DaveT

Agree with that. I was fuming all game, as much with the officials performance as with our sloppiness in and out of possession. The praise being heaped upon her from all quarters is so patronising, because, purely based on the performance of the officials and quite irrespective of their gender, they were all abysmal. The ref got both penalty calls completely wrong (even Hoddle and Cole struggled to find any justification for the Chelsea pen - tells you everything) - and the fact that those decisions weren't overturned by VAR is highly questionable. It wasn't just that though - I lost count of how many fouls and throw-ins were given the wrong way. In fact it was just like most league games, especially when Taylor, Moss, or Pawson are involved! On a playing note, I'm worried about just how bad Big Games James has been right since the start of pre-season. Desperately hope we're not witnessing the start of his decline.

Captures my mood perfectly too - on a high at half time, a little deflated after a disappointing 2nd half, and a tiny bit depressed after the City match. Ridiculous state of affairs on the first weekend of the season,especially after a 4-1 win! Another thought - we'd have done a Premier League and Champions League double - think about that - last season if we didn't have to compete against the FFP-trampling, sports-washing of City, and this team would be even bigger legends than they already are.

The PL are supposed to be investigating City..... https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/47501423 .......but it's all gone suspiciously quiet.

Brilliant read. Just saw that the red card for Holebas has been overturned, fair play. That Valencia came across like a really good lad in an interview on MotD recently - but the way he went down for both the red card and the penalty was embarrassing, especially for a big lump like him. If that had been Mo, Shearer and Murphy would have been doing a massive hatchet job on him. Season awards were great. Surely there was room for some refereeing awards? Anthony Taylor surely deserved some 'Twat' award, the little twat.

Aguero equalising for Brighton with an OG with the last kick of the game, with Tyler screaming 'Agueroooooo.......Oh, nooooooooo!' before topping himself on live tv.

Another flakey journo coming up with a narrative and bending facts to suit it. Even though we won, I'm still narked that the English media - and McManaman in commentary - failed to call out Barca for all those shithouse fouls in the 1st leg. I was soooo hoping that someone would take out Rakitic for that terrible foul that took out Naby - nobody in the ENGLISH media mentioned it. Just as well our boys are a lot more controlled and less emotional than me and served their dish of revenge ice cold (-ish). Looking like Rakitic and a few others are being shown the door as part of the aftermath. Good.

Brilliant report, one of your best. Newcastle fans - used to think we had some affinity with them, but they're just a bunch of slow witted,deluded morons from the land that time forgot. Poetic justice - Ritchie conceding that 'foul' - serves him and them fucking right for kicking Mo from pillar to post. Double standards - countless column inches devoted to Fabinho's flop in the media....... for doing what Kane and many others do every fucking game, including the dive that led to Spurs' equaliser at Anfield a few weeks back. Nobody was too bothered about that, were they? Fed up reading other fans suggesting that we're the media darlings, bizarre. Marriner - something really dodgy about him. The Mane kick in the head, Ritchie's constant fouling of Mo, including that nasty rake down the achilles....... allowing THAT Burnley goal direct from the corner. The week after that game, he almost single-handedly got City back in the game when they were 2-0 down at Swansea. Just saying, like.

'Cheats never prosper' is right up there alongside 'these things even themselves out' as the biggest fallacies out there. Your honour, in addition to Manchester City, I give you Barcelona and Real Madrid.

Am I missing some sarcasm here? He was fucking atrocious I was wondering what they had to do to get a card. The Rakitic foul that took out Keita was minimum yellow, Busquets on Fabinho just before half time and a couple of others - nailed on yellows. Aldo and McAteer just making the exact same comments on LFCTV.

Trust them to get so wound up over such trifles.

Great stuff, as ever. Don't know if it came across on tv, but conditions were really not great, very blustery and showery, but despite that we played some excellent football at times. The weather was horrendous at the weekend, and I was hoping it would be a leveller for Burnley. But, of course, the storm abated and the conditions were benign for City. Nevertheless, Guardiola still commented on the dry pitch....... but doesn't get shit from the media like Klopp does whenever he mentions these kind of things.

I had exactly the same thought earlier today and went to Transfermarkt to refresh my memory. We've been massively held back by our (many) mistakes in the transfer market, whereas City just throw more cash at the problem, with complete disdain for FFP. Us - and Spurs - have done fantastic jobs in putting together competitive teams whilst living within our means and managing to stay close to a club for whom money is no object (and rules are no constraint). Here are some of the players who were flops and/or they lost a bundle of money on (in/out valuations as per Transfermarkt)..... Robinho (£38m/16m) Roque Santa Cruz (19/0) Lescott (25/0) Jo (22/0) De Jong (16/3) Adebayor (26/5.7) Savic (10/0) Nastasic (13.8/8) Tevez (26/8) Jesus Nava (18/0) Jovetic (23.4/12) Bony (29/11) Mangala (27.5/0) Fernando (13.5/5) Nolito (16/6) (This doesn't exclude the likes of Negredo, Rodwell or Garcia as City got a fair chunk of their money back) This has been an utterly unbelievable season for us - 27 wins and one defeat ,which was mainly down to bad luck (11mm) and bad refereeing. We're miles ahead of all of our normal rivals, but we're just massively unlucky to be competing against an outstanding team - which has such strength in depth it can excel without somebody like de Bruyne for most of the season - owned by the wealthiest club in the history of football.

Brilliant report, one of your best.

You're unlikely to see a more clear cut penalty again this season, goalie had both arms wrapped around Cain's leg and clearly drags him down. Ref was actually pretty good - apart from not giving that blatant penalty and not calling a bad,bad foul on Clarkson!

'......a bit of an oaf on the floor....' I actually laughed out loud at this. This is a guy (assuming he's not a WUM) that supports a team with Zouma and Keane in their defence.