Hearts and minds

Many fans will have probably already found this little gem of a video, unusually narrated by City fans and academics alike. For those that haven't, its certainly worth a watch.

If you supported the club in the dark days of the mid to late 1990s, the memories will come flooding back. For the neutrals among us, its a facinating four minute journey into the hearts and minds of the City faithful.

Some of this footage is absolute quality. It says it all about the hardcore support of the club.

For my sins I was born and raised a City fan

My Dad stood and then I sat,
On the Kippax, in different years with different teams,
We watched shite defence and shite attack.
And then Lee and Ball ruined us.

It always went a bit like this:
Halftime, 2-0 up.
But there’s no belief, no relief from the question at the back of everyone’s mind.
How are we going to lose it this time?

Kinky came and went,
Another wad spent.
Another dent in the wallets of the fans.
Another comedic season sent up in smoke.
Late nineties devoid of skill and supporters devoid of hope.

From then on it was always the same.
Where do we look? Where do we turn?
It was Lee and Ball. They burned us.
Failed and failed and failed us.
Did more damage than a Red shirt could ever do.
Wrexham. Bournemouth. Division 2.

But it didn’t change a thing.
Next Saturday at Three o’clock we’d return.
Because we were the experts,
On the club, on our boys.

On the intricacies of our dire game.

We’d always return to point our fingers of blame.
And then the Arabs came…

Notes on a season

We have missed the chance of being able to compete with Europe’s best next season. For many fans this will represent failure, but the reality is found far from this assessment. If anything, we are still a club in transition, and this above all things we must remember as we look back on this season, in my opinion our second season of upheaval.

So let us look at the campaign in its entirety. Why have we ended up in fifth position? Why not fourth? And why does this year’s season look and feel like a bit of a failure?

When it really mattered, we lost
Let’s start with the last question, and in particular the disappointment of the Spurs game. It was a cup final, and yes it was a cup final I expected us to win. But on the night we fell short because we ran out of attacking ideas. It is never productive to point the finger at individuals, but I feel Emmanuel Adebayor was a key element of this loss. Adebayor started the season well but climaxed way too early during the home tie against Arsenal last September. Following his subsequent suspension, and then of course the horror of what happened to his Togoelse team mates in Angola, he never recovered this early form. And I can’t work out whose fault that is.

Against Spurs (as we have done pretty much all season with Ade), we kept on pumping long balls up to him. I might be walking around with my eyes closed, but I don’t recall ever seeing the 6’3” striker ever win a header. He always jumps at the wrong time, and ever when he is close to getting the ball, he doesn’t seem strong enough or willing enough to win the ball a redirect it to a team mate. His opposite number – Peter Crouch – had this off to a tea. This meant that Spurs were able to retain possession much more easily higher up the pitch, putting us under pressure. Our long balls just came straight back at us, which is part of the reason why we eventually ran out of legs and ideas.

We can look at Adebayor’s individual weakness and pin blame on them. But we also have to question the tactics. What are the players told in the dressing room? Surely it is obvious that Adebayor is not going to win headers and therefore obvious that we have to find different ways of getting up the pitch? If we’re going to knock it up to the front guys, then why not play a more traditional front man in the mould of Roque Santa-Cruz? I was confused by Mancini’s approach to this.

Another big reason why we lost to Spurs was lack of attacking threat from midfield. We started with De Jong and Barry, then substituted Barry with Vieira. A midfield with the defensive stamp of Mancini. With little central link from the midfield, it seemed to me Tevez and Adebayor were coming deeper to retrieve the ball, and then running it into wide positions. Whenever they were successful and crosses did come into the Spurs box, our attacking presence was halved, as one of our striker’s was doing the winger’s work.

In sum then, our attacking play was disjointed – full of endeavour but with no teeth. All very frustrating when you consider the wealth of attacking talent we have within the squad. So we lost against Spurs, and full credit must go to them for the way they secured fourth position. With all the money we’ve spent, no Champions League football is a kick in the teeth. If we’d have beaten Spurs I feel we would’ve secured that berth. It was literally that close and this is where the feeling of failure comes in.

