RaoulD

The whole balance of the team was upset by moving Fabinho back to cover for Virgil's absence. As a short term fix, it would not have altered our style of play to much but Fabinho is far more important in his central midfield role as it allows us to defend a high line. With Fab in midfield and a high defensive line, the opposition have to either try and hit a ball over the top from distance (which Allison usually covers) or they have to get past both Fab and our two centre backs which usually allows us time to get back in numbers or win the ball back. Having Fab as one of the central defenders has resulted in the loss of the high line and given the opposition more space in our midfield half. This in turn has forced Trent and Robbo back so they are no longer supporting Mane and Salah. Equally, the loss of Fab in midfield has led to us sitting deeper in midfield since the other 2 in midfield are more cautious about going forward and leaving space between themselves and the defensive line (which is now 10-15 metres further back) and that has isolated our front three. Instead of facing potentially 7 attackers moving at pace, the opposition are now facing 3-4 so can double up on Salah and Mane limiting their space. Firmino is also struggling for the same reason. The natural reaction to a run of poor results is to try and become more defensively solid and this has actual exacerbated the problem for us as we have stopped playing the style that suits our players. In my opinion we need to move Fabinho back into midfield and try and get the shape that has served us so well for the past 3 years back.

A late tackle is still a foul even if the player has played the ball before contact is made. The same argument could be made for the Mane incident but as it was not given by the referee, getting VAR to rule it was a clear and obvious error was a difficult as getting VAR to overturn the decision of the ref to award a penalty to Burnley for the same reason.

There is if we now go on the sort of run that City did in 2019 but this needs Trent and Robbo to stop trying to hit Hollywood balls to nowhere and actually getting back to what they did well getting to the line and then passing the ball to a player in red or hitting a cross field ball in front of the keeper to allow players to run onto. The ball has to be crossed early if you are going to try and cross from further up the pitch and unless you have an out and out target man, it is meat and drink to a massed defence. Gini and Shaq were guilty on too many occasions of holding on to the ball due to their own indecision when a first time shot or cross field ball might have been the better option but at least the passing/possession stats are good. Origi was awful even by his standards. He did not seem to be arsed most of the time and should have buried the one-on-one in the first half. Fabinho and Matip were OK but one was just returning from injury and did not look 100% fit while the other is a midfielder playing as a makeshift defender (and doing a remarkably good job on the whole) so the potential for a mistake or two was always there. Allison was unlucky with the pen but it looked to me that he had fouled the Burnley player so it was no surprise the penalty was given but the Mane penalty shout was a similar situation in that Mane hit the shot fractionally before the Burnley defender (out of control) made contact with him. Mane, Firmino and Salah need more support but also need to stop trying to pass or dribble their way through a wall of players. The wall would probably not be there if they were running on to balls cut back or across the goal from Trent and Robbo instead of having to take the ball at their feet and turn but a few first time hits might have a greater probability of scoring that the pinball football we are trying to play at present. Thiago needs to be further upfield hitting balls over the top to Trent and Robbo or switching play rather than acting in the Fabinho midfield role but given that he has only played a handful of games it is far to early to judge whether he fits our system. I think winning the league last season has gone to their heads and the mentality of too many players is not right. As Ronnie Moran used to remind our title winning teams in the past at the beginning of the new season, "you have won nothing yet". We seem to think otherwise.

Strongest available back 5 with Thiago flanked by Gini and the Ox/Shaq. A good old fashioned centre forward (OK its Origi but he should be able to keep their centre backs under pressure with width from both flanks. Might create a bit more space for Sadio and if it isn't working throw Salah and Bobby on against a tiring Burnley. The most important thing is that we defend higher than in recent games and let Thiago sit in a position where he can do maximum damage. Burnley will probably adopt the same tactics as Fulham, West Brom, Newcastle, Southampton and United and sit back hoping to catch us on the counter which is why it is important that we defend higher that we have been in those games.

