Rolling back the years?

Yesterday's 2-2 draw against Fulham felt more like a capitulation than a draw. Walking away from Eastlands on a cold, wet Sunday evening, the first questions that came to mind were as follows. Was this an aberration? Or have we just taken a massive step back into last season?

I try not to be a pessimist, nor the fan who has a short memory. Our start to the season has been excellent. But the manner of this draw brought back some unwanted memories. The bloke on my left summed it up. At 2-2, with Fulham looking decent value for the winner, he turned to his mate, sighed, and uttered the words: “I’ll settle for a point.”

The reality is that we should not be settling for a point. We really should not be going to 2-0 up at home and then drawing games, not with this squad of players.

The defence
Clearly still not right, and by today’s standards there appears to be some way to go before we are talking top four. The warning signs were there in the first half when Bobby Zamora ballooned an effort over the bar from yards out and with Given sprawling. The concentration of Micah Richards worries me. He was in no mans land in terms of stopping the cross that led to the first Fulham goal. Clint Dempsey’s equaliser was down to the central defensive pairing, and if I was pushed to name names I’d point the finger at Joleon Lescott.

And let’s also not forget that Fulham had the chances to win the match.

The really worrisome point is that our current defensive frailties are beginning to stand out. I don’t have much tactical nous, but if I were the next opposition manager to visit Eastlands, I’d certainly tell my centre forwards to get in amongst Toure and Lescott and pressurise them at all costs.

The midfield
We know what Fulham are about. They are about patient, disciplined football, two banks of four. Mistakes are kept to a minimum. The left hand knows what the right is doing. For this reason I think a midfield combination of Barry and Ireland would’ve been more potent. De Jong has been playing very well, and away from home when we are certain to be under the cosh we need him. But I think we need to be more ambitious at home against non-top four teams. Hughes talked about the need to shift around Fulham’s formation, manoeuvre it out of shape to create space to play into. With two defensive minded, tidy midfield players in Barry and De Jong, I think we gave ourselves less of a chance to accomplish this. Petrov was the positive in this department – his switches of play were good, but we didn’t take advantage of them.

The other side to the defensive-offensive midfield debate is that we already had four very potent attackers on the field in the form of Tevez, Adebayor, Petrov and Bellamy. So to place another offensive minded player – like Ireland – on the pitch would be a big risk against a Fulham team looking to hit us on the counter. It is swings and roundabouts. We all know Hughes has a conundrum on his hands tweaking the team against every new opponent. Perhaps sometimes there can be too many options on the table for a manager that has, in the past, been forced to work with very limited resources.

The attack
Tevez was the better striker in the first half. He created a few chances for others and had two very good scoring opportunities himself. I certainly admire the Argentinean for all his toil, but the £25.5m man should be putting away these opportunities.

Adebayor was off form. He wasn’t on the ball enough, we didn’t see enough of his power and pace, nor his ability to run at defenders. And whilst I’m harping on about Adebayor, I’ll also say that for a big man he doesn’t win enough headers for my liking. Still, his talent is so huge that he should’ve made a bigger impact on this game.

Implications
This result was all the more disappointing because of the results around us. A win would’ve seen us jump to third place, making ground on United due to their Anfield defeat, and overtaking Arsenal, Spurs and Liverpool. Fulham are a good team, but we should be putting them away at home if we want to think about nicking fourth and / or beyond.

I don’t want to sound overly negative. It is still early days and we have hardly lost touch with the top four. Arsenal drew – albeit away from home - in a very similar fashion yesterday and of course Spurs were defeated at White Hart Lane against Stoke – which must have been a real gutter for them. Perhaps all of this is evidence that the league is changing in the sense that it will be a tighter affair this time around. I hope that is the case, rather than the other more depressing scenario that despite so much investment, the Blues are still in the business of throwing away games like the City teams of yesteryear.

Fragility and greatness: the return of Michael Johnson

The first quarter of the season has brought many positives for Manchester City, perhaps none more satisfying than the return of academy product Michael Johnson.

The young midfielder made a substitute appearance in the 3-1 win against West Ham and was then on the bench for the visits to Aston Villa and Wigan Athletic. If he keeps his fitness and continues along his current path, a regular place in the first team squad must beckon. This represents a fantastic achievement for the lad from Urmston.

Flashes of greatness: a new talent emerges

Since breaking into the City first team in 2004, Johnson has already experienced much of what the game has to offer. Initially, these came in the form of unforgettable highs. It was playing in Sven-Goran Erikisson’s free-flowing, high octane, high risk attack of the early 2007/08 season where Johnson really made his mark, scoring the winning goal in a 1-0 win over Derby County.