The derby defeats
The heart ache doesn’t end there of course. We also lost in other pivotal games throughout the season. The 4-3 defeat at Old Trafford was a bitter, bitter pill to swallow. It was our first loss of the season, and an important loss I feel for the confidence of the squad. We fought unbelievably well in that game, and when Bellamy scored to make it 3-3 in the 90th minute, it certainly felt for one second that finally, after all these years, the scales were beginning to tip in our favour. We were becoming as mentally strong and ruthless as our neighbours. It was our turn to spoil the party and nip back into contention at the death. Owen’s 96th minute winner cruelly demonstrated that for now at least, we had to wait a little bit longer. That goal knocked us sideways and over the season I don’t think we fully mentally recovered from that blow.

This mental state was underlined when in the Carling Cup semi final Wayne Rooney scored in stoppage time to deny us our first trip to the new Wembley. I was at that game and I can tell you that it was quite simply horrific.

And neither did it end there. Last month at Eastlands, Paul Scholes decided a drab Derby affair by netting in the 93rd minute. This was absolutely soul destroying stuff for the average City fan. Personally I didn’t react as badly to this defeat as I did to the other two. Maybe I was inwardly half resigned to losing it anyway, given what had happened during the season.

We also feel as if we have failed this season because of these dramatic defeats and our inability to put one over on our rivals and draw real blood. We need to chalk up a League victory against Ferguson’s men quickly if we are to remove this inferiority complex.

The consecutive draws
Not long after our first defeat to United, we began to get in the habit of drawing games. The seven draws we chalked up in the months of October and November were key to us missing out on fourth. They were also key to the demise of Mark Hughes, sacked in December. Some were welcome and came against good sides such as Aston Villa and Liverpool, but too many of these draws were worrisome. The home draw against Fulham was where I saw the first signs. We had built a good 2-0 lead by the 60th minute, but by the 70th we had capitulated and allowed Hogdson’s men to draw level.

At the time I passed it off as an aberration, but I nevertheless sensed the smell of ‘typical City’ lurking in the atmosphere. At the next home game that sense was confirmed as we went 2-0 down to Burnley in 30 minutes. By the 60th minute we were 3-2 in front, but we capitulated yet again towards the end of the game and allowed Burnley to level the tie 3-3. We broke the duck with an excellent home win against Title-elect Chelsea, but a game later we were back to our drawing habits, allowing Bolton to put 3 past us at the Reebok. We gave as good as we got of course, and equalised every time Bolton took the lead. But it was clear to see that something was going wrong at the back. It was entertaining, high octane stuff going forward, but we were leaking goals badly at the back and the back of our minds everyone knew that this was not top four form.

Although we’d put a stop to the consecutive manner of our draws, you could see our confidence was knocked. We’d lost our steel, we weren’t the side we were at the beginning of the season. For the Mansour-Khaldoon-Cook axis, the final straw came with the 3-0 defeat to Spurs at White Hart Lane. This was (quite rightly as it turned out) a game billed as a battle between pretenders to the top four crown, and quite simply we failed spectacularly. I don’t remember us managing a chance all night as Spurs kept us at distance and picked us off. The billing of the game sealed Hughes’ dismissal. Whatever your opinion on Hughes, it confirmed to the owners that he didn’t have the mettle to lead this team into the top four.

The ingredients of our best ever Premier League finish
Having gone through all this dejection and despair, its clear that this is far from the whole picture. Although we failed on most of the big occasions, we certainly did a lot right. We would not have finished as high as 5th if this were not the case.

A lot went right offensively. Yes, Adebayor failed to fulfil his £25m price tag, but other players stepped up to the plate magnificently. Some, such as Carlos Tevez, were expected to. But others were not. Craig Bellamy has arguably just completed the best season of his career. Not many predicted the heights to which the Welshman would climb this year. A constant menace (both to opposing teams and – constructively – to his own team mates) it is difficult to see how we would have finished so high without Bellamy’s overall contribution.

