Nothing ever lasts forever

Wednesday was probably not a normal day in Manchester, but it was a normal day in Jakarta. 

I was sat in a heaving traffic jam, going nowhere as usual, when a motorcycle crawled past on my left with what looked like half a family on board. Scrunched in between his father and older brother there was a boy, wearing a Manchester United shirt with the name “Chicarito” on the back. I wondered if the boy knew about the day’s tumultuous events at his adopted club. Did he know that the most successful British manager had announced his retirement? Did he even know who Alex Ferguson was at all?

The key reason why a team from Newton Heath, Manchester has been able to connect with a boy in a city on the other side of the world lies in one man – Alex Ferguson. United were successful before Ferguson, but the projection of their success across the globe, which coincided perfectly with Sky TV and the popularity of the Premier League, has known no bounds under Ferguson.

Constant success is what fans in other countries covet and that’s why so many have nailed their colours to United’s mast. Whichever way you look at it, the root driver behind that success has been Ferguson. 

Without him, there would have been no such consistency at the club. That’s not to say United would not have won things, but they probably would not have enjoyed success to the extent they have. Without Ferguson, probably no penchant for staging comeback after comeback. Without Ferguson, probably no surpassing of Liverpool as the team to have won the most English league titles. Without Ferguson, probably no 1999 treble, which I think did so much to endear United to potential fans across the world.

In the Matt Busby era United won a few league titles, a couple of FA Cups and a European Cup. But Ferguson has long surpassed that and has taken the club from a very good level to a great level.

All of this has happened to the dismay of United’s rivals, especially Liverpool and, of course, Manchester City.

Perhaps City fans have had it the worst. As City plummeted down the leagues of England, Ferguson’s United kept on winning the top honours. Then, when City finally did win something  - albeit the Division 3 playoff final against Gillingham, United went and won the Champions League against Bayern Munich, as if to remind City fans that really, they’d won nothing at all.

Some might question why I have devoted a post to Ferguson on this blog, but in truth, as a City fan, you cannot ignore Ferguson. He has been a pillar of our discontent for many a year, a figure that we have all railed against at some point or another, a force from within Old Trafford that many of us have defined ourselves against. The archenemy, disliked even more than the players who pulled on red shirts. The Red Devil himself.

City fans have lived in Ferguson’s shadow for so long that they even concocted a song for him to cheer themselves up in the darker moments. I can hear it now, echoing off the walls of the pubs around the Etihad Stadium, amid the laughter on the dark afternoons when all other hope seemed lost:

“We’re having a party when Fergie dies, we’re having a party when Fergie dies, jelly and ice cream when Fergie dies, jelly and ice cream when Fergie dies, karaoke when Fergie dies, karaoke when Fergie dies,” and so on.

Some might call that a very dark kind of humour, but the song also reveals a grudging respect – the acknowledgement that City fans would only ever win when Ferguson was no longer at the helm of Old Trafford.

This is only partly true of course, given that last year City won the Premier League crown for the first time, and the way it was won, snatched from under the nose of Ferguson, could not have been sweeter. Of course, the Scot has had the last laugh, opting to leave just after he has delivered another title, but at least City did put a dent in his silverware collection with last year’s title, and at least City fans tasted victory at the direct expense of Ferguson before he went quietly into the night. 

Credit where credit is due, the Scot has seen off challenges from Liverpool, Arsenal, Chelsea and now City for the league, but now more challenges are emerging. Grasping victory today is so much harder then doing it five, 10 years ago. A decade ago no-one could have foreseen City becoming the force they have. Having already tasted the Premier League title, with formidable resources, City are now regrouping. Then you have the Blues of London – add Mourinho to the mix and Chelsea will also be resurgent. Everywhere you look, on every front, challenges, and all the while a man at the centre of it all, the determination still burning in his eyes but also the realisation that there is only so many challenges one can meet. 

A Liverpudlian band once sang “Nothing ever lasts forever”. Perhaps those words have been at the front of Ferguson’s mind for a while. The timing of his departure will have mattered much to him. Better to go now, still at the top, than to become mired in the next phase of English football where re-establishing dominance could be harder than ever.

