by big money like Tevez, Adebayor, Bridge, Roque Santa Cruz), but once the place at the top of the league is entrenched, then hopefully the youth philosphy of bringing players through the academy will be paying dividends for Melbourne. This is what is happening now at City. The spending has become normalised. You would be surprised to note that, not including transfers made this window, City has been outspent by both Chelsea and United in total over the last three seasons. Once established Melbourne will be able to attract the best, as the benefits they get through developing at the club will outweigh the extra cash they could get elsewhere.

Well, yeah, but there's more than one way to skin a cat. You can operate like Donald Sterling did for decades with the L.A. Clippers, pay the bare minimum, let your free agents walk time and again, rather than paying them market value and reap the rewards of a) having a franchise in L.A.; and b ) being fortunate enough to be an owner when the league went through an unprecedented boom. That first part sounded quite similar to how Heart was operating and our owners probably were a bit fortunate that the club was in Melbourne (chances are always pretty good that someone will want to buy one of the two football franchises in Melbourne). An NBA owner, even in a small market city like Milwaukee, can operate like Sterling and just rake in the money, especially if and when they decide to sell, because someone will always be keen to purchase an NBA franchise, whatever the cost and because most teams, regardless of how rubbish they are, generally play to packed stadiums every night. But, I don't think that's the way to make money, long-term, as an A-League owner, because unlike most big-time international sports, in Australia the supply (in terms of seats) generally far outweighs the demand. Being in Melbourne (rather than say, Gosford or Newcastle) and having AAMI as the home stadium are already a couple of advantages. Really, I would have thought they were the two biggest ticks next to the club, when CFG was looking to buy. But I would say the way to make money as an A-League owner, long-term, is to do what our owner is doing. If we get the squad that we anticipate we'll get, we're either going to: 1. Win a truckload of trophies 2. Be playing in a much more highly-rated league, as other teams scramble to catch up; or 3. Both If either 1 or 2 happens, the value of the team will rise considerably. Then, if and when CFG looks to sell, rather than it looking like a fire sale of the franchise at the end of last year, he'll be fielding offers for massive money, that will dwarf the original investment. I reckon the model/plan for increasing the value of this asset is to spend the money, win lots of games, build the crowds. And then there's the stuff on the periphery like the academy (if you're one of the best young footballers in the state and had a choice, you'd probably go to the academy with a direct link to the EPL, wouldn't you?), the training base(s) that have been built and so on. The sky's the limit. I take your points, but I don't think CFG are in the business of flipping football clubs like houses. A lot of fans of other club throw out the refrain of "How is Manchester City going to look like when the owner walks away?" failing to see that they are in it for the long haul. You don't invest billions of dollars in property and development turning derelict industrial land surrounding the stadium into new infrastructure if you've got a short term investment horizon.

We need to learn how to conductor selves better in staying on topic. How are we going to get it back on track?

Don't really have much of an opinion on the name - so won't really comment on that. But I feel, as an outsider, that you're leaving yourself open to have the piss mercilessly taken out of you by including the 1847 stuff. A lot of comments in this thread have said that taking the name Melburninans is having a sly dig at Victory fans which I can see is a good thing banter wise, but on the other side, trying to co-opt some historical data that bears next to no relevance for a club that is only a few years old is rolling out the red carpet to invite taunts. It seems the reason why Yarraside was retired was becuase the founding members felt that it was connected to Heart and not City, and it was respecting their wishes which led to that name being taken off the table. The new name, group and colours were there to represent the new incarnation of the club - yet to revert to predominantly red and white for the badge seems a bit out of step with the logic which resulted in Yarraside not being continued.