But the largest accolade must go to a certain little Argentinean striker. After harbouring slight knocks at the beginning of the season, it took Carlos Tevez a little time to get into his stride. But when he did, he quickly became the attacking fulcrum of the side and the best player I have ever seen in a Blue shirt in all my years of watching City. The diminutive striker finished the season with 29 goals, 23 of them in the Premier League. In hindsight, it is this statistic that will most rankle United supporters this season. It is now clear beyond doubt that Ferguson made an error of judgement in letting Tevez leave. Perhaps this represents our best jibe at United this season – with Carlos Tevez in a Red shirt, they almost certainly would have won the League.

Our attack gave rise to some blistering results. It is to the attack’s credit that these reached their peak at the end of the season, with the back to back 6-1 and 5-1 demolitions of Burnley and Birmingham respectively coming to mind. But better results with more moderate score lines lay earlier on in the season. The opening day defeat of Blackburn Rovers was fundamental. Sam Allardyce and his men were the first to face the full brunt of Sheik Mansour’s millions. During the pre match build up they warned that City’s starlets would have a tough, physical ride. I think the term ‘kick lumps’ was used by one of the Blackburn players. And lets face it, a drubbing from Blackburn Rovers would have been an utter disaster on the opening day. Our season would have got off on the completely wrong footing and we’d have been the laughing stock of football, with Allardyce crowing in our ears. But these threats never materialised and the Blues efficiently despatched Rovers 2-0 at Ewood Park. Allardyce’s men seemed to heed this warning during the return fixture at Eastlands as I don’t remember any mind games being used here. But it didn’t matter. City were better than they were at Ewood and sent Blackburn packing 4-1.

The contribution of Adam Johnson should also be noted. Johnson, signed by Mancini but most probably identified by Brian Marwood, is a great English talent that will surely go on to do great things in football. Whilst formidable, his trickery on the wings has not always been there whilst he has been at City – most likely due to his lack of physical strength. But he has been a damn sight more consistent that Shaun Wright-Phillips, and this might well mean that the younger winger goes to South Africa in the place of SWP.

The defeats of Chelsea both home and away showed exactly what the side could achieve when it set its mind accordingly. In their decline, Liverpool were lucky to escape with two draws against us this season. We could have easily despatched them in both games if we’d have brought will and determination to the table. Things were looking very rosy indeed when, at the end of the season, we came from behind to defeat Aston Villa 3-1. The win was the first of a two game stint that we all knew would decide our Champions League future. We took the first step with flying colours, but as we all know by now, we failed to navigate the second.

The arrival, and subsequent backing of Roberto Mancini
The arrival of Roberto Mancini was a controversial development, not least because I feel the majority of fans – after they’d thought about it – actually didn’t want Hughes to go. Tempers were high and people were looking to point the blame at the club’s hierarchy. At first I thought Mancini looked a bit bewildered by it all. I remember his first press conference, when reported fired questions to him about whether he would be sacked if he did not reach fourth. The speed of Mancini’s arrival and the rumours of him being in the stadium to watch Hughes’ final game contributed to the feeling that the owners had plotted to plunge the sword in the Welshman’s back for some time. Then there were allegations from Hughes that the owners had unfairly moved the goalposts, now demanding a top four finish whereas at the start of the season they asked only for sixth. The mud was flying in all directions, but the majority of it stuck to Garry Cook. Hardly any seems to be still running down the faces of Khaldoon and Mansour. But they are the ones with money after all, so perhaps they deserve

After that initial press conference where Cook was took to task for supposedly unfairly raising the bar on Hughes’s performance, I soon became very impressed at the way Mancini acquitted himself. If anything, the Italian was the calming influence that we needed around the club.