It is not only the ability to win consistently that separates the good from the great, but the ability to recognise the right time to leave. Pep Guardiola did it at Barcelona – arguably with less fronts to fight on and with better players. Now Ferguson has done it at United.

And so the old enemy has gone. But will City fans, in a strange kind of way, harken back to the days when they had a clear target to rail at? Maybe, but I sense most would prefer to face a United team without Ferguson, rather than one with him at the helm. Most would rather forget this era. Most will miss ol’ Baconface like a hole in the head.

Dark Blue

It started in defeat, it ended in defeat, and there was nothing to shout about in between. That’s the short, gloomy story of City’s 2012-13 Champions League campaign.

It’s difficult to draw any positives, other than the fact that the squad has gained more of the much-vaunted “European experience” that some quarters say is so essential in these kinds of situations.

Last year, one result ended up killing us – it was the 1-1 draw at home to Napoli. If we have won that, we’d have been into the knockout stages at the first time of asking. This year, three draws at home effectively gave us no chance, but by the time we came to the last of those home fixtures – against Real Madrid – the momentum was already lost.

And it had all started so well.

Travelling to Madrid for our very first match of Group D was no easy task, but by the 86th minute we were 2-1 up and heading for a historic victory. Five minutes later it had all gone wrong, a trademark Cristiano Ronaldo strike putting us to the sword, and we went home empty handed.  Looking back, that result was our Napoli result this time around, and we never recovered.

We could have put things back on track two weeks later, at home to Borussia Dortmund, but we came away with a point.  Then came the hammer blow. With the next two games coming first away and then home against Ajax, I think a lot of fans expected us to get things back on track with six points. Instead – once again - we only managed one, and things came apart.

But it’s one thing looking at the results and another to look at the performances – this is the real concern. Things were always going to be tough against Real, but we capitulated in the Bernabeu. We were played off the park at the Etihad against Dortmund. We lost a winning position away at Ajax, and then had to come from 2-0 down at home against the Dutch team to salvage a point. You can’t be going 2-0 down at home against the weakest team of the group and expect much in return.

There was a lot of debate surrounding the final game against Dortmund. Some fans wanted us to go for the win, snatch third spot in Group D and then qualify for the Europa League. Others wanted us to lose, finish bottom of the group and thus not qualify for a competition they saw as second grade, a distraction to our league and FA cup push.

Of course, the latter got their wish, and along with it came the record of being the lowest-ever Champions League group points total returned by an English club. That’s not a record I’m proud of.

A run to the latter stages of the Europa League would have also increased our UEFA coefficient, which in the long term will spare us the fortune of being lumped with a group as hard as the ones we’ve had to endure. Now we won’t have the chance to do that, and will instead likely have to face Group of Death part three next year.

We have of course also been unlucky with the draw in both years. I’m not an expert on UEFA coefficients, but this year, the likes of Malaga ranking (66th) and Montpellier’s (97th) are well below City’s (19th), and yet because of the luck of the draw, they got distinctly easier groups that City did. Drawing Dortmund in Pot 4 was the killer.  We could have had Cluj, instead we got the German champions. The margin of error in the Champions League is slim at best, but for us – this year - it was minute.

But we can whine on about draws all we want. For the money that has been lavished on this squad, for the facilities they have, for the player care department that pampers to their every need, there is no excuse – this Champions League has gone badly wrong for us.

Given our recent history, some will say we should be grateful to be in the Champions League at all. But that's a loser's view. We weren't there to make up the numbers.

One thing’s for sure – this early exit won’t have been in the 10-year plan of Mansour and Khaldoon. They invest in progress, not regression. And so for this club not to be involved in European football is surely unacceptable for the men from Abu Dhabi, the men who usually win, whatever they turn their hand to.

So now all eyes turn to the men in Manchester, who are tasked with winning. Inevitably, questions will be asked of them and of their leader, Roberto Mancini. The Champions League monkey on his back just got a whole lot bigger. Remaining in the Europa would have lessened the media/fan focus that is now going be brought with full force on City’s every move on the domestic front.