City will have to offload a few players to reduce their overall salary bill to comply with the Premier League rules on salary increases and offset the cost of any transfer/signing on fee. They also can make a loss for a few years as there is no issue about the owners supporting providing the loss does not exceed the UEFA FFP limit. They have the squad depth to do it as a result of the past spending which got them into trouble with UEFA. Whilst I think City can afford it, I am not sure that it makes sense in the long-term. Firstly, Messi's age is likely to mean that you have not got time to build a team around him as has been the case in the past 15 years at Barcelona and whilst he is obviously capable of winning games single-handed, City's strength in recent seasons has been the quality of their team play (as it has been ours). Messi, like Ronaldo, is more individualistic and would probably displace either Sterling or Aguero from their starting line-up. They may also have to sacrifice some squad depth to accommodate him as you cannot see a player such as Messi being rotated and therefore some of the fringe players might look to leave in addition to those they have to sell to balance the books. If they have him on their books for a few seasons it might stiffle their ability to strengthen in other areas as it did with United and Sanchez.

Probably over so far as these events are concerned since it gives UEFA a get out without losing too much credibility with their other members. They will look to improve the FFP rules to close the loopholes exploited by City rather than try pursue the more difficult route of trying to overturn the award in the Swiss courts which, as it is an arbitration award, can only be set aside in very limited circumstances. The case highlighted the fundamental problem with the concept of FFP where an owner has the resources to finance any losses the club makes and can use those resources indirectly to present accounts that pass the requirements of the rules. There is no way of telling whether an agreement by a company X to sponsor a club for £Y is part of a wider agreement between X and the owner whereby the owner agrees to pay £Z to X for goods and services on condition that X sponsors the club unless it is either disclosed, or if kept confidential, leaked. A salary and spending cap would still be vulnerable to the same sort of manipulation but at least the national tax authorities would be able to look into allegations of under-declared payments and transactions involving related parties. I cannot see UEFA agreeing to either though as it would truly level the field and would not just prevent the new super wealthy clubs distorting the competition but would also threaten the dominant position enjoyed by clubs such as us, United, Real and Barcelona who have built their commercial and on-field power over the decades through more traditional football sources.

I was surprised that City were allowed the opportunity to give evidence as the UEFA statutes seem to prohibit this particularly when the same statutes are used to find a time bar. I really struggle to understand the reasoning having read the judgment. There seem to me to be three major issues that go against all legal logic. 1. CAS found that there was a prima facie case to answer on the basis of the emails and that City chose not to cooperate with the investigation which was their opportunity to rebut that prima facie case. The only conclusion that can therefore be drawn is that on the available evidence City were guilty as charged yet CAS seemed to have then determined that the prima facie case was not good enough to support the original charge i.e. there was not enough evidence for a prima facie case. 2. The interpretation of the time bar does not seem to have considered the interpretation on the limitation clause according to Swiss Law which given that both UEFA and CAS are governed by Swiss Law is surprising in the extreme. There is no consideration of the Civil Code of Obligations and in particular the provision in the code that suspends time. I cannot see how UEFA could possibly have known about the potential hidden equity funding until the emails came out in 2018 so it seems to me that the 5 year limitation would only start to run when UEFA were in a position to prosecute. 3. The major consequence of City's failure to cooperate with the investigation was that UEFA could not establish whether City had broken the rules as the evidence was within City's control. By analogy to other sports related regimes, a failure to cooperate is treated as equivalent to committing the offence itself and this is often the case in other areas of law. For example, if you refuse to give a sample when suspected of drink driving you are punished as if you had committed the offence. Why should City not be punished in the same way merely because as a result of their non-cooperation, UEFA could not prove they had committed the offence that justified a ban. It is the same in the anti-doping regime. Given the vast amount of jurisprudence upholding the principle that a failure to cooperate with investigators is as bad as the offence itself, City should have been banned even if they could subsequently show they did not break the rules because they did not take the opportunity to produce irrefutable evidence when they had a case against them to answer.

They said that about a certain bell tower in Italy...

Yes there are. They are in the handbook but are different to the UEFA rules. They also directly limit rises in annual wage bills which is not the same as UEFA's maximum permitted losses where the loss is covered by equity funding. The accounting reference periods are also different.