The appointment of Mancini has seen our football make a trade off. Clearly more cautious, more defensive than Hughes, Mancini has shored us up at the back. But this has diminished our attacking threat – not fatally I must add – but it is nevertheless diminished. City’s tradition is to play progressive, attacking football, but to do that in today’s game and win (much like United do) you need better players at the club. This season we’ve not had those players and so Mancini has opted for defensive solidity over attacking risk, employing a much more defensive midfield in outlook. Tevez too, seems to expend a lot less energy now than he did under Hughes, where he seemed to pressurise defenders much more through chasing down the ball. I don’t know why this has changed, or who made that decision, but we all like it when Carlos is chasing down lost causes because we know that he’s likely to cause opposing teams problems employing this tactic.

The defensive solidity that Mancini has introduced has made us much more difficult to beat. We now concede less goals and I remember only being comprehensively beaten once under Mancini’s leadership – that being a 2-0 home defeat to Everton where Moyes’ team frustrated us all match, culminating in Mancini losing it on the touchline with Moyes. It’s also the only time I can remember the Italian losing it.

The backing of Mancini – even though he did not reach his target of delivering the club into the Champions League – is most welcome. I have written time and again on this blog of the club missing the ingredient of stability. In truth we’ve not had it since the early 1990s. Stability doesn’t just equal success, but the right personnel and stability certainly does. With the new financial backing, we have brought the right kind of personnel to the club – both in playing and managing terms. It is about time that someone finally backed that talent that we now have, and not only that, but remain fully committed to that talent when things don’t go according to plan. I honestly believe that this is the only way Manchester City will achieve sustained success in the years to come.

Looking forward
So its not really that bad after all is it? We’ve now a Europa League campaign to look forward to with a much better squad of players to attack it with. We must remember that we did well a couple of years back with a set of much lesser players. The Premier League also looms, but I think we are still a way off in terms of securing that title. After next season I think we will have a much better handle on where we are domestically. A lot depends of course upon the trajectory of other teams, but it also depends upon ourselves and the team spirit we forge at the club, which I feel has been lacking for the past year. A key area here is identifying our leaders, and specifically a club captain that can take us forward. At present I am not sure whether we have any of these. These things can only be developed over time, and it is for this reason that I expect the League to be beyond us for a couple of years yet.

A dour encounter gives rise to more twists and turns

On paper, yesterday’s trip to the Emirates was a potentially explosive showdown, with ourselves continuing to push for fourth and Arsenal looking to regain some face (and keep their own title aspirations mathematically alive) in the aftermath of their complete and utter capitulation at the hands of Wigan. In the end, both teams delivered a dour encounter, a day that, for me at least, was made slightly worthwhile due to the smattering of celebrities I saw attending the game.

Sven, Paul and Jeremy
After a few pints in the volatile Drayton Arms pub, opposite one of the corners of the ground, we made our way to our seats. Approaching the stadium, we soon found that we were walking behind none other than former City manager Sven Goran-Eriksson. The Swede, no doubt here to check on the form of City captain Kolo Toure, was mobbed by a small throng of City fans – myself included. Whilst Sven is far from being a legend at the Club (let’s face it he wasn’t given much chance to be a legend), its clear that he is still loved by some fans at Club, mostly likely because of the style of football we played under him and the exciting players he brought to the club.

Once inside, we saw who I consider to be a true legend of the club – Paul Lake. A player who could have given City and England so much more, a player whose career was cut short by injury. Lake was more than happy to pose for photographs with fans around him – for me this only reaffirms his legend status, given the amount of fans who must ask him to do this whenever he is in the public eye.

And then for good measure, coming out of the ground we saw former Rugby Union England international Jeremy Guscott. Not bad for a day visit to the capital!

The Emirates
Arsenal should be proud of their stadium, surely one of the finest in the world. I felt rather privileged to be sitting on padded seats – not bad a £33 a hit – although the reality was that, as usual, the away support never sat down and so never took full advantage of this luxury.