Picking up the ball at the halfway line, Johnson showed his guile by rounding the opposition midfielder, his strength by brushing away the oncoming challenge, his linkup play by interchanging passes with Elano, his first touch by deftly knocking the Brazilian’s pass into a goal scoring position, and finally his goal scoring instinct, as (in full stride) he struck the ball with the outside of his boot and curled it around the keeper into the back of the net.

Irrespective of the opposition, the strike was immense and indeed was all the more so because it represented so much more than a goal. It represented a player who had the whole package. Later, Johnson went on to score a similar goal against Aston Villa. Surrounded with the new, exciting talent of the Eriksson era, the world was at Michael Johnson’ feet.

Rumour and injury: the nightmare begins

But that world soon shattered. Soon after Johnson scored his wonder goals he was sidelined with a reoccurring abdominal injury. At first the midfielder was out for a short period, but further abdominal problems eventually caused him to miss the majority of last season.

And then rumours began to emerge that all was not well with the young midfielder. For someone who was attempting to get fit, he was supposedly being seen far too much in the wrong places at the wrong hours. With the club struggling to get to bottom of his injury, the lad was losing his way. Hughes’ assistant Mark Bowen could’ve been interpreted to indicate as much when he gave an interview to the Daily Telegraph in December 2008:

“Michael is a young lad who has been unlucky. He has had a nagging injury that has held him back. When Michael in on the training ground and is focused he is a fantastic asset for this club. When young players have been in and out of action as long as he has it can mess your mind up a little bit because they just want to be out there playing. He has just got to be strong, fight through it, train hard and get back in the team. In the early part of the season he was a big player for us and we miss him.”

Seeing Johnson interviewed about his fitness on Sky Sports News, it was easy to believe that he had lost his way. He looked extremely uncomfortable and nervous, and it was clear for all to see that he had gained a lot of weight.

The Bell albatross

Johnson’s build, gait, footballing attributes and surging runs into the box from midfield positions earned him comparisons with Steven Gerard. But the heftier comparison came in the form of Colin Bell, for many fans the greatest player ever to play for the club.

The sidelines of a football pitch are a lonely furrow to plough for any player, but for one such as Johnson, such a young boy with the weight of Bell on his shoulders, I suspect those furrows were immense. To add to this, he has had to sit and watch the unprecedented upheavals that have taken place at the club over the last year. Witnessing the City midfield get stronger with every transfer window – first Kompany, then De Jong, then Barry, whilst excellent additions for the average fan, certainly cannot have been good news for the returning Johnson. With his starting place in midfield long gone, he was in real danger of being overtaken by bigger events.

A welcome romance

However fragile, Johnson’s re-emergence in pre-season, coupled with his return to first team action must be taken as a huge positive. Hughes and his team must also take some credit. In these situations, I believe mental toughness is just as important as physical fitness. Indeed, I think the stronger you are mentally, the less likely you are to get seriously injured. It has been no surprise to see Hughes building up Johnson’s confidence, first talking of the midfielder’s great potential and then speaking of how Johnson started so well in the early days of the Hughes regime before his major injury. Knowing full well that the minds of idle young men can wander, the key for Hughes and his team has been making Johnson still feel wanted, still feel as if he has a major part to play in City’s future. I think they have got it exactly right. Johnson’s pre-season return prompted Hughes into this statement:

"I thought it was a good exercise for us, a lot of players had good periods, but a big positive was Michael Johnson getting through 45 minutes. We are absolutely delighted with that. I was really pleased with what he was able to produce in that time. If we can get him back at anywhere near the level that we know he is capable of then it's like an extra player for us this year.”

I couldn’t agree more. The academy has produced some good graduates in recent years. Micah Richards, blistering when he first emerged, has since hit a sustained patch of inconsistency. If Nedum Onouha keeps on building up his game in the quiet and assured way that he has to date, he is certain to become a formidable international-class defender. Stephen Ireland has become a vital cog in the City engine room, attracting attention even from Old Trafford. Ireland’s dynamism, footballing brain, energy and goals make him a cut above most players. You can see from his performances that he is ready for the Champions League. And then of course we have the raw talent of Daniel Sturridge, spirited away by the clutches of Ancelotti’s Chelsea. All of these players are good. Some are excellent. Others outstanding. But Johnson is better. With the ability to do it all, he has the potential to reach the greatness that City fans would like nothing better to see coming from one of their own.

