Arabian eyes are smiling

If City really are on the cusp of a new winning era, then when the history books are written tonight’s game against Liverpool will surely go down as an early sign of that epoch’s birth. Tonight the Blues were irrepressible, winning 3-0 as Liverpool were driven into the floor.

Dominant City

This was the most convincing win I’ve seen at Eastlands in memory. We bossed the game and dominated for large periods. Soon after kick off, our patterns of play showed positive thinking and a willingness to go forward at every opportunity.

And not only were we positive in an attacking sense, but we did the job defensively too. When we lost possession, we were quicker, sharper and more tenacious in the tackle than our opponents. As we increased our tally we gradually sapped the fight out of a Liverpool side that certainly were no pushovers – and this makes the victory even sweeter.

The central reason for this victory was our utter endeavour and commitment, and these attributes flowed from an unbelievably strong team core. At the back, Vincent Kompany was particularly imperious, executing numerous tackles to perfection. His partner and former captain Kolo Toure was very solid and added to the calmness that seemed to engulf the team when it was called upon to defend. In midfield, Nigel De Jong and Gareth Barry in particular were equally commanding as they fought tool and nail to break down Liverpool’s patterns of play. The distribution of De Jong and Barry was also particularly impressive – nothing flashy, just winning the ball and then getting rid of it efficiently.

The strength of our core enabled us to go forward with more confidence, and this we did. Deploying Adam Johnson and new signing James Milner on the wings, Mancini opted to play Captain Carlos Tevez alone upfront. Yaya Toure was the joker in the pack, the link up man between midfield and attack – essentially the position that Stephen Ireland coveted. Perhaps this will be a pattern in Mancini’s team selections. Assuming Yaya is in favour, at home he can be played in advanced positions whilst away he can drop back into a defensive midfield comprising of De Jong, Barry and James Milner.

And what of our new signing? There’s no two ways about it – James Milner impressed magnificently. I believe Stephen Ireland will be a good servant to Aston Villa, they certainly got a good deal. But so did City. Above all things, the strength, determination and cunning nature of Milner makes me think he is going to be a great asset to this Manchester City squad. He certainly made a great start, setting up the first goal for former Villa team mate Gareth Barry to place past Pepe Reina.

Tevez and Adam Johnson continued to impress. The Argentinean once again proved his mettle by scoring two goals, the first bundled in off a Micah Richards header, the second dispatched from the penalty spot after Adam Johnson was brought down.

Chances not taken

Hodgson’s men will surely rue a five minute period just after half time when they should have produced the equaliser were it not for the excellence of Joe Hart. Gerard, Ngog and Torres all went extremely close, produced two saves in quick succession from the new England No 1. I felt the game really turned on this sequence of play, and having missed the chance to level, soon the game was out of Liverpool’s reach.

A performance fit for a Sheikh

City fans were finally treated to their first glimpse of Sheikh Mansour in person. The Sheikh, who had temporarily jettisoned his Arabian garb for a Westernised suit and tie, sat in between the other two cogs of the club’s power axis – Khaldoon and Cook. Whilst Mansour may have been mightily impressed with what he saw, the latter two must have breathed a sigh of relief that this evening’s Merseyside opponents failed to spoil the Sheikh’s big introduction.

On the pitch though, the early signs are good, but at present I want to keep on looking at them as early signs. Nevertheless, it is hard to be negative. For this was a victory achieved without the likes of David Silva, Mario Balotelli, Emanuel Adebayor and Shay Given. The depth of the squad is now formidable, and so was the nature of this performance.

Does Balotelli’s promise outweigh his risk?

In what has been dubbed the greatest gamble in football history, City last week signed 20 year old Mario Balotelli from Inter Milan. At £24m the Italian does not come cheap, especially for one so young. But whilst the Club can afford to gamble financially, Mancini certainly cannot afford to gamble in terms of performances on the pitch.

Dangerous for all the wrong reasons

By now surely, we all know that the forward comes to Manchester with a controversial reputation in tow. He clearly has problems with his temperament and attitude. It is rather worrying that the great man manager himself Jose Mourinho couldn’t figure out a suitable way to deal with the troubled Italian. Whilst at Inter, Balotelli apparently reacted very badly to being criticised by Mourinho and was dropped from the squad as a result, only being reinstated after making a public apology to his manager.