Clemence - still no 1 for me. Had virtually nothing to do for most games but 16 goals against in a 42 game season says it all. Trent - Defensively not as good as Neal but what he would have been like if he had Ian Rush running onto his cross field passes... Hansen - playing him out of position because of his reading of the game - comfortable on the ball and rarely bullied. It is telling that even after 30+ years he would have been a superstar in the modern game if he played now Virgil - Best since Hansen and arguably better Alan Kennedy - close run thing between him and Robbo. No option for Alec Lindsay though. Gerrard - Was better on the right than left or centre. Souness - The ultimate midfield general. Could adapt his game for the circumstances none more than one night in Bucharest... McDermott - Had to get him into the team Dalglish - Cannot leave him out Rush - If you saw him you would know why Suarez - Bad, Brilliant and Bonkers Highlights just how the current team are so much more than the sum of their parts but even so it hurts to leave any of the current front three, Barnes, Torres, Keegan, Fowler, and even Owen out of the side

Don't think the extra time will make much difference as the revenue projections will be for the life of any contract i.e. about 4-5 years and will not assume that we are back to normal by October. I also think FSG like to get the deal done early if they are after a particular player as a prolonged transfer saga usually results in other bidders coming into the picture and agents trying to drive up the price as a result. The drop in revenues caused by the lockdown will already have been factored into the policy for next season but realistically Klopp will not want to make too many alterations to the squad that has performed so well for the past 2 seasons other than possibly strengthening the areas where we have limited options. Much will depend on whether players such as Lovren and Origi look for more regular football elsewhere as I am sure Klopp will happily keep them on as squad players. I also think that he won't want to change the style of play much so is more likely to try and integrate some of the youth players into freshening up the first team that bringing in players who are used to a different style of play. Brewster and possibly Harvey Elliott add options up front, Curtis Jones in midfield and Neco Williams in defence are obvious candidates. Harry Wilson is an outside chance but as some people have already mentioned he has been out on loan quite a lot and is probably more likely to be sold and the same is probably true of Grujic, Ojo and Woodburn. There is also the potential for the number of loan deals in future to be limited so FSG will probably be looking to sell all players still on our books but being regularly loaned out to allow loan deals to be used for young player development rather than simply a way of keeping the salary cost of contracted players who are not required for the squad down.

The restart was always going to be much like pre-season particularly once the title was secure. The intensity and concentration is not there and this is probably more to do with the fact that many of the first team are playing well within themselves presumably to avoid injury which might affect next season. They will also not have had the conditioning that normally is undertaken about this time so negotiating the games without injury is clearly the priority. The other teams have far more at stake and so results like tonight are all the more likely as we are clearly playing as if this was a series of pre-season games.

Dear Pep, We are sorry that UEFA do not recognise Manchester City's Cup Winners Cup win in 1970 as evidence of your club's right to be regarded as one of Europe's elite clubs. We are sorry that Liverpool's measly 14 European and International Titles and Man United's 8 has influenced other clubs in Europe to regard Liverpool and Manchester United as England's premier clubs. We are sorry that UEFA decided to set rules for its competitions that your club and owners do not like and that it had the temerity to insist that you adhere to its rules as a condition of entry. We are sorry that when you decided to ignore the rules and spend more than was permitted under them, that UEFA decided to investigate your club for breaking the rules in 2014. We are sorry that your club decided to accept a settlement of that investigation in 2014 rather than present evidence and open up your books and records to prove that it did not break the rules then. We are sorry that your club sent emails suggesting that the sponsorship contracts were in fact being funded directly or indirectly by your owners and that this information was meant to be kept secret but was revealed for all to see. We are sorry that your club did not take the opportunity of making it clear to the whole world and UEFA that the content of the emails was not true and demonstrate exactly where the money came from. We are sorry that your club chose not to co-operate with UEFA or produce the evidence that could have exonerated the club when UEFA decided to investigate the matter again We are sorry that UEFA's Adjudication Chamber decided in the absence of any evidence or cooperation from your club to find the breaches of the rules that your club accepted when entering UEFA competitions for every year since 2010 proven and to punish you by not letting you play by their rules for 2 seasons. We are sorry that UEFA's statutes did not allow you to provide any evidence to rebut the charges to the Court of Arbitration for Sport and that the same statutes allowed you to succeed in your appeal. We are sorry that we along with virtually every other club, manager and football fan feel it is unfair for you to be allowed to ignore the rules that apply equally to every other club with impunity because you play nice football sometimes. We are truly sorry to find ourselves in agreement with Jose on anything. Finally, we are sorry that Jurgen Klopp and Liverpool have made too good a job of showing you that money cannot buy you love or happiness.