And this is where the real romance of Johnson’s return emerges. The midfielder is special not only because of his footballing abilities but because he may buck the wider trend of the club in recent times. He is the young, homegrown talent that we as City fans all want to see mix it with the rest of the expensively assembled squad. If he could rise to this challenge, it would be proof that, through the mediocre years since returning to the Premiership, the academy really was capable of producing the kind of class that could compete at the top of the game.

Of course, rising to that challenge is one thing. Overcoming it is something else. The task facing Johnson is bigger than the task facing Richards or Shaun Wright-Phillips for the simple reason that he is coming into probably the most highly competitive area of the team. But if can get fit and stay fit, he stands a great chance of overcoming the barriers of first team selection that stand in his way, just as John Terry and Steven Gerard overcame similar hurdles.

A fit again Michael Johnson will bring another dimension to a squad that it already hugely talented. Questions of fragility remain, but I am sure I would not be alone by saying that I for one would like nothing more than to see him answer those questions that are now surely heading his way.

The season so far

Any reasonably minded City fan cannot really complain. Eight competitive games played, seven won. Its been a strong start to the new season. Actually, no. Its been more than strong. The victory against West Ham makes it our best league start since 1961.

The defeat of Arsenal

The real high so far has been the 4-2 defeat of Arsenal, a match that will go down in Eastlands history because of the intensity in which it was played and controversy that it produced. The skill, pace and power of Emmanuel Adebayor is something that City fans should cherish. Such a shame for these talents to be dampened by the attack on Robin van Persie. I am not fully convinced that the Arsenal striker’s head was the intended target, but that Adebayor went for some part of van Persie is not in doubt. Seen in the longue duree of the game, the actions of the former Arsenal man become a bit more understandable. The intensity that Wenger’s men directed towards Adebayor was there for all to see. But stamping on another player is not the way to do business and I have no qualms over his ban.

The hatred that existed between Adebayor and the Arsenal fans before the game has now surely been increased tenfold by that infamous goal celebration. Lost in the rhythms of a highly charged game it was a stupid thing to do, but also I think excusable. Of course, that is much easier to say when you are on the winning side. And I will always be biased of course.

The mainstay of our success

If the goals of Adebayor represent the icing on the cake of a season that has started so well, it has been the energy, concentration and pure footballing savvy of players like Gareth Barry that represent the foundation upon which this early success has been built.

Clearly this is an area in which the team has massively improved. Grinding out wins against the likes of Blackburn, Portsmouth, Crystal Palace and Fulham means that the team is already displaying a resilience that I have never seen in twenty-odd years of supporting City. Barry’s ball pursuit, ball retention and ball distribution skills are not only of a very high quality but are also consistent. Moreover, they seem to have spread throughout the team. Although it was against lesser opposition, the Palace game is the best example of this new kind of tenacity. Palace gave us a hell of a game, and attacked with bags of energy and speed. City teams of old would have withered under this style of play – that this City team didn’t is highly encouraging.

A Derby to remember

What a match. I disagreed with all the media hype surrounding this fixture – that it was a judgement on whether we were going to be real challengers to United’s title. People forget that Derby games are never a good measure of where the two teams are at. It’s a cliché, but form really does go out of the window. We’ve gone to Old Trafford in the past with much lesser teams and have got much better results, so I don’t accept linking the outcome of this fantastic game to the position of City’s project.

Irrespective of the injury time (or should that be Taggart Time) controversy, I really believe that this was a game that we should have got more out of. After a shaky start, we equalised and ended up dominating the first half. After the break we were our own worst enemy, with the very qualities that have brought us so much success (ball pursuit, retention and distribution) deserting us for the best part of the second half. In this desertion lay the real reason for our defeat, not the supposedly sublime attacking talent of United. They are clearly a top side, but the mistakes we made coupled with our inability to keep hold of the ball meant that United were able to press and press. Goals were thus inevitable.

The real sublime attacking talent of this game came in the form of Craig Bellamy. The Welshman was already on blob with his fizzing strike against Arsenal, but his goals at Old Trafford were a step up again. It will be interesting to see what happens when Robinho returns to the squad. For me, the Brazillian will need to do something to warrant starting ahead of Bellamy. Still, this is what we want – competition for places all over the pitch.