The relationship with Inter fans and players seems to have been equally turbulent. He made angry gestures during last season’s Champions League tie with Barcelona, throwing his shirt down in disgust. Apparently, Marco Materazzi attacked Balotelli in the tunnel afterwards. Then there was that interesting scenario where the Italian chose to wear an AC Milan shirt on a TV show.

The forward has shown immaturity in his personal life. He appears to have had disagreements with the authorities on more than one occasion, one of the most notable being caught along with three of his friends for fooling around with a toy gun in the centre of Milan.

Aside from Balotelli’s volatility, another problem will be fitting him into the attack. The media are all over this at the moment, especially with the departures of Ireland and Bellamy underlining the fact that we are getting rid of good quality players who have spoken of their loyalty to the club in the past. They will be on the lookout for any cracks appearing within our forward line.

So where will Balotelli fit in? I’ve never been convinced about Adebayor, and with Santa-Cruz looking like he is on the way out, we certainly need a target man to accompany Tevez up front. Whether Balotelli is that player I am not sure. I see him as more of a forward than an out and out striker, perhaps supporting a target man, or attacking from wide positions – similar to Tevez now I come to think of it. In fact the more our attack shapes up, the more it seems that we are destined to play without a target man.

So how to accommodate the likes of Tevez, Silva, Adebayor, Adam Johnson and now Mario Balotelli? This is a conundrum for Mancini to solve and it has the potential to be a volatile situation. Given Balotelli’s combustible personality, how will he react when he does not play every game, and is not first choice?

‘Crazy’ abilities

Aside from the well publicised controversial elements to Balotelli’s game, there seems to be a consensus already built that the Italian could be brilliant in the English Premier League. Carlo Ancelotti has gone on record as saying that the forward is a ‘crazy’ talent and that City will challenge for the title with Balotelli, not just simply forth place.

For Balotelli’s talent is said to be explosive. Quick, exciting from dead ball situations, technically gifted, and at 6 ft 3”, seemingly built for the rigours of a physical league. On the surface an excellent signing for all Premier League sides, but for his unpredictable temperament.

Mancini’s wild card

Balotelli could be brilliant, that much is clear. And perhaps Manchester City were always going to be the only club for him join, both in a financial and psychological sense. Roberto Mancini credits himself with giving the Italian his first big chance in football. Like Balotelli, Mancini was at one time a huge, underachieving talent, so perhaps there is some sense of mutual understanding there – it is well documented that the two supposedly have a strong relationship.

Initial reports are encouraging. Balotelli’s 57^th minute introduction during last night’s first leg tie against Romanian minnows Timisoara turned things in City’s favour, with the Italian himself marking his debut with the winning goal.

But only Roberto Mancini can know whether the odds of the Balotelli ‘gamble’ are stacked in his favour. If Balotelli is as good as they say he is, and if Mancini can stabilise him in the way he says he can, then the fortunes of City’s season, and indeed of Mancini himself, could begin to look very positive.

For all things Mario Balotelli be sure to check out fan site www.mariobalotelli.co.uk.

The darker side of progress

Its been coming for a while but now, as the spending really begins to take affect, we are seeing traditional club heroes – and good players - being forced out of the club. Why? For the sole reason that we can buy better players who can do more things, more consistently and to a higher quality. Like the laws of nature, at Eastlands these days we increasingly see a situation where only the strong can survive and the weak must fall by the way side. This is the price fans must pay if they want to challenge for the Premiership title.

The imminent departure of Stephen Ireland

It now looks increasingly likely that Academy product Stephen Ireland will leave the club as part of a cash plus player deal for Aston Villa’s James Milner. For the sentimental fans amongst us, the departure of Ireland will be a sad loss. Ireland was voted player of year for the 2008-09 campaign, impressing in the League and in City’s UEFA Cup run to the Quarter Finals. After emerging from the Academy, Ireland broke into the first team but always seemed prone to acting unusually, for the most part off the field of play and sometimes on it. But he grew up and learned to banish that side of his game, becoming the accomplished player we all hoped he would be, providing the link from midfield to attack, providing the creation and guile from central midfield positions. Fans labelled him ‘Superman’ because of his performances. The club placed a banner over the dugouts to show this appreciation. And I wrote of his great talent, determination and new mental toughness. We all hoped he would push on from there and become a top class midfielder.

