Some City fans never learn

Whilst listening to this week’s edition of BBC Manchester’s Blue Tuesday, I nearly fell off my chair when I heard the criticism being levelled at some of the squad.

The show, presented by our man inside the BBC - Ian Cheeseman,  and one of our greatest ever players - Paul Lake, is a fantastic weekly snippet of all things City and I always try to download the podcast. Apart from the televised games they show here in Jakarta, Blue Tuesday is a great way of keeping your finger on the pulse of the club. It’s a credit to the programme that it chooses to air the plethora of City fans’ views out there - I acknowledge that football is full of opinions and every supporter has a right to express what he or she thinks, but this week some of the opinions aired on the show through various social media sites weren’t just incorrect and ill thought out, they were harmful to the atmosphere surrounding the club.

Two particular comments come to mind. One ‘fan’ commented that Vincent Kompany had been terrible since the Community Shield. Another commented that Yaya Toure ‘contributes nothing at all to the team’. Yet another described the Ivorian as ‘lumbering’.

Let’s take Yaya first. I certainly didn’t see him ‘lumbering’ towards goal when he scored winner against United in last season’s FA Cup Semi. Last season he powered forward on numerous occasions and was unstoppable 95% of the time. And what a touch he has. This season, because of the new signings Yaya has been playing in a withdrawn role at the base of the midfield (much like he did for Barca when they won the Champions League). But we saw at White Hart Lane how he can still play a key attacking role, both in terms of counter attacking and in terms of overlapping from wide areas.

On the charge that he 'contributes nothing to the team', on the contrary, Yaya contributes an awful lot to the team. His contribution last season culminated in winning us the FA Cup for god’s sake, and his experience in Europe will be priceless if we are to progress in the Champions League. Yaya suffers a little because, playing in the midfield department, perhaps fans tend to compare him to all our action midfielder Nigel De Jong. Anyone with half a brain knows they are two different players who approach the game in different ways. Also, we’re not a one man team. Of course De Jong is quality and he is one of the first names on the team sheet etc etc, but the recent draw against Fulham wasn’t down to his absence. It was down to our slack concentration.

Then we come to Vinnie. What a player. Arguably the best centre back in the league. Yes he had an off day in the Community Shield, but let’s face it, the whole team did – we never showed up at Wembley and got our backsides kicked. Kompany fully deserved to be our new captain. He’s a talker, committed in the tackle, has great positional sense, is great defending our box etc etc. He’s a true modern centre half in the sense that he can pass well, bring the ball out into midfield, is comfortable playing in a defensive midfield capacity. In fact I’m surprised that Barcelona didn’t come in for him in the summer, given their problems in the centre back department Aside from these qualities Kompany loves the club – something that all our riches can’t buy as Tevez has proved. The lad makes a mistake and all of a sudden people are on his back. Consider everything that Kompany has given us – and will give us in the future – and you know that this talk of dropping him is utterly out of touch.

And not only out of touch, but reckless. We have enough enemies outside the perimeters of Eastlands as it is. We don’t need to create more inside the fort by turning on our own players – in this case two world class players – and making them feel unwanted. These kind of comments are a microcosm of our recent, shambolic history. Jumping to conclusions far too quickly, the stuff of making knee jerk reactions that has seen so many good personnel at the club jettisoned far too early.

I don’t check the message boards, but I hope these kinds of comments are snippets in a wider sea of rationality. Two draws, one against an excellent Napoli side who are Serie A contenders, and the accusations start flying. This kind of short termism has destroyed us in the past – it was a key ingredient of the ‘typical City’ era. Let’s not allow that kind of sentiment to develop again.