Having come back for the third time it was difficult to stomach coming away from Old Trafford with nothing. For Owen to score the winner will go some way towards justifying Ferguson’s gamble on a gambling man. Irrespective of what Ferguson may say of the Manchester rivalry, his joy at the final whistle showed just how much it meant to put one over on City. For me, Ferguson can enjoy this victory all he wants, but I think we stand an excellent chance of returning the favour at Eastlands.

The departure of Richard Dunne

From the moment our new owners were installed, the future of Richard Dunne, one of City’s most reliable servants of recent times, was in doubt. His move to Aston Villa on transfer deadline day was unsurprising, but for me was tinged with a little bit of sadness at the way in which he exited the club.

There is little room for sentimentality in football, and I accept that in footballing terms Richard Dunne was not the long term answer for the Manchester City of the future. But it is sad when you hear rumours of Garry Cook attempting to sell the City captain behind his back. We may never know the extent of the truth behind Dunne’s words, but I tend to believe him. There has been a bad taste in the mouth ever since a bullish Cook spoke in August 2008 of the need to replace steady, workmanlike players such as Dunne with global footballing superstars: “China and India are gagging for football content to watch and we’re going to tell them that City is their content. We need a superstar to get through that door. Richard Dunne doesn’t roll off the tongue in Beijing. Ronaldinho brings access to major sponsors and financial reward.”

Cook may well have been speaking the truth, but his comments were reckless and potentially highly disruptive. Speaking about the club captain in this way also showed a complete lack of respect – a word that City’s current owners seem to quite big on. Finally, Cook’s comments showed a lack of understanding. Dunne was the best thing about City up until very recently, with four player of the year awards in a row telling a story. The defender was a rock of stability in what was, at times, an extremely volatile and turbulent environment.

If Dunne is right, and Cook was trying to force a move behind the Irishman’s back, then this shows poor form. It is also surprising, given how savvy and in-touch the club seems to have been with everything else.

Good luck Dunney. You were good, but in the end you were the victim of wider machinations. Thanks for the massive effort over the years.

Conn’s trilogy

Our newfound prominence in the English game has given rise to some fantastic City analysis in the papers, coming in the shape of three big articles from The Guardian’s David Conn. Here’s some points I found interesting from Conn’s reporting:

The New Owners: for big business, for prestige, and for the love of the game

Conn’s first report focuses on the new owner of the club and his objectives. Sheikh Mansour bin Zayed al-Nahyan is said by his friend and City Chairman, Khaldoon al-Mubarak, to have wanted to buy the club for two central reasons. One is the Sheikh’s supposed love of football, the irresistible pull of embarking on a “great football journey” that will finally bring sustained success to a club that has always underachieved.

The other motivation sounds much more realistic: to develop a business capable of reaping a long term (and probably lucrative) returns. But it doesn’t end there. Conn sheds light upon the really fascinating element of the deal: how City appear to have become a tool of the UAE’s foreign policy. Although the Sheikh is a businessman, and his purchase of the club has been a private one, his position as a member of the ruling family of Abu Dhabi also makes him a political figure. The nature of the Premier League meant that when Mansour’s deal became public knowledge, it became global public knowledge, a tool for Mansour to communicate with a new global audience. And herein lies the politics. The takeover of Manchester is now playing a big part in the global prestige of Abu Dhabi and, therefore, the UAE. The words of our Chairman echo this: “We are acknowledging that how we are handling this project is telling a lot to the world about who we are. The UAE is different from other Arab countries. People think the Arab world is one, but it is not. This is showing the world the true essence of who Abu Dhabi is and what Abu Dhabi is about.”

Khaldoon goes on to describe how the new Manchester-Abu Dhabi connection is much more than about football: “The reception from day one, from the fans, has been absolutely incredible. There is an element of bridge-building, of understanding, between the Arab world and England. It was never intended. The intent was business and football, but it has come along, as part of this journey.”

Disarray and disrepair: how we almost lost everything

Conn’s second instalment is perhaps the most alarming read. Here he analyses the last days of the Shinawatra regime, seeing as it did the appointment of Hughes as Manager and Cook as Chief Executive.

The revelation here comes in the form of Hughes’ naivety, and his admission that he nearly walked away from the club. Then Chairman Thaksin Shinawatra was clearly a wealthy man – perhaps even a billionaire – but his murky political background meant that he was facing corruption charges in his home country of Thailand. And that in turn meant that up to $2BN worth of his wealth was frozen by the Thai government, which was bad for City – and Hughes.

