Real Madrid and their gamesmanship get a rinsing in the Mailbox, with a Man City fan asking for the neutrals to support them.

Real Madrid are the club of thuggery and whiningReak Madrid are often touted as the real champions of Europe. They exude class, we are told. They know how to win, we are told.

Well, there are certain ways of winning a football match. Outright thuggery and whining, wheeling and yelling at the ref, who’d already decided he was going to help them out, is certainly one of the ways of winning….but it’s not the way that I believe any football fan in England would choose, is it? I just don’t understand, they have the players to win it the right way, they just don’t bother. How many bookings did they have? Should be double…at minimum. Flavoured with at least one red card, too.

It’s obviously a Madrid ‘thing’.

Obviously, I want to dump them on their arses. I know many contributors to this mailbox would love to see City dumped on our arses (obviously, it’s the nature of partisan support) but I’d hope that you then wouldn’t want that club to win it again.

After all, complete domination of a footballing competition? Nobody wants to see that, do they?

Do they?

Helpfully trying.Levenshulme Blue, Manchester 19

This is what happens when you are surrounded by Real fansAs is often the case in England , I was miles away from the team on the screen , had no family affiliation or tenuous connection with the team playing . This is turning into a rant ….

Things are well different from the 70’s .

The 70’s was when Franco died and the oppressive fascist government eventually loosened their grip after 40 bloody decades. Seeds being sewn for the Moss side riots.

Yet during that time I cannot find a more ’ successful ‘ dictatorship distraction than this Real Madrid phenomena .

I looked into Salazar’s Benfica, but the job done by Franco’s PR department would be akin to 70 per cent of all English football fans being mad about Aston Villa ( where ) Birmingham is the central capital , and in every town and city any Villa match would be supported by thousands in say Lincoln , Salisbury , York , Exeter , ad infinitum. And on top of that , all the major other footballing towns having a 1-1 ratio with their local team and Villa followers . Apart from Glasgow where they detest anything Birmingham i. e. centralisation.

Anyway. Rudiger , after his ‘job’ on Kevin in the final , deserves an award for a good attempt on knobbling the City playmaker Gundogan.Only Ramos’s concussion on the Liverpool keeper plus press-ganging Salah is above Rudiger now .

Curious…

No parallels are available to me across Europe on how many provinces’ boys feel. ‘Burnished by victory’ when Madrid , a city they’ve rarely visited, plays and wins.

In that ‘pure white ‘ where Wright- Philips suffered so many monkey chants , where , if they were losing , all the black players would be first to be criticised . They do not lose though. As the monarchy in Britain – are not allowed to fail- , this shit works , look at Berlusconi’s Milan , Italy’s world cups . pre Second World War , Argentina 78 .

Blair’s pimping of London just has a different hand up the puppet’s arse . The CFC money is now out of favour , London has other masters to whore . Still , Carletto will play the same rope a dope in post riot Moss Side . And Status Quo sing on .Peter (loved Villareal last semi final etc ), Andalucia. ( a bastion of Madrid supporters)

Have Man City ‘solved’ football?All this talk about Manchester City being a boring, soulless team is (in my opinion) alluding to the fact that they have essentially “solved” football. They have enough financial resources (legitimate or illegitimate) to employ 18ish top players which fit the optimal system of today’s football. A 4-3-3 with a single deep lying midfielder, two “8s”, strategic pressing, etc. etc.

Even if there exists a strategy to counter it, the other teams they compete against do not have the resources to implement such a strategy, and moreover have to also compete against a variety of other strategies so cannot put all their eggs in one basket to merely beat City. When the current City players age, Pep and Txiki will go out and find new ones to slot in. Now it’s possible that their way of playing is reliant on Pep orchestrating, and it may fall apart when he pursues his next challenge or retirement, but frankly I don’t want to wait.

I think the rules need to be changed, just like they have done in the NBA or myriad other sports when a team or player is too advantaged. I suspect modifying the offside rule might be the answer but who knows.

Back to “solved” football though. Part of the romance of the games in the late noughties and early aughts was that teams were all vulnerable at points. The vitriol reserved for Sir Alex’s United was based on the notion that they were favored by the refs and were dirty bastards at times, not because the title seemed like a foregone conclusion. There was more chaos and unpredictability. Teams relied much more on individual skill because the game hadn’t been solved yet. Shots outside the box were allowed and there were long shot specialists, because xG hadn’t been invented yet. How can we rediscover this romance?Noah, Chicago Gooner

Could VAR decide the title?As you pointed out in your article looking at the remaining fixtures for Man City and Arsenal, it could be an incredibly close finish…or it could all be over in the next couple of matches.

If Arsenal are to fall short (and I believe they will), it is probably better for all that the gap ends up being several points. If Man City beat Arsenal by only a point, it will be hard to ignore the travesty of the VAR official failing to do their job in the Arsenal vs Brentford match earlier this season. Not a matter of opinion, not a difference of interpretation….an absolutely glaring mistake in failing to draw the lines which would have ruled Brentford’s equalizer offside.

Now, I believe the poor Arsenal results against Everton and West Ham were ultimately what will make the difference for them…but it’s not a good look for PGMOL if something they themselves described as “a significant error in the VAR process” ends up deciding the title.Pete, Norfolk