Then things took a turn for the worse. Mark Hughes, who I think got the best out of the Irishman – was sacked. Ireland has argued otherwise, saying that Hughes played him out of position, and speaking indirectly to his manager’s preference for Carlos Tevez in the attacking midfielder / deep lying forward role.

After Hughes’ sacking came injuries and more loss of form, resulting in time on the substitutes bench. The appointment of Roberto Mancini tightened the screws on Ireland’s City career. The Italian proved to be much more cautious than Hughes, preferring two – and at some times – three defensive midfielders as opposed to an attacking mindset in the engine room. Once again, threats from central positions tended to emanate from Tevez. And so when Ireland was called upon, he continued to play out of position, exacerbating his loss of form and probably sending his morale to lower depths.

In truth, Ireland’s central weakness was that he did not have enough tools in his locker. Of course he was good, and he proved this by linking well with exceptional players such as Robinho. But perhaps he was never good enough to the level where Mancini would allow him the freedom to play the central role that he wanted. And then, he was never flexible enough to warrant selection in other positions, such as holding midfield, left wing, right wing. We now have the De Jong’s, Silva’s and Adam Johnson’s of this world to do those jobs for us.

This I feel was the real nail in Ireland’s coffin, the simple fact that he could not do it all. Mancini has looked at the midfielder, asked whether he is good enough for where we are headed, and has answered in the negative

It is a sign of the club’s sheer ambition that, even for all the Irishman’s talent, for all his endeavour, and for all of his unquestionable commitment to the Blue shirt of Manchester down the years, he has – in effect – ended up being used as bait. This is ruthless, but this is where we are at Eastlands now. Holding out for a £2m payout will ensure that the Irishman is not remembered fondly, but the Club does not want the player, and so the player will do all he can to get the best deal for himself. Moreover, this is far from the point, but £2m is a drop in the ocean for the Club. He and his agent both know that.

Sadly, this is the detritus of a once fruitful relationship, and for the latter I thank Stephen Ireland. He gave us some great memories and I wish him the very best for his future.

No room left for Craig Bellamy

The flying Welsh winger, who last season enjoyed probably the best campaign of his career, is also on the verge of an exit. Personally, I have always thought Bellamy’s future to be welded to that of his fellow compatriot, Mark Hughes. When Hughes left the club the winger’s days were always going to be numbered no matter what he did on the pitch.

And on the pitch, I felt Bellamy’s form dipped slightly towards the end of last season, but not by much. He was still playing at a relatively high level, but he started the season on such a rich vein of form that there was only ever going to be one way to go.

But form is not the problem nor the issue. Bellamy’s enemies are now age, injury proneness and personality - the latter of which we found out a little bit more about this week. We all know that it hasn’t been plain sailing between manager and player. Screaming rows over the treatment of Bellamy’s knee, the player’s refusal to train, an internal investigation over comments Bellamy allegedly made in support of David Moyes after Everton’s defeat of City at Eastlands, and most recently, claiming that Mancini hadn’t spoken to him since February and doesn’t speak to Carlos Tevez.

Wherever the blame lies for Bellamy’s disgruntlement, a stream of discontent has trickled – and sometimes flowed – throughout his career. At City it now appears to have caught up with him again. This Wednesday he was left out of Mancini’s 25 man Europa League squad.

Much like Ireland, despite his excellent performances and stated commitment to City, Bellamy is another gifted player that appears to have been cut away from the hull of a club where competition for places is now fast on the increase.

Hart drags City through the opening day

Tottenham Hotspur were always going to provide stiff opening day opposition for Mancini’s men and they didn’t fail to disappoint, but somehow the Blues managed to come through unscathed to produce a 0-0 draw at White Hart Lane. They owe it all to their keeper.