“The reality wasn’t exactly what was described and sold to me,” said the Welshman. That may be so, but one would’ve thought that one could work things out. As Conn reports, Shinawatra had after all been facing the charges since 2006. Clearly, for a manager coming into the fray the picture was not transparent. My view is that Hughes took a gamble.

Then there was the club infrastructure. Hughes quickly realised that the training facilities were shot and in addition was having to address suspicious goings-on within the club in the form of attempts to sell players behind his back.

The bottom line is that there was no money. The by now infamous cash flow story – when former chairman John Wardle has to loan the club £2M in order to pay playing personnel – it completely true. We were on the edge of a precipice, the worst debacle in the club’s history.

Should we be surprised? Probably not. We were living up to the ‘typical-City’ tag after all. The difference this time was that instead of there being mistakes made on the field, there was mistake after mistake made off it – and with a good deal of stupidity thrown into the pot.

As Conn appears to suggest, it started with Wardle and Makin. Why did our previous owners even think about selling the club to a man facing wholesale corruption charges? Here were two men that were bailing out of a sinking ship.

The cacophony of errors carried on with Cook. “I deeply regretted my failure to do proper research on Thaksin,” said the City Chief Exec. I cannot understand how a former Nike Brand Jordan president fails to do the research on his next employer.

The real twist of it all is this – would there have been Mansour without Shinawatra? Indirectly, Wardle and Makin may have just delivered us into the most financially powerful football club on earth. And there’s a twist with Hughes and Cook too. Despite their naiveties Shinawatra actually delivered the club two very talented individuals. I doubt whether Mansour would’ve appointed either, but as it happens the Sheikh has stuck by both because of the qualities they bring to the club.

We shouldn’t be surprised, for the simple reason that this was City – ‘typical City’ – a club capable of plundering the depths and touching the heavens in the same sentence. But strangely enough, things have somehow fallen into place.

Culture wars: the exorcism of ‘typical City’

Conn finishes his trilogy by detailing how the Hughes-Cook-Khaldoon axis has set about revamping the culture of the club, curing the ‘typical City’ disease.

For Hughes, it is about stamping out the bad habits of the previous regime. These include eradicating a cliquey dressing room that had been allowed to become so through Eriksson’s signings. Of course, here we are talking about Elano. Part of Hughes’ solution to this has already been well documented – offering the squad a ‘no-excuses culture’ – or in other words giving them everything they need to perform to best of their ability in every game so that there is no opportunity for them to whine. It is also about developing greater linkage between the youth academy and the senior squad, giving our younger players key opportunities to learn from top quality professionals in the first team. There are certainly a lot of latter about at present.

For Cook and Khaldoon, it is about thinking big off the field – something City have never done. In Conn’s previous articles, Khaldoon has talked about how he found the infrastructure of the club ‘unacceptable’ upon arrival. New, top line gym and treatment rooms were in place weeks after Khaldoon first set foot in Manchester. For Khaldoon also, it is about what image the club is projecting. Conn draws attention to this by emphasising a lengthy debate between Khaldoon and Hughes over the signing of Bellamy. The Chairman was clearly not convinced by this target and Hughes most likely had to do a bit of explaining to get his man. Khaldoon’s unwillingness to immediately yield could’ve been to do with footballing reasons, but I doubt it. It could’ve been to do with Bellamy’s chequered medical history perhaps. There’s a business dimension too: I can’t see Bellamy’s shirt sales competing with the likes of Robinho’s. But I also think that image also played a part. The Welsh striker has a history of disciplinary problems. Did we really want to sign a player who did not seem capable of channelling his aggression in the right direction? Did we really want to sign a player that appeared to be incompatible with some of the values of Abu Dhabi as outlined by Khaldoon himself: commitment, discipline and respect? At the moment Hughes is being proved right.

Cook’s role in the exorcism comes in the form of thinking globally, something that was embodied by the audacious move for Kaka. A big buzz word for Cook must be ‘ambition’. We may have ultimately failed, but as a club we showed massive ambition by lodging a bid for probably the most talented player in the world at the height of his powers. Moreover, the bid was credible and could’ve gone through given the right climate. Off the pitch, Manchester City has never thought bigger or had as much bottle in its entire history.

This exercise in exorcism is about mobilising the resources of the club to achieve three interlocking objectives: making big money, winning big trophies and projecting a positive image of Abu Dhabi worldwide.

All of this seems light years away from the days of Peter Swales. And it is.

Lack of activity

It is already clear how eventful this season is going to be for City fans.