Although obviously on a bigger scale the Emirates reminds me very much of Eastlands in terms of how the highest seats of each stand slope up and down. Similarities with COMS do not end there. Both stadiums are not quite there in terms of atmosphere, although yesterday the flatness of the home support was probably down to the team’s performance and the fact that, whatever the result, they knew that they were out of the title race. The major difference between the two stadiums seemed to be what food they sell - will we ever see Salmon Bagels for £4.50 a go at Eastlands?

The game
On the pitch, it was another average performance from City where we never really got at our opponents. On the other side of the coin, they never really got at us. This was perhaps an example of when Mancini’s ‘safety first’ tactics served us well. Against United, one blip caused us to lose the game. Against Arsenal, there were no such blips and thus we came through at the Emirates unscathed. Everybody did their defensive jobs as Mancini opted to go with a defensive midfield in the form of Vieira, Barry and De Jong. Pablo Zabaleta, Wayne Bridge and (when he came on for the injured Bridge) Micah Richards did enough to deal with the likes of Walcott and Nasri. The worrying selection of Robin Van Persie never really presented the City backline with any serious problems.

Unfortunately we didn’t create very much at all at the other end. Adam Johnson faintly threatened on a couple of occasions but - as an Arsenal fan observed to me (in more colourful terms) coming away from the game - Bellamy and Tevez were ineffectual. And we all know what happens when our two lynchpins cannot affect the game: we either draw or lose.

This time we drew, and it was a much more valuable point for us than it was for the Gunners. That said, once again with the attacking talent at our disposal, I felt we should have been making more of a game of it against an Arsenal team with no Fabregas, Dennilson or Gallas. The arrival of Adebayor to the thunderous boos of the home support (incidentally the loudest they were during the entire game) upped our tempo a notch, but still we never really got close to causing Arsenal serious damage.

To add to our lacklustre performance, Shay Given dislocated his shoulder whilst saving a shot from Diaby and will now miss the rest of the season. He was replaced by Gunnar Nielsen, a player whom I knew absolutely nothing of but am now slightly more informed about – apparently he’s the first Faroe Islander to play in the Premier League. Stuart Taylor, the regular goalkeeping No.2 was out with knee surgery.

We must now ask ourselves, are we seriously ready for Champions League football?
When all is said and done, the last two results against United and Arsenal tell me that we are not yet ready to take fourth place. The frustrating thing is that I don’t think we turned up in either encounter, and let’s face it, we should be turning up and making a fight of it at this stage of the season.

We have thrown away a good momentum far too easily. The destruction of Burnley and Birmingham set us up nicely for the run in, but we never really gave ourselves the chance to win against the likes of United and Arsenal, and in so doing I feel we have dropped vital points and – most importantly have lost the momentum.

I have never wanted United to win as much as I did yesterday, and they did, so we must take the defeat of Spurs at Old Trafford as a positive, even if we failed to take full advantage of it. But still the narrative of the League issues us with more twists and turns. Today, after their 1-0 victory over Birmingham City, Aston Villa have somehow found a way back into the mix and now have as good a chance as Spurs and ourselves on making 4th position.

If we were to lose against Villa this coming Saturday, mathematically we would still be in the hunt for fourth, but speaking realistically, in our heads we will surely feel as if we have blown it. Anything less than victory will now not suffice as we enter a three game mini season that will have a major impact on the club’s trajectory over the next couple of years.

Watching City from afar

It has been a strange couple of weeks. I have watched the last couple of City games from Lanzarote in the Canary Islands, from where I now write. I was due back in Manchester for last weekend's derby showdown, but a certain volcano in Iceland soon put paid to that. Whether or not the footballing events of last weekend have put paid to our aspirations on fourth place is another matter entirely.

5-1 at Arthur's

I watched the slow dismantling of Birmingham City from Arthur's Bar in the touristy Puerto Del Carmen. The trip here was a planned excursion to a bar that styles itself as the Lanzarote branch of City's overseas support. Arthur's shows that support through the numerous City strips that cover the ceiling of the bar, whilst the walls are lined with various City memorabilia signed by anyone from Paul Dickov to Ricky Hatton.