Silverware is managerial oxygen at the Etihad these days, and Mancini’s options are getting blocked off. He needs to keep winning – its as simple as that.

I’ve written before about Mancini’s days of judgment nearing. Those first set of judgments – a top four finish, winning a cup, and then winning the league – he passed with flying colours. But football waits for no man and now further judgments are on their way.

The team is at a defining point of their season. They’ve come nowhere near reaching the heights of last year and at times have looked a bit labored and out of ideas when the magic of David Silva is not around.

The wreckage of the Champions League lies around them, but somehow, the English Champions must put that ordeal behind them, find strength in adversity, and steal themselves for the task that now lies ahead.

Just look down the road – isn’t that what champions do?

The history men

At the end of this season’s Charity Shield, Wayne Rooney said that Manchester United had taught City a footballing lesson. If that was a lesson, then yesterday, City returned the favour  with interest. Only this was something more akin to an education.

It is rare indeed that United find themselves on the receiving end of a defeat so emphatic, but there’s no other way of looking at it. Yesterday, United were hammered 6-1 in their own back yard. And I’m not even being partisan there either. This was Manchester City at their very, very best and United couldn’t cope. It’s a wonder the stands of Old Trafford coped with the Poznan too, such were the amount of times City fan were called upon to observe it.

The game had a familiar feel about it in the opening exchanges. United were out of the blocks quicker and were harrying us all over the pitch. Whenever we tried to search for the outlet, they closed us down. We defended well though, largely restricting United to shots from distance.

And that resolute defence was just as important as the flair we showed going forward.  Vincent Kompany and Joleon Lescott were solid. Indeed, perhaps the more disturbing element of this match for United fans was not the fact that they were cut wide open. If they are honest, they perhaps know that defensively, they are not at their optimum. Maybe the more level headed United fan might even say that they had this coming, but on balance, attack has for the most part got them out of jail. So it follows, that the most disturbing element here for them was the way we controlled that attack. Apart from Darren Fletcher’s excellent strike, only Jonny Evans came close.

When you are under the cosh at Old Trafford, finding an outlet is key. For those first 20-odd minutes or so we couldn’t really find it. And then? Enter Mario Balotelli, with a superb strike from an excellent Milner cross that outwitted the United defence. We were on our way.

I have to say there can be no complaints for the sending off either. Evans was left for dead, and Balotelli would surely have netted. De Gea is good, but he is not Van Der Sar just yet because he does not have the presence. Then the rest was history, as United were blown away. And talking about history, the Blues created quite a bit of it on the way. How about 81 years since United let in six at home in the league? That’s unbelievable.

And at the centre of it all, the irrepressible, the magical, the sensational David Silva. The Spaniard played out of his skin. The pass he gave Edin Dzeko for the final goal was out of this world, something to die for. That pass, and the Spaniard’s goal, were the icing on the cake. It could have easily been seven or eight.

The unofficial United mantra of ‘strength in adversity’ went out of the window here. Instead, they just got weaker and weaker. As Joe Hart said, United were already bleeding when Evans brought down Balotelli. All that was required then was for us to administer the diagnosis. And boy did we go in for the kill.

We did exactly what we needed to do. 2.0, 3.0. Then came the Fletcher goal, a glimmer of hope, a comeback to end all comebacks. And the answer? 4.1. Want some more? 5.1. And by the way there’s a sixth for afters. Crushed. This was an utter Derby humiliation, on a completely different level to that of 1989.

This is the way to play against United at OT. In general, in the past United have been rewarded for being United: positive, going forward, with the belief that they can salvage almost any cause. But every team has its limits. Here’s they got punished for showing those exact same values – they got punished for doing the exact thing that has got them out of jail on so many occasions. They got punished for being United.

The unusual thing was, they didn’t seem to understand what was happening to them. As Ferguson alluded, they were probably guilty of believing their own hype. In trying to hold true to the idea of United, they only did themselves more damage. But in the end, all empires overstretch their reach. It will happen to Barcelona one day, and it happened to United here – in the worst possible circumstances.