Joe Hart steps up to the plate

One of the most pressing pre-season questions has been who Mancini would opt for on the opening day of the season. Would he go for the experience of Shay Given or the youthful promise of England’s new no.1? Hart got the nod and was called into action perhaps a lot sooner than he would have liked as Spurs laid siege to the City penalty area in the first 20 minutes of the match. The likes of Defoe, Assou-Ekotto and in spectacular fashion Huddlestone all had a go but were denied by the City keeper. Bale finally managed to beat Hart but was denied by the far post, with Defoe unable to force home the rebound. With a mixture of luck and skill, we weathered the storm of the first quarter and made sure we got into half time all square. Centre back pairing Vincent Kompany and Kolo Toure were particularly impressive. Kompany was imperious in some of his tackles, but I think Kolo had one of his best games for us so far. Perhaps stripping him of the captaincy has been a good thing.

The roots of Spurs’ siege

We did not help ourselves. Micah Richards in particular had a woeful opening game, ripped to shreds by Gareth Bale every time the Spurs winger attacking. Not too long ago, Richards was harping on about how he had taken Mancini’s words to heart and accepted that he must improve his concentration levels if he is to warrant a place in the starting eleven. He may be able to talk a good game but there was zilch evidence of his improved concentration at White Hart Lane today. Richards also had no answers when it came to dealing with Peter Crouch, our nemesis of recent times. To compound matters, he gave away the ball far too much.

It would be unfair to just slate Richards with giving away the ball when this right through the team, meaning that we had little time to develop the composure in order to build attacks. Shaun Wright-Phillips was once again wasteful in possession, but Yaya Toure and David Silva and even Carlos Tevez were guilty of aimless balls.

Of all the new signings, I thought Alexsandar Kolarov had the most solid debut, dealing well with Aeron Lennon and getting forward himself, only to be nullified by the England winger. An injury to Kolarov during the first half saw him substituted at half time.

Second half revival

Things couldn’t get any worse after the break, and they didn’t as we came back into the game. I completely back Mancini’s decision to give Carlos Tevez the captaincy. Whilst the Argentinean’s English may not be the best, he leads by example on the pitch. He is still our best player, still at the centre of most of our attacking play. He was much more able to effect our game in the second half, coming deep to find the ball, buzzing around the edges of the area, drifting to wide positions. He was our all action hero and a constant menace to Spurs.

No matter how much of a battering you take in these kinds of games, if you can keep things all square, there will always be something that falls to you. That chance fell to SWP just after the restart, with Yaya dropping a perfectly flighted ball behind the Spurs defence to set up Shaunie one on one with Gomes. Unfortunately though, the little winger wanted too much time and the defender managed to get back into position and clear the lines.

Taking the positives

A special mention for Yaya Toure, who I think could well become a unique player for us. On the surface he is a defensive midfielder, but underneath this exterior there is a wealth of attacking potential. We saw elements of this against Valencia. In a midfield that will sometimes be packed with holding players, he is the dark horse that could be much more destructive than teams think. He is Vieira – with legs. I just hope that this does not stunt the development of Michael Johnson, who is another box to box player that has the tools to the whole job.

But for their wastefulness and Hart’s brilliance, Spurs should’ve been at least 2-0 up at half time. Prior to the game I had defensive concerns – particularly Kolo and Richards – but in the end our resilience enabled us to hold off Redknapp’s men, something we could not do last season. Whilst we didn’t look at sharp as our opponents, we kept on going. We gave away possession too much and were too often second to the ball, but this sharpness will come with more games.

I also had concerns over communication and team cohesion. David Silva started slowly and was caught in possession on occasion, but by the second half he looked far more comfortable and the signs of a good understanding with Tevez were there. The Spaniard has a fantastic touch.

We looked like half a team and half a group of talented individuals, but the fact that we kept Spurs out showed that we fought well. In the long run, I think this draw will serve us well.

This was a better point for us than it was for them.

Comments on a curtain raiser

The new season is finally upon us and we couldn't have a more taxing start to the season than making the journey south to White Hart Lane.

