#i'm not very smart about football so sorry if i said something inaccurate

[longeyelashedtragedy]

I don't quite understand why Man City having 115 charges against them has everyone up in arms other than the fact it's taking far too long to come to some conclusion.

Are they not the best team because they've won the premiership 3 or is it 4 times straight?

How does it make them better or should I say why are other teams not as good/worse.

What is the difference between them and Arsenal in terms of how the team gels and play ball?

I only ask because has Man City bought greatness from somewhere and if so where can you buy it from. Why don't other teams buy greatness too.

I'm not trying to be rude I really don't understand what the charges have to do with how well they play and the teams they beat along the way.

Of course, you are free to ignore this.

The "115 charges" phrase is a stand in for what people see as extreme financial corruption that has yet to go punished or even explored. I understand that "115 charges" might take longer to set a date for, or whatever, than whatever happened with Everton and Forest, but it leaves a bad taste in people's mouths. I think at this point people are less annoyed by the actual amount of charges than what they feel it represents.

The alleged corruption doesn't change their style of play or Pep's abilities, no. I genuinely don't enjoy how they play or their vibes on the pitch. That's a personal preference. I don't see them gelling on the pitch and loving each other the way Arsenal does. That's subjective, sure.

Where I think it does give them an advantage is the more money you have, the more quality players you can acquire. Then the more you keep winning because of the quality of players, the more it will attract the top names or big up-and-coming players (our Joško for example) to join the team. I think there are so many teams that play more engaging football than City--again, subjective. Arsenal had some dreamy and exhilarating games in 2024. So where the money causes the problem is squad depth. We see Arsenal as having a big squad depth issue. It was marginally better than like, two seasons ago or even last season where we had virtually NO defense left so if one of the starting back 4 had to go off we were playing a 16 year old, Cedric, and a prayer back there. But look even at today--it could have gone so much worse than it did. We were without one of our best and most reliable players, Bukayo Saka, and then lost Big Gabi in defense. Gabinelli and Leo were struggling to score, thank god Kai stepped up in the end, but once we lost those key players the bench had very limited options. For reliable backup goal scorers, it's even worse, and I love these guys who got subbed on, truly I mean no disrespect for them, Reiss, Emile, Gabby etc just have not been having the most solid season. It happens. But for City, I feel like they just have a robust bench. They can rotate, make confident subs. That plays such a massive role especially toward the end of the season when players are tired mentally and physically, when players are injured.

And it's really hard to declare that City are the "best" team when Arsenal ended two points behind them. You know? If we'd just won one of our 5 lost games...And aside from our peculiar Villa loss in April, which you know, sometimes there's a bad luck one-off, we showed such a winning and strong mentality by fixing whatever problem was causing our wretched streak at Christmas. Before this season I always doubted our ability to come back from crushing losses, but this year's team has shown differently.

I guess other teams don't have as much money to buy greatness--that's again where the "115 charges" comes in. Also, for Arsenal we seem weirdly bad at selling our players for lots of $$$$. People also believe that a nation rich in oil has "unlimited" money as opposed to a regular old millionaire. Idk how true that is or how true that'll be forever but this idea makes people nervous about competing in the market.

I understand where you're coming from with your questions. I think we'd be bitter enough if City just, kept winning, but the fact that there is enough evidence of extreme financial corruption to have 115 charges--even if it's just alleged, even if it's somehow...not true in the end idk, that makes the "success" tainted for many of us, and is more frustrating, because it feels like other teams don't have the same kind of chances.