The stock response of many United fans: "its only three points", shows how little they really have to say about this hammering. What they should be saying is: "fair play". They know they can’t complain. Sometimes you just have to take it on the chin and respect the fact that you were beaten by the better team. Mancini is right to be humble. United are reeling now, but they won’t need any more galvanising. We know they’ll come back at us.

Nothing has really changed at this point in terms of the league.  United are still the favourites because they are the champions, and we’re still incomparable to them on that front because they’ve done it so many times whilst for all those years we fought amongst ourselves, got relegated and sacked managers. As Mancini said, things will only start to change once we secure that first league title.

But the context surrounding City and United has changed, its impossible to deny. On and off the pitch, this is a different City nowadays. Ferguson can only label us as noisy neighbours for so long. To be honest, we’ve been a whole lot more than that for sometime. Remember the 4-3 at Old Trafford? Remember the Carling Cup Semi Final defeat at Old Trafford? And now this. In the wider context, of course things have changed. To deny that is to be out of touch.

One thing’s for sure, the return leg at the Etihad Stadium will be an explosive affair. We’ve certainly given them something to think about.

This was us at our best. Aside from the mercurial Silva, Milner was also another standout performer. Aguero and Balotelli were as menacing as ever. Mario is still one for the future, I don’t think we can rely on him 100% yet, but his performance here and in previous matches proves that his mindset has changed somewhat. That’s not to say he won’t go and take five steps backwards. But that’s part of the madness of Prince Mario. Here United couldn’t control him. The Italian is explosive, that much is true. He has that little bit extra that you know could make him great. Unpredictability, audacity. If channelled in the right direction, Balotelli could be formidable.

Ditto for Sergio Aguero. This lad is the one to watch for me. Aguero has the look of a man that will win us serious trophies. I like his style: a true footballing brain and a glint in the eye that says he is up for the fight too. This is where our special added value will come this season. If he can stay clear of injury, then it’s going to be a better year than last for sure.

And as for Mancini – his hand continues to strengthen at the club. I have great respect for the Italian. He’s a professional and he took this victory like a professional. He has proved his doubters wrong this season. I think everyone has been surprised with just how progressive we have been since August. It is a different City than last year, a more optimistic side, more adventurous. Mancini is still experimenting, pushing the limits of what we can do going forward. And credit to him for doing that. To build a Premier League dynasty, we need to strike a balance between the flair of Arsenal, the pragmatism of Chelsea and the ruthlessness of United. It’s a task of the highest order, but Mancini is certainly moving towards that. He has to be praised for doing that.

If we’d have had an indifferent start to the season, playing with the same defensive mindset, the anti-Mancini faction would have grown, such is the short termism in football these days. But the Italian has nipped that in the bud. He’s the man who ended our 35 years trophy drought. He’s the man who led us into the Champions League. He’s the man who has just issued United with probably their worst ever Derby defeat, at Old Trafford. He’s already in the history books.

1955, 1989 and now 2011. I was there at Maine Road in 1989 when we beat United 5-1. It’s one of the clearest memories of my childhood – being passed over the barrier in the North Stand because some United fans had got in and were causing trouble. But I must admit, even though I watched this demolition in a bar in Jakarta, this day was so much better.

It was one of the greatest and will be for quite some time to come. Good to know too, that this defeat still means an awful lot to some people. Now, we must move on, get our heads down, and carry on with the job.

Mancini must find Derby cure for City’s identity disorder

It’s that time again. This weekend, we’ll renew our rivalry with United at Old Trafford. Over the past few years, Manchester Derbies have tended to be rip-roaring affairs. It’s impossible to know which way this one will go, but there’s bound to be passion and controversy somewhere along the way.

That passion has become super charged because of the narrative that is building this season. It’s a story of two Manchester clubs (albeit with one technically just outside the city of Manchester), one that continues to grasp the Premier League crown and one that edges closer to it season upon season. For the neutral, it is fast becoming one of the most compelling club fixtures of the world game, even if Ferguson would have people believe otherwise.