As a preview to the opening day fixture against Arry's men, Without a Dream in Our Hearts agreed to be interviewed by Ryan over at Can't Smile Without You, an excellent and informative Spurs blog.

Click here to read the interview and also here to hear Ryan's thoughts on an intriguing curtain raiser.

Lets hope Mancini and lads can evoke the spirit of 2004 on Saturday with a performance full of belief and determination!

The new aggression

Last season was a season of many firsts – both on and off the pitch. Away from the field of play there appears to have been a great deal of work done on the club’s image and marketing strategy. Even if we are not quite there on the pitch, off it the club has adopted an aggressive, winning mentality that I think puts us ahead of the majority of other clubs worldwide.

Aesthetically speaking

Everyone can see that the club has gone through a major cosmetic overhaul. This is perhaps most stark in the kit department. Last season, fans were finally rewarded with three fantastic kits to wear, easily the best in the Premier League, and probably the club’s best kits since the 1960s. The home strip was the real statement, with the club going for the maxim ‘less equals more’. Simplicity was the key word here, with the kit being kept very basic, all light blue with a white round neck. A return to Umbro as our kit sponsor has proved a fantastic move, with the partnership producing some top class training gear.

City’s online presence has been wholly revamped for the better. The website now looks very slick, with plenty of video content, plenty of interviews with top players, and new downloads. More creativity went into selling match days last season too. The Big Four Campaign (referred to in greater detail later) was a massive part of this, but also smaller touches, such as turning the stadium lights off just before kick off at night games, and projecting shining blue moons on the stadium screen – this kind of thing contributed much to the atmosphere of the games.

Customer relations

The club’s relationship with its fans has also improved. There has been some setbacks along the way to be sure (seat relocations come to mind), but overall the club is connecting with its fans in new ways.

A great example of this has been the worldwide web. There are a dedicated group of City bloggers out there who follow and report on developments at the club religiously. City have made strong links here, inviting bloggers to Eastlands to test the new website, inviting bloggers to write for the match day programme, placing links to each blog on the fan sections of the official website. These are all nice touches of recognition to City’s online community.

The club is also listening to its fans. The front page of the City website always contains a quote from fan blog or the club’s official Facebook page on recent developments. That the club actually took the design of its kits back to an old school style is – I think – further evidence of a club that wants to pander to its fans interests.

Focusing aggression locally

In a broad marketing sense, all of these moves have been aggressive. Improvements to the club’s image, improvements to how the club deals with its customers are all designed to pull in more money through keeping existing customers on board, attracting new customers and making sure all customers stay loyal.

But’s there’s another side to being aggressive, and that is competing with your rivals – in this context other clubs. And locally, we all know who that is.

At the beginning of last season, the new aggression was focussed specifically in and around Manchester. Its messages: the Blue half of Manchester is resurgent, belligerent, controversial and is the new kid on the block. Of course this took shape with the now infamous Tevez ‘Welcome to Manchester’ poster, slap bang in the City centre for all to see. The poster certainly put the cat amongst Ferguson’s pigeons, and it did so because it was a master stroke. The significance of the Tevez move could not be overstated, a top class player, a 20 goal a season man making the switch from United to City in his prime. How that must’ve rankled the red half of the city.

Then throughout the season came the creative Big Four campaign. This was a campaign that reared its head every time City played one of the traditional big four clubs (Arsenal, United, Chelsea, Liverpool) at home. The key message was that the club wanted to “celebrate those cult players who relish [big four] occasions and transcend the barriers between culture and football.” The key objective was to put “Manchester City at the centre of the cultural fabric of Manchester.”

With Arsenal’s highly charged visit in September, the club chose Emmanuel Adebayor as its first poster boy. A huge graphic was rolled out on the floor of the Manchester Arndale shopping centre before the game, and on the day of the match, posters with the same graphic were littered all around the stadium.

In December came the visit of Chelsea and it was Shaun Wright-Phillips’ turn. Iconic images of the little winger dribbling with the ball were graffiti-ed near the East Stand reception. The image was 50 meters long and young fans were challenged to run the length of the artwork to beat SWP’s own time and win prizes. This artwork was also replicated up the side of the four story Printworks in the middle of the city.