Indeed the backdrop to this game proved to be as entertaining as the victory itself. Arthur's Bar - a jovial and very British drinking establishment, can no doubt tell a few stories. Perhaps the most lasting memory I will take from here was the airing of the old song: "City! Manchester City! We are the boys who are playing to win!" very loudly through the Bar's speakers everytime the Blues put one in the back of the net.

As you can imagine, the record got played over and over against Birmingham. Following the demolition of Burnley, we once again showed what we can do when our attack clicks. Going into the game I expected McLeish's men to produce stiff resistance, but Cameron Jerome's strike aside, they generated little in the way of attacking threats until they were smothered by the usual suspects: Tevez and Adebayor, and a slightly unusual one in the form of Nedum Onohua, whose surging run cut through the Birmingham defence to produce and excellent solo strike. Onohua's goal reminded me very much of the way his captain, Kolo Toure, makes forays forward from time to time.

0-1 at Erik's

After the frustration of delays and airport closures due to volcanic ash spreading throughout most of Europe, I wasn't able to make it back to Manchester for what was a bigger than usual Manchester derby. I contented myself with watching the game in a quieter bar in another part of the island, but basked in warm sunlight for good measure. It looked like an equally glorious day in Manchester, a great day for putting the title hopes of our rivals to the sword. The reality of course was a very average derby, a complete and utter damp squib that neither side deserved to win.

The game ended on an all too familiar note, the recurring, unpalatable taste of defeat to United, once again in the dying embers of the game, once again as we thought we had done enough. It pains and irks me like a bone in the throat. Frankly it has been a horrific season for City fans in terms of derby football.

Last Saturday was a day where we suffered rather than benefited at the hands of Mancini's tactics. We gave United too much respect and allowed them too much time on the ball. For me this was the overarching reason for our loss.

I can certainly see the potential fruits of Mancini's thinking. The Italian certainly likes to keep it tight and there are great benefits to be drawn from this. But for me, this is cagey football, suicide against team like United and certainly not what this City team should be about. Call it want you what, but our negativity / defensive-mindedness / cautiousness was our undoing because it sent the wrong messages to the opposition. We dropped back far too early on and we saw little of Tevez's usual efforts to harass and pressurise the opposition backline. At times, it felt like we were almost inviting them to attack, a reckless strategy to pursue against team vying for the title, let alone a team that we want so badly to defeat.

Of course, if we'd have nicked a 1-0 win I would have been singing Mancini's praises. And we certainly did forge openings that could have produced that outcome. Tevez's freekick in the first half, and Barry's breaking run into the box in the second come to mind.

I also don't want to heap the blame solely onto the shoulders of the manager. For 90 odd minutes the team managed to achieve probably the most important element of Mancini's game plan - keep United out. But once again we fell down at the final hurdle because of a glaring individual error, once again a red shirt was unmarked in the box in the final minutes, and once again we capitulated - only this time not Owen, nor Rooney, but to Paul Scholes.

We certainly should not have lost the game, but we certainly did not deserve to win it either. United edged it on performance and and certainly had the better chances, but given our recent experiences with our rivals we should not have been switching off as the game came to a close. It was an encounter that had draw written all over it, and we should have seen that eventuality out.

The tables turn once again

Just as last week ourselves and Chelsea were in the box seats for our respective League battles, this week United and Tottenham have both made inroads. Looking at our own battle, and the small gap that is developing between 5th and 6th position, it is now looking more likely that the race for fourth will be between ourselves and Redknapp's men.

It remains an impossible one to call, but how cruel will it be if defeats like last Saturday's mean the difference between Champions and Europa League football?

Claret on the sword

It has taken us roughly seven months, but last Saturday at Turf Moor we finally gave someone a good tonking. I’d love to say that this result has been coming, but I don’t think it has. We haven’t been playing particularly well of late and haven’t looked like giving anyone a hammering. But I’m certainly not complaining. Plucked right out of the blue, our 6-1 demolition of Burnley could not have come at a better time.