Because of this, I feel I must apologise for the distinct lack of activity on this blog of late. Lets face it, over the last few weeks there has been reams and reams of material to write about, all of which has been has been brilliantly analysed by the City blog community, the links to which can be found on the right.

This blog is far from been consigned to the dreaded dustbin of blog inactivity. I've been a bit busy of late, but watch for incoming posts soon.

Blue Dawn

A new Premiership season is on our doorstep. For City fans, it is perhaps the most eagerly anticipated season in the club’s history. Do we step forward into a new, exciting era? Or has nothing really changed? Will we forever be consigned with the ‘typical City’ disease? The answers are coming.

In the league, I predict that we will finish in 6th place. Our first opponents, Blackburn, will represent a tough test. Indeed, Allardyce and his men are already talking of a tough battle that lies ahead.

If Hughes had bought fresh talent from the likes of La Liga / Serie A / Bundesliga, then I could understand the threats currently being levelled at City’s newcomers. What we all know of course is that Hughes has done the exact opposite. The assertion that Blackburn will ‘kick lumps’ out of City does not completely stand up given than they will be facing a team of weathered Premiership professionals. Clearly the game is City’s to lose and the key question mark hangs over the team’s ability to understand and gel with each other under competitive Premiership conditions.

The biggest unknown
There’s been a lot said over Mark Hughes’ job prospects. There is no doubt that there is big pressure now on the Welshman and his team. Many – including an increasingly irate David Moyes for one – would probably like to see us fail. Hughes will know this, just as he will know that as a manager, these are the moments that you have to seize with both hands. No other club in the world has the resources that he has at his disposal. These are the kinds of chances that only come along once.

There are many unknowns ahead. Yes, this is now Hughes’ team, but in a sense we are starting again. It is a whole clean slate up front and, to a certain extent, in the engine room.

It could be perceived that in these first few games Hughes may, strangely enough, be at his most vulnerable than at any other point during his tenure at the club. I would tend to agree with this assessment.

But the realm of perception can be misleading and does not give us the answer to the biggest unknown: if things don’t go according to plan, just how far will the Khaldoon-Mansour-Cook axis go before it wields the knife? Everyone naturally assumes the worst because the law of football these days is based on return for investment. No return for investment equals the sack, at least that is the convention. But since when have City been conforming to the norm? How then, are we to gage Mansour’s flexibility, or what his reaction will be if we are adrift of the top five a couple of months into the season? As always with City, we are left guessing. It is a season of great promise and excitement, but also a campaign of murky unknowns.

Until the first ball is kicked in anger, there is nothing more to say except to wish Hughes and his squad the best of luck.

Here goes nothing.

This is Our Hated City

It’s taken a while. A few years in fact, but finally Sir Alex Ferguson is talking about Manchester City again. For the record, let me just say what a privilege it is. We should all feel honoured.

Within the space of a week, the manager of the red half of Manchester recently delivered a number of tongue lashings for Mark Hughes’ City. It seems the pulpit has now well and truly reopened across Greater Manchester. And not only across the GM region either. Over the course of the last few weeks Rafa Benitez and David Moyes have both sniped at the actions of Manchester City Football Club. It’s nice to know that we are back on the radar.

Ferguson’s salvo

United’s pre-season tour has seen Fergie speak more about those around him rather than his own squad. Perhaps he intends for it to be that way. Speaking from the team’s pre-season tour of Fast East Asia, in one interview the United boss rubbished City’s chances of breaching the top four and then criticised the wisdom of signing three high profile strikers.

Given just after City had signed Emmanuel Adebayor from Arsenal, the second interview was much more interesting. Ferguson argued that the Togo international had in fact sounded out United and Chelsea after agreeing to join City. Then rather startlingly, when prompted to give his opinion about the recent controversial poster of Carlos Tevez (sky blue background with the title ‘Welcome to Manchester’) that has appeared on one of Manchester main shopping streets, Ferguson came out with this: "It's City isn't it? They are a small club with a small mentality. All they can talk about is Manchester United, they can't get away from it. They think taking Carlos Tevez away from Manchester United is a triumph. It is poor stuff."

Dave Wallace, editor of the City fanzine King of the Kippax, gave the perfect retort. Wallace was speaking in the Manchester Evening News (MEN), directly to those who had splashed the Tevez poster with dots of red paint, but his words are also relevant to Ferguson: "They like to dish it out - like the poster they've got at Old Trafford showing how many years it is since we won anything - but they really can't take it back. It shows just how bitter they are."