In February the campaign was upped a notch again with the visit of Liverpool. This time, Craig Bellamy was the centre of attention. The Welshman was the subject of an edgy video entitled ‘I give my all’, which featured a cinematic recording of Bellamy getting ready for a big match. A special piece of artwork was commissioned that signified Bellamy’s style of play: a snarling beast. All very unique stuff.

Finally, as the season came to a close with the visit of United, Carlos Tevez once again became the focus of the campaign. Clearly the club’s best player of last season, the Argentinean was the subject of another artistic design completed by the same people behind Barack Obama’s Presidential campaign. The new design, entitled ‘Tevez Pasion’, was very chic and iconic and is still available to download from the club’s website.

Whilst the campaign achieved its stated aims, I felt that it was about much more than just emphasising key players. Here was a campaign specifically directed toward the traditional hierarchy of English football through emphasising the links of current City players with their former clubs. Of course, there was plenty of room for needle here. It was clear that the Arsenal fans hated Adebayor before his reckless antics last year – pictures of his face around the stadium weren’t exactly designed to calm tempers. Bellamy the player is disliked by all except the club that he plays for, and the Tevez link with United needs no explanation. In short it was a campaign that sought to antagonise, challenge and a threat all rolled into one, with the message: ‘we are coming for you’ emblazoned on its forehead.

Channelling the aggression for 2010/11

Backed by this aggressive philosophy, off the field last season was a highly successful one. The real trick of course is keeping that aggression flowing and channelled in the right areas for the coming season. Key challenges lie first in the realm of aesthetics. How on earth can the club improve on last season’s kits? I have little idea and await the new designs with anticipation. I have always wanted the club to take a nod to its own history and produce a kit in the fashion of the old St Mark’s (West Gorton) black and white strip. The other key challenge is this: so far the new aggression has worked well locally, but how will this translate as the club continues to grow globally? Developing the new aggression for the global football market will have a massive bearing on whether the club increases its global appeal to rival the likes of Barcelona, Real Madrid, Manchester United and AC Milan.

New blood and dead wood

Another transfer window in full flow, and once again we see the true colour of Sheikh Mansour’s intentions - and his money. New blood has already been injected into the club for the 2010/11 campaign, but the axe has also been ruthlessly wielded. Its clearer than ever that Mansour is going full steam ahead towards the target of winning the Premier League title. Whether he will achieve that feat is another matter, but he is certainly taking strides this summer.

Mansour’s gold buys Silva (and Yaya, and Jerome)
Within the space of a week the club signed the attacking midfielder/winger/striker David Silva from Valencia and defensive midfielder Yaya Toure from Barcelona. This is not to mention the earlier signing of German full-back/utility defender Jerome Boateng.

Of course all three signings are incredibly positive. Boateng is young, can play across the back four, and is already a full blown German international currently making his name in Joachim Loew’s surprise package team at the 2010 World Cup. The lad seems to have the right ingredients for the rigours of the Premier League – speed and strength – and given his European background will no doubt be handy for us as we mount our Europa League challenge.

Yaya Toure brings fantastic top level experience, and at 27 years old he comes to Eastlands at a good age. Once again we have added to our defensive midfield contingent: Barry, De Jong, Vieira, Kompany and now Yaya, but what is important is that we have added in a positive manner. Clearly this is a signing that will improve our midfield. It might even bring the best out of Barry by allowing us to rest the England midfielder a bit more. If we can hold onto Nigel De Jong though, I think it bodes for a formidable defensive midfield: steel, determination, aggression and now with Yaya, a bit more creativity and getting forward effectively too. But it is the signing of David Silva that heralds the most excitement and expectation. I must admit I thought we’d fall short in our efforts to secure this man’s services. Silva is one of those rare players that can drift between midfield and attack very effectively. Aside from his undoubted talent, which has perhaps been underlined more with the Spanish national team’s Euro 2008 victory rather than his exploits with previous club Valencia, what makes this signing extra sweet is that Silva was a target of Manchester United. Ferguson’s interest in the Spaniard has been well documented, but Silva rejected United’s overtures, saying that he wanted to play in Spain and would only move to Real Madrid or Barcelona. All the more surprising then, that Silva appears to have jettisoned this mindset to join City, and not United, Arsenal (perhaps the obvious choice), or Chelsea. Money has probably got something to do with it.