I can’t remember when we last visited Old Trafford as clear league leaders, but I know that this only serves to add further spice to what is an already explosive Derby cauldron. As we were in the Charity Shield, at Old Trafford we will be cast as the new pretenders, arriving at the swamp with our title credentials established. Even though we had kaept pace with United on points for weeks, we were still denied top spot on goal difference because of United’s 8-2 freak hammering of Arsenal. Even when we dealt out a demolition to Spurs, it seemed that we still couldn’t best our rivals. That of course is the superficial view, and ignores the context surrounding both fixtures. But now, with United drawing at Anfield, and City hammering Villa 4-1, we will arrive at Old Trafford as clear league leaders, both on points and on goal difference.

In reality, being ahead by one point and being slightly ahead on goal difference means little at this point in the season. All it means is bragging rights for City fans at OT. As soon as the game kicks off, all of that will disappear.

Football suffers from so much short termism these days. One week, teams, managers and players are the best thing since sliced bread, the next they can be cast as villains, sometimes even outcasts. Various forms of media, including the likes of this blog, are all guilty of fuelling that short termism.

But one argument that does not throw wood on that fire is the view that City are once again a different side to the one that faced United last season. At the risk of falling foul of short termism, a great case in point was this week’s Champions League game against Villareal. I’m sure most fans expected us to coast it, but it didn’t turn out that way. The Spanish side shocked us with an early goal, and then all of a sudden, come the 93^rd minute, we were staring at another draw and likely early exit from the competition.

And then up pops Sergio Aguero, in the 94^th minute, to give us the three points we so badly needed. It’s becoming a cliché, but City teams of old just would not have done that. It’s down to belief. With belief, you put yourself in the right positions in order to affect a change. You force things, but you do so in an intelligent way. In fact, I thought that Aguero’s strike, and maybe the team’s overall performance, even bore shades of Manchester United.

United have been doing that – forcing the play in intelligent ways – for years. Not playing well, but yet still coming away with the required result. Anyone who has ever won anything will acknowledge that it’s what all the best teams do.

And that why we must not start to believe our own hype at Old Trafford. For we are not the only narrative builders in this league. Ferguson has been building a narrative of his own for decades – its called 19^th league titles – and we are the latest threat to that narrative. For years, United wanted to knock Liverpool off their perch. But now, make no mistake about it, they will want to put us right back in our box.

I hear City fans talking up our chances at the swamp, looking at United’s recent performances, and I honestly wonder whether City fans have learnt anything from our battles with United over recent years. It a complete and utter mistake to draw comfort from United’s recent performances. They may well have been performing below par, against the likes of Stoke, Basel, Norwich and Liverpool, but it doesn’t matter. They are still picking up points. They may well have a suspect defence, but somehow United always seem find a way to up their game. And I’m sure they will do so again when we face them this weekend.

It would be great to issue United a resounding defeat. In a sense we’ve a right to hope for that, as we’ll be racking up at the swamp with some heavy artillery in tow. But when was the last time United took a hammering? It doesn’t happen often, and Ferguson is the reason why. When it comes to the crunch, United rarely let their guard down.

We mustn’t let our guard down either. And I don’t know how Mancini will go about that at OT. There’s only two ways I believe he can do it. The first is to approach the game as the City of last season: safety first, keeping things tight and trying to nick a goal. The second is to approach the game as the City of this season: offensive, progressive, playing fluid football, striking quickly, effectively, efficiently.

Go too defensive, and we will keep it tight whilst having the players to hurt United on the counter, but here we will also run the risk of inviting too much pressure, which you don’t do against United.

Go too offensive, and we give United something to think about at the back but leave ourselves open in the process, which given United’s penchant for counter-attacking, could prove disastrous.

I honestly think that Mancini is damned if he does and damned if he doesn’t. Win, and he’ll be lauded as a tactical genius. Lose, and he’ll either be labelled too cautious or too naïve.

The answer, as it often does, probably lies in balancing of City’s split personality. And for once, that should give City fans more cause for hope than they usually have at OT. Because for once, I sense that this match is more about the personality of City than it is of United. More about how the Blue side of Manchester acts and how the Red side reacts, than the other way around.

We’ll see soon enough.