With regards to the saboteurs with red sponges, another City fan posted on the MEN website: "Bit of advice lads, get a longer ladder and don't use water-based paints next time, it's been lagging it down today and it's all washed off."

Benitez and Moyes get in on the act

Liverpool manager Rafa Benitez took the first dig at City at the beginning of the summer. “The question is do you make the right decisions and do what is best for your career? If it's just for money sometimes you will make mistakes and I've been surprised by some decisions this summer – like Barry. I won't say too much but it was clearly 100% for money. The most important thing for me, though, is the passion of the players."

And then last weekend, Everton boss David Moyes seems to have accused City of tapping up his centre back Joleon Lescott: "It is about showing respect - and we are not being shown that. I've always tried to contact the managers and show respect to them in terms of transfers and no matter how much money I might have to spend I would always want to keep that up. It goes back to the managers having a drink together after the game, to the fact managers will still phone each other up when they are looking for a player. That is part of the way it should be done."

The messages of sniping

It is good to know that all of this sniping – particularly with United - is alive and well. Dig below the surface though, and there are serious points to be had.

Ferguson had a point about the imbalance in Hughes’ transfer policy. But since then, Ched Evans, Felipe Caicedo and Valeri Bojinov have all left the club in one shape or another and now a defensive gap has been plugged with the arrival of Kolo Toure.

However true or untrue, Ferguson’s claim that Adebayor sounded out the top clubs during his move to City suggests that he has come to Eastlands for the money. Benitez echoed this with his criticism of Barry’s move. The big question to ask here is whether these players have indeed come to City just for the money, or is it more than that? Money has certainly got a big part to play, but in today’s game, money is heavily linked to ambition. There is a blurring in this linkage which makes it very hard to gage the true motivations of players like Abebayor, Barry, and Santa Cruz who have not necessarily won big things with previous clubs. The money motivation does come into it much more with the Tevez and Toure signings, players that have been successful with the big clubs but who have now took a step down. Had they signed, Samuel Eto and John Terry would have also come into this category.

As for Benitez and Moyes, well, they ought to step back into reality.

Benitez is still smarting over the failure to acquire Gareth Barry last summer. The charge that Barry signed for money is, I think, a tactic to make himself look better in the eyes of the Liverpool faithful. Who, after all, would want to sign a player motivated purely by money? Apologies Rafa, but I can’t buy into that. You had a whole summer to meet Villa’s asking price, and you failed to do that. Players aren’t going to wait around, and this summer you got burned. You should have acted quicker, its as simple as that.

Moyes’ tapping up accusations are the sign of a manager that does not want to lose one of his prize assets. I like David Moyes and I like the idea of what he has done at Everton, plus what he is trying to do. Had Moyes arrived as a manager a decade or so earlier, he might well have been another Ferguson or Clough, men who built glory through footballing skill, judgment and intuition alone. But the days of building glory in that fashion are behind us. Now, if you’re going to be successful on a big scale, you need the big cash base. Then the skill, judgment and intuition comes into play.

Moyes seems to talk of a time where the tapping up of players didn’t happen. Tapping up, sounding out, call it whatever you want – it has always gone on. Agents will always talk and players will always listen. Of course, that does not make it right. But it is football. Tapping up – in one form or another - is all around us.

For City fans solely, the words of Ferguson, Benitez and Moyes are evidence of how far the club has come this summer. As a club, as a set of fans, we are not used to being hated. Instead we have been traditionally seen as the lovable, harmless club of Greater Manchester, a club to either make occasional fun of, to offer commiserations to, or to simply ignore.

But a new hatred appears to be focusing on Eastlands. They are beginning to hate us for our money. They are beginning to hate us for our ambition. They are beginning to hate us even before we have kicked a ball.

Tevez finally turns Blue

It was a poignant moment. Derby Day, the score 1-0 to United. Having just danced around Richard Dunne on the edge of the City penalty area, a pint sized, red-shirted Argentinean by the name of Carlos Tevez unleashed a shot that cracked the inside of the left post and rippled the back of City keeper Shay Given’s net.

The striker reeled away in celebration, but his focus was not wholly on the glory of scoring in a Manchester Derby. Instead, the Argentinean raced to the centre circle and, facing his manager, placed his hands behind his own ears to emphasise to Sir Alex Ferguson the roar of the Old Trafford faithful. The adoration for the red shirt of Tevez was unmistakable.

“I deserve to be signed up” was the perceived message at the time. But now we know the full meaning of the little Argentinean’s actions: “Look at how good I am, and look at what you will be missing”.