Just like watching Brazil
On the occasions when the team have been playing well down the years, City fans have been known to sing this line from the terraces. Whilst rubbing City’s dominance into the faces of opposing fans, the undertone of the line also served to self-mock. In reality of course, City would be nowhere near the level of the Brazilian national team. I have to say though, that this was not so yesterday, the day when everything went right for us in an attacking sense, the day when every offensive clog clicked. It actually was like watching Brazil.

Gravity begins to pull on Laws’ Burnley
A large part of that was down to the complete and utter shambles that was Burnley. I have never seen a top flight team collapse so early in a game that meant so much. I must admit, I thought Burnley would be well up for the battle, primed with a David vs. Goliath attitude. But they simply melted away from the very first minute. You have to wonder what was said in the dressing room immediately before the game. You have to wonder what the manager has been telling his players all week. One look at Laws’ face ten minutes into the match, 3-0 down and staring down the barrel of more oncoming City attacks, and you knew it personified the meaning of perplexed. It was the look of a manager, the look of a team that do not seriously think they can stay up. Anything is still possible of course, but if you are that low in the League at this point in the season and losing by those kinds of margins, it is difficult to look beyond any other scenario than one of relegation.

Demolition men
This should take nothing away from City’s performance. The Clarets were awful but they still had to be beat. Everywhere you looked there were openings, and City exploited each one in full. Bellamy and Johnson were running riot from wide positions. Tevez looked as dangerous as ever. Even Emmanuel Adebayor got in on the act, and hopefully his two goal salvo will now get his season back on track. Patrick Vieira is coming in for quite a bit of stick from the terraces at present. Some of this is justified, as he does seem off the pace at times and more often than not this leads to us conceding possession. But the Frenchman still retains class that has been understated during his time at Eastlands. He is the most creative defensive midfielder I have seen, a unique gift in today’s game. This was evident at Turf Moor when he sent through Adebayor for his second, and it has been evident in previous games since his arrival. In fact, he has sent Adebayor through on goal on a number of occasions with different kinds of passes. It just makes you realise what a force he must’ve been in his heyday. At any rate, he played well against Burnley and more than deserved his bullet header of a goal from Johnson’s corner.

This was an excellent result in more ways than one. Building on the 3-0 defeat of Wigan, not only will it have boosted team confidence, it will have boosted Mancini’s chances of staying in the job. There is still a long way to go of course and I suspect the favourites to land fourth place will change game by game, but you cannot deny what an excellent week of results it has been for City. Spurs came a cropper at Sunderland, Liverpool could only manage a draw at Birmingham (and on a completely unrelated result, United were despatched by Chelsea!). The margin of our victory over Burnley also brought us closer to Spurs’ goal difference.

Mancini’s equation
It was also a good result for fans’ confidence in Mancini. There seems to be two schools of thought developing about how the team play. Those that want to go back to the more free flowing attack of Mark Hughes’ tenure, and those who prefer the more cautious approach of Mancini, sometimes employing three defensive midfielders. Although Burnley were bad, this result proves that sometimes in football, you can have it all. Indeed, Sven-Goran Eriksson, watching from the stands, and Kevin Keegan, watching from the ESPN studio would have no doubt both been in complete rapture. This was the kind of side they dreamed of building, the kind of the performance longed to deliver, a statement from their school of footballing philosophy – that you really can play high octane, unfettered attacking football whilst keeping the door shut at the other end. If nothing else, the result proves that there is a middle way out there that leads between the naïve attacking spirit of Hughes’ side and the smothering, defensive-mindedness of Mancini’s. The devil in the detail for Mancini is finding the right balance, the right solution for the equation. If he can merge his own philosophy with a kind similar to that we saw under Hughes, then he will keep his job, because that solution will secure us fourth.