The procedural rules of the CFCB are drawn up by the Executive Committee which is largely made up of representatives of the member associations and accountable to UEFA Congress (which is also largely made up of member associations). Contrary to what many fans of City think the clubs have only limited influence on the rules and since 2008 this has been through representatives on the EC put forward by the ECA. The G14 was abolished in 2008 because it was perceived as being elitist and was replaced by the ECA. LFC have ordinary membership of the ECA by virtue of our success in international competition but City also are ordinary members. A limitation period is normally included in any set of laws in order to provide finality and legal certainty and to comply with national law. UEFA's statutes and Regulations are subject to Swiss Law and so the prescriptive periods in the CO would presumably apply if no other period was prescribed. Article 37 was therefore included in order to put a five year limit on prosecution. What UEFA did not anticipate when drawing up the rules was that a club would actually conceal a breach of the rules so that the breach might not come to light for many years after the event. Most rules need a statute of limitations to comply with principles of finality and legal certainty but they often have exceptions in case of fraud or concealment. UEFA's rules did not and Article 37 itself is rather obscure in that it simply states that "Prosecution is barred after five years for all breaches..." without stating what precisely is meant by prosecution. The settlement agreement which City entered into was made on 17 May 2014 and the referral to the AC was on 16 May 2019 so the argument before CAS was probably over what was meant by prosecution since on the face of it the referral to the AC was almost certainly more than 5 years after the breaches of the rules had occurred. I am interested in reading the reasons to see whether there was any argument based on Article 134 of the CO since if there was it is potentially open to the Swiss Courts to rule on the legality of the CAS decision.

Depends on what comes out when CAS publish their award. The Premier League rules are different and came in later so some of the alleged wrongdoing might not be caught by the rules. However it is possible that if the sponsorship revenue was in fact disguised equity funding the distortion of the profit or loss figure would continue throughout the period of the sponsorship deal and might therefore impact some of the later years accounts.

It was the same with Chelsea and their fans when they started winning once Abramovich had financed a squad that no other club could afford to assemble. It is even funnier that their fans are seizing on the summary of the decision that is in the heading of the media press release from CAS without noticing the contradiction with the wording actually used by the Arbitration Panel in giving the decision that most of the allegations "were either not established or time barred". This suggests that the CAS Panel did not find, as the heading suggests, that "Manchester City did not disguise equity funding as sponsorship contributions" but that the allegation that they did do that was either not proven or, more likely given the reference to a time bar, that they did do what was alleged. If the Panel had made the finding that the press release heading suggests, the decision would not have to make any reference to the time bar as that would be irrelevant. I don't think the full reasoning is going to make pleasant reading for City as it may well disclose the precise nature of the wrongdoing that was time barred under UEFA's Rules for all to see. The fine for non-cooperation and the upholding of the decision of the AC in that respect seems to point to City not being exonerated but rather succeeding on the legal arguments based upon the UEFA statutes. The earlier appeal by City which was ultimately held by CAS to be inadmissible revealed that City's case was never that they did not do what was alleged in 2013 but that the IC could only investigate breaches during or after the 2016 -2017 reporting period because of the 2014 Settlement and that breaches prior to 16 May 2014 were time barred under Article 37 of UEFA's procedural rules. I suspect it is these arguments that have won the appeal for City.

Like they have done for the past 12 seasons?

Refusing to co-operate with an investigation into alleged FFP breaches will only result in the decision being taken on the available evidence and by failing to co-operate you can hardly complain or put evidence forward at a later date. City refused to co-operate with the investigation into whether they had been dishonest in concealing the equity participation (i.e. that the sponsorship was in fact largely being paid by the owners) when they negotiated the 2014 settlement with UEFA. I think the legal difficulty with that investigation was probably the fact that the settlement agreement was not set aside within the time limits prescribed by the rules so UEFA could not re-open the original investigation into the 2012-2013 accounting or go behind the fact that City had already been sanctioned under the terms of the settlement for the breaches of FFP in those years. Without the settlement, I suspect City's ban would have stood but cannot be certain without seeing the full reasons as we still do not know precisely what UEFA charged City with or the evidence that they relied upon.