It is unclear at what point the normally sublime man-managing skills of Ferguson alienated the South American striker. But that mistake - and no matter what Ferguson may say it is a mistake – has now been capitalised upon by interlocutors of an Arabian hue.

£25.5m later, Carlos Tevez is a Manchester City player. How about that.

The impact for Manchester United
Let’s be straight about this. The loss of Tevez is not a disaster for United. In a tactical sense it is affordable. Ferguson obviously sees more bang for his buck in Dimitar Berbatov and Wayne Rooney. The fact that he had already forked out for the two of them probably had something to do with why Tevez remained in the shadows last season.

As much as City fans dislike Rooney, they all know about his unusual mix of power, skill and awareness. But the Bulgarian is a different story. Whilst definitely possessing the silky skills to oil the wheels of United’s slick attacking machine (he is probably a slight cut above Tevez in that regard), Berbatov is too sulky and inconsistent to be placed at the fulcrum of United’s attack for my liking. Relying on this offensive formation is a risk.

Then there is the more explicit loss of Tevez’ talents. He is one of a rare breed of footballer that is both technically gifted and prepared to run himself into the ground for the team. This is a valuable combination in the modern game, and especially so in the English game. Anyone who says Tevez will not be missed by United needs to reappraise the situation.

Finally, there is the loss of image and prestige that has been referred to previously on this blog. In Ronaldo and Tevez, United have lost two significant attacking talents, with the most likely immediate replacements seeming to be Antonio Valencia and Michael Owen. Irrespective of what Valencia and Owen achieve this season, there was a time when United did not let their top, top talent leave. It says something about the new realities of modern football that they have been unable to do this.

One new reality is in the realm of aspiration, the premise that it is now no longer good enough to win trophies at Manchester United. Cristiano Ronaldo illustrates this, with the petulant winger leaving because he had bigger Iberian dreams to pursue.

Then there is the new reality of finance. Carlos Tevez left because he did not feel wanted at the club. That alienation probably derived in part from United wrangling over his price tag. Ferguson did want Tevez to stay at the club – that much is clear – but he could not make a deal happen because the price was too steep. The price was too steep because United’s pockets have limits. Of course, the same does not now apply on the Eastern side of Manchester.

The impact for Manchester City
Things are rather more simple for City. For starters, there are no drawbacks attached to the move. Money is no object – ten more £25m signings could be made and it would not make a jot of difference to the club’s super financial state. How boastful this sounds, but it is simply the new reality of life as a City fan.

Tactically there appears to be no problems either. I would’ve thought that Tevez’s aggressive, direct style fits perfectly with both Mark Hughes’ training regime and the work ethic that the City manager is trying to encourage on the pitch. The tenacity of Tevez will also provide a much needed boost to our efforts on the road. Let’s face it, those efforts were on life support for the majority of last season. The Argentinean’s engine and work rate will hopefully set a shining example to the rest of the team as to how to play well and win away games in the Premier League.

Most obviously, the new acquisition bodes well for our attacking options. Tevez can be the foil for the big man that we already have (Roque Santa-Cruz) or the big man that may well come (Emmanuel Adebayor). I think he can also be employed in the formation we used last year, though I have more to say about tactics in upcoming posts. Of course, underlying all of this is Tevez’s goal scoring ability. The goal against City in last season’s encounter at Old Trafford says it all.

Another defining moment?
Part of me thinks that I shouldn’t be surprised with the signing of Carlos Tevez. We are, after all, a club with money, a club with a new vision, but to a certain extent I still can’t believe that he is sitting in a press conference with Mark Hughes. I guess that for a time, the vision of our new owners hasn’t quite felt as special as it was during September 2008, with the signing of Robinho. That we couldn’t attract the likes of Kaka and Eto’o I guess dented that vision for me.

I guess I was settling for a summer of good, solid acquisitions, players who knew the ropes of the Premier League and could get us into a position where we were able to knock on the door of the top four. To an extent we are still doing this – and I am completely fine with that because it is a realistic target. But the signing of Tevez feels different and it is a signing that I am very excited about.

At root, Tevez is just another reminder of the true intent of our owners. All the recent negatives: Kaka, Eto’o, finishing out of European qualifying in 10^th place – they do not matter like they would’ve done in the past. Why? Because the owners are still there, forcing the club over its setbacks, driving the club forward because that is the only way it is going to go.

That new culture can only be good for us. By the same token, it can only be worrying for our rivals.