All three players have of course come for the money, but that is not the whole picture. For Yaya, the romanticism of finally playing in a club side with his brother Kolo must have also represented a strong gravitational pull towards Eastlands for the younger Ivorian. The other motivation of all three must be to play in the Premier League. Whilst I felt that the Premier League’s star waned somewhat last season, these signings show that it is still up there with the best Leagues in the world. That Silva and Yaya have both forfeited the chance of playing Champions League football with Valencia and Barcelona respectively throws more fire on the flames of that position.

Petrov, Sylvinho and Benjani jettisoned, Bojinov sold
Nothing irks me more than a player having a pop at an old club from the moment he has left. The words of Martin Petrov almost caused me to fall off my chair. The winger talked of City’s money and the club bringing in big stars. He went on to say that it doesn’t matter how much money you have if you can’t play as a team. He’s quite right of course, except to say that I don’t seem to remember Petrov being much of an overall team player when he was at Eastlands. An exciting winger yes, but I don’t recall him helping out his full back much.

I’m sorry Martin, but its sour grapes from you. Your real gripe is the fact that you didn’t play as much because we were bringing in better players. Injuries aside, you scored goals when you were in the team, but you couldn’t match Bellamy’s overall contribution to the team, and pretty soon you probably won’t be able to match Adam Johnson’s either. You are 31 years old, have injury prone knees, and were part of a club with a lot of money that wants to sign new talent and you were coming to the end of your contract. Martin – you did a great job for us under Sven and I wish you the best of luck at Bolton, but do us all a favour: stop moaning and get real.

The releasing of striker Benjani and full back Sylvinho also makes perfect sense. Benjani was never a real hit. Harry Redknapp definitely knew the right time to sell back in 2008. Of course, we will always thank Benjani for his winner against United at Old Trafford, but apart from that we didn’t get much return for the fee we paid Portsmouth. A terrible first touch will be my lasting memories of Benjani.

Sylvinho is another one that didn’t really work out. I don’t feel as if he ever got into the rhythm of the Premier League. His baptism of fire in League competition was away at Bolton, and what at baptism it was. We were defensively all over the place in that game, eventually drawing the match 3-3. Sylvinho I feel was more of a product of our new ‘big club’ relationship with Barcelona. I can’t ever see how he was a Hughes signing. Perhaps we signed Sylvinho to cure Robinho’s homesickness and instil a bit more discipline into the latter’s game? At any rate on the surface and in hindsight it feels like a worthless signing.

Finally, it is with a tint of regret that I see Valeri Bojinov appears to be leaving us to join Parma on a permanent basis. I always thought Bojinov was one of Sven’s better signings. He could have been great in the Premier League. Direct, powerful, a real bull heading up the attack. Injuring his cruciate ligaments against United in his first game meant that he never really got going. Once Mansour’s millions kicked in, there was always going to be limited chances for him at Eastlands now, but he deserves to be playing at a good club so I wish him the best of luck in Italy.

Once again, we return to that question
The big question come late August will be whether Roberto Mancini can forge these players into a team that wants to play for each other. The Italian missed out on 4^th and was rightly granted a reprieve, but he cannot afford any more big failures. In signing these players (and perhaps we aren’t done yet) the club hierarchy has once again delivered its part, now the coaching staff must deliver theirs. A bad start could see Mancini discarded much in the same way as Petrov et al.

Of course, there is another more haunting question at the back of my mind this summer: the prospect of Stephen Ireland moving to Manchester United. This is a story that refuses to go away. If the signing of David Silva had a catch, then this will surely be it. Thwarted in his pursuit of the Spaniard, Ferguson is rumoured to be focusing on signing Ireland. This is something that must not be allowed to happen. For one, the Irishman is an academy youth product. And for two, every City fan knows that Ferguson will only go and get the very best out of a player that has underachieved massively for the past season. That would surely be a spectre that would haunt us forever.