Because I still judge football primarily by what I witness on the pitch, the rest is peripheral.
I admire City for the quality of their football , and hope to witness Everton produce comparable quality on the pitch as we were once capable of in the increasingly distant past.
Let me ask you this , if City’s owners had chosen Everton would you have walked away on principle?
And if you would have ,why didn’t you walk away when Moshiri arrived backed by Usmanov’s billions ?
Moshiri tried to emulate City but failed miserably not through lack of money but because of very poor judgment.
And since we are being punished for that infusion of money , do you support our punishment on principal ?
Oh City are beautiful team with immense players mate, im not arguing otherwise mate, from a footballing point of view they have great players. If you were to ask me who i think is the best and my favorite player is, in the league in a heart beat id say KDB. Increasingly though i find them a hard watch, but maybe thats just me.
Regardless they didn't pluck KDB from the Belgian League, bring
Jack Grealish through, found Rodri in a back street somewhere or brough Erling Haaland down from the mountains, they didnt find this collection of unknowns and harness a great footballing power, or notice how well Pep was doing in the second division in Spain as a manager. It was an organic club that pumped to the limit with cash to be become something steroid filled, fake and brought together by dodgy dealing with their achievements lacking in sporting integrity and without merit because of it, in that they lost their club, they lost their character and identity and now they are just a new club - they aren't City any more. The atmosphere last week was sterile, board and lacking in jeopardy and passion from thier fans, they might tell you otherwise but deep down they know its fake and id say many of them wish for the days of Uwe Roseller, Asa Harford and Shaun Goater and a bit of real integrity merit and jeopardy.
To answer your questions - you can go back to the first week of the forum going forward and ive always advocated my preferred model for the club, has been self sustainability, it may take investment to get there but that my dream. I want a team that can invest in a fair way at players, i want an academy that can produce a Rooney or Brathwaite and i want a club in financial position to keep them and also not have to sell our players every year - that's my dream for this club. My dream is for us to grow the club on a similar model to Spurs and Arsenal.
To be very honest with you if City owners had taken us over, i would have hung around and seen what had panned out, but if we turned into City of today and lost our identity, culture and rubbed out by something fake and clinical - then id think i wouldn't identify with it and be disinterested, it wouldn't feel like Everton.
On Moshiri, same principal i thought he may invest to make us self sustainable, he improved the facilities at Goodision, he planned a new stadium, he wiped debt - he hit a lot of key indicators. Its not just that anyone that invest its bad - its the absolute steroids and smashing of integrity and rules around it that make it un mertitable - they have been found guilty twice of doing it and are facing 115 charges and you want me to say, all is fair and square no.
But back to Moshiri when it became clear that he was drip feeding us and were ultimately dependent on him, i was the first out advocating the dangers that have come to pass and here we are . If Moshiri tired to do what City have done i would be absolutely against it.
On your last point, we arent being punished by an infusion of money, we are being punished for bad management - its not the same thing as City at all- do i think we are guilty - yes i do - do i think we deserve to be punished - we signed up to the rule - so we knew the consequences - you have to take some medicine - do i agree with the scale and application and due process of the punishment - no i dont.
Again i dont know why you are trying to legitimize what Ciy - theyve harmed us there are six points of jeopardy taken away from us every season and they need to be made up somewhere with less scope. I really dont understand how people can collude with it and just accept it as a new norm - not having a personal go or anything mate.