It is interesting that Mancini seems to identify Emanuel Adebayor as being integral to that balance. So much so that the Italian directly linked our chances of finishing fourth with the level of Adebayor’s performances. He has a point. Whilst formidable, Carlos Tevez cannot do it all on his own and he has been carrying the can for far too long with little help. Think of how much better we would be with the talent of Adebayor firing on all cylinders?

We should now briefly bask in the light of this fantastic performance, and take comfort in the fact that we are back in the box seat for Champions League football. Of course we should take nothing for granted. We’re City fans for Christ sakes. In the court of footballing opinion, we will never be found guilty of taking things for granted. But the fact remains: its April, we are 32 games in and we are in fourth position. As a City fan, when was the last time you could say that?

Now its win or bust against Wigan

To say that the next game is always the most important is to repeat an over used phrase in football, but that phrase applies to Manchester City now probably more than at any other point this season.

Everton and form

Whilst far from being our worst performance of the season, the Everton defeat felt very much like the defeat against Spurs at White Hart Lane earlier in the season. As a supporter, there was very, very little in the way of positives that you could take from the game. There is no other way to say it other than to say that we were just well beat. Everton more than matched us in every single department. When it doesn’t go for our two talisman – Tevez and Bellamy – we fast run out of attacking ideas.

The outcome last Wednesday was a frustrating and alarming result. Frustrating because we never really got a grip of Everton – even more so because we allowed the dreaded head of Tim Cahill to deflect a free kick beyond Shay Given and we should’ve been all over Cahill in the box. Alarming because the defeat once again demonstrates that we are clearly not the form team going into the 4^th place run in. The last convincing performance I can think of was the win at Stamford Bridge, and even then we weren’t at the races in the first 45 minutes.

In some ways this has been a strange season. We certainly haven’t been consistent, we’ve never quite got it right at the back and I don’t believe we’ve hit the heights of our attacking talent – we’ve not given anyone a good hidingfor example - but we are still up there in the European places with a chance of Champions League football, and in terms of our final points total, the result will probably be a lot more rosy that previous seasons’ efforts.

For all our talent, there is still something missing within the team, something that is very difficult to measure and put your finger on. Its probably something like togetherness. David Moyes spoke about our deficiencies in the team spirit department. I think he’s right. Who has a real affinity for the club? I don't want to sound negative but there can't be that many, if for no other reason than that we are still a relatively new team.

Togetherness and spirit are things that are developed over the long term, through thick and thin but always on the basis of stability. The trouble is, we still don’t have stability at the club. There’s been a lot of personnel changes, and equally worrying is the growing sense that Mancini will fall by the wayside if we do not make fourth place. I think its highly likely, given that the Board sacked Hughes because they thought he was unable to deliver this finishing position.

Implications of yesterday’s results

This weekend’s games have gone both for and against us. Villa’s drubbing at the hands of Chelsea was a welcome surprise. I’ve had O’Neill’s men as favourites to land that fourth spot for a while now, but this 7-1 defeat makes me not so sure. The margin of loss speaks of a team that gave up, unusual for this Aston Villa side, which I have always associated with endeavour and steel. There is still a stretch to go of course, but they may now be out of the mix. Even if they claw it back, goal difference will also now count against them.

The more troublesome result was Tottenham’s 2-0 win over Portsmouth. It opens up a five point gap between ourselves and Redknapp’s men. I didn’t think Spurs would have the mettle to keep going at this stage of the season. Portsmouth are dangerous opponents these days – whilst not outstanding they are men who have nothing to lose, but Spurs despatched them easily.

And of course this now means that we have to take three points when we meet Wigan at Eastlands on Monday night. If we win, the pressure on Spurs will be kept up, and the longer we keep the pressure on the Londoners, the better chance we will have to succeed. If we are still in touch by the time they come to Eastlands, then 4^th place will be ours to lose – I am sure of this. But I am equally sure that should we fail to despatch Wigan (anything less than a win is failure), then we will crash out of the race for 4^th place on Monday evening.