Don't think so. The key is in the phrase that the serious allegations "were either not established or time barred. They are not saying that City did not do it but that what was alleged was either not proven or otherwise it was too late to be actionable by UEFA under the FFP rules. Any failure to comply with FFP by City from now on will trigger another investigation far quicker than the last. City will also have no chance of getting a settlement like they did in 2014 which is most probably the reason why their appeal succeeded.

It's a little bit harder once you have had already paid their fee and had your day in court.

CAS procedures require the award to be checked by the Director General before it is signed but they can then release the operative part of the award to the parties before the reasons. It is different to the increasingly common practice in the civil courts in England where a draft of a judgment is circulated to the lawyers beforehand (under strict confidentiality obligations) for checking for obvious errors etc and to allow the lawyers to prepare for the hearing when the judgment is made public. As it might be necessary for instructions to be obtained from the client you are normally only allowed to communicate the outcome to the client shortly before the judgment is made public. CAS is an arbitration appeal body so there is no need for any further hearing to decide what follows from their award. They may therefore only be announcing the decision on Monday with reasons to follow in order to allow UEFA to begin planning next years' competitions and because of the obvious public interest in the outcome, they have stated a time when the whole world will know the outcome rather than leaving it to the parties. It is therefore highly unlikely anyone knows the outcome except the lawyers and arbitrators deciding the case and they are hardly likely to leak it before the time stated by CAS. I suspect that the confidence coming from City is based upon what their own lawyers think about how the appeal went rather than any inside knowledge of the outcome.

Up until they got the penalty we were interested in treating it as a normal game. Once they scored we just lost interest and mistakes started to be made that probably would not have happened if this game had any meaning. It meant more to City than us and this will not be the first time that the champions take their foot off the gas once the title is won. Felt like a pre-season game to me and we have had big defeats like this in pre-season which have absolutely no bearing on what happens during the season. Hope that this motivates the team to finish on a high but actually think Klopp is already thinking about next season.

CAS is an appeal body so they are normally not permitted to decide on the appropriate sanction if the disciplinary case is made out. They can obviously decide that the case was not established and revoke the penalty or they can uphold the decision and penalty. They also could decide that the penalty was disproportionate (as they did with the first AC Milan case) and remit the matter back to UEFA for reconsideration of the sanction and/or settlement but without knowing either the reasons for UEFA's decision or the grounds advanced on appeal, it is difficult to see whether City's appeal is an all or nothing one or that there are possible other outcomes.

Woke up this morning with a head from hell. Last thing I remember was that Liverpool had won the league and having a few with my mates. Not sure how long I was out because my eyes and ears are still a little funny and the television seems bigger and flatter than I remember. Kenny seems a lot older and for some reason they are calling him Sir when everybody knows he is the King. Johnny Barnes seems to have put on a lot of weight too. They must have had a good night like I did! Looks like United have finally sacked Ferguson but don’t recognise the new bloke with a funny accent. I always knew he would not amount to much. Anyway, Liverpool are still champions so I can’t have missed much but who is this German bloke in a baseball cap that they are keen to keep talking to? I thought it was Glenn at first….and why are they talking about Manchester City and Chelsea, it was Villa who had to win. A strange woman has just come in claiming to be my wife and who is this man babbling on about 30 years? He must still be intoxicated because he keeps calling me Dad when my son was only born last month. Only one thing for it, time to open that case of 1920 Vintage Champagne in the cellar and get blotto again…

Daft idea as we could secure the title without actually playing so moving a game to a neutral venue would then be pointless. If people are silly enough to turn up at the ground even though they cannot get in, they will still turn up at the ground even if the team are playing elsewhere. If you want to "see" the team win the title, you have to do it on television but if you want to celebrate it, then that could happen anywhere and the most likely focal point will be Anfield regardless of where the title is actually won. It is where titles and European Cup wins have been celebrated by those not actually in the ground where the trophy is secured in the past so moving a game at Anfield to a neutral venue will not stop the gathering that is the justification for the move in the first place.