Man City not singing the blues yet
City fans are remaining optimistic - and there are ten great reasons why they should stay positive
Manchester City has been everywhere – apart from among the 3,200 Blues fans who witnessed the debacle of St Mary’s on Sunday.
It is something in the DNA of football supporters who follow their team away that they tend to be more optimistic, less critical and have a greater sense of perspective than the rest.
So it was at St Mary’s, when Roberto Mancini’s name was being sung even as the Blues’ slippery hold on the Premier League trophy was sliding further.
With the mist clearing from St Mary’s, the only way to look for disappointed Blues is forwards, so we at M.E.N Sport have come up with ten reasons to be cheerful for the rest of this season.
IT’S BEEN A GOOD SEASON
Obviously, in comparison to some of the performances of last season, this campaign pales. But, unless they come up with some kind of catastrophic collapse, the Blues will still enjoy their second-best season of the Premier League era.
The memorable games have been a bit thin on the ground as well – maybe Newcastle and Norwich away stand out – and the goals have not flowed as freely, but for fans whose memories span back beyond 2008, it has been another blast.
The Champions League offered few positives, but those fans at the Bernabeu were allowed to dream for a while, when Edin Dzeko and then Aleks Kolarov put the Blues ahead, that glory beckoned.
THE SKIPPER RETURNS
Vincent Kompany was touch and go for Saturday’s trip to Southampton, but in the end it was decided not to risk another recurrence of the calf muscle strain.
With another week of training and strengthening work, he should return for the FA Cup fifth-round tie with Leeds on Sunday.
Not only would that be a big boost for the defence and the return of an influential figure, but it would open up Roberto Mancini’s options elsewhere, with Javi Garcia freed up to resume a midfield role.
TEVEZ EXPECTED BACK
The striker has faded from the scene after a strong start to the season, scoring just once in his last 11 appearances.
He was absent at Southampton for genuine family reasons but is back in training this week, and should get a run out on Sunday.
It was Tevez who sparked the win over Watford in the third round with a spectacular free kick, and his poor run of form cannot last.
MANCINI’S SHAKE-UP
The manager was furious with his team – and with himself – after the defeat at
Southampton and has promised changes.
Joe Hart would probably have been replaced by Costel Pantilimon anyway, as in the two previous rounds of the Cup, but his boob at St Mary’s confirms it.
As well as Kompany and Tevez, probably in for Gareth Barry and Edin Dzeko – with Javi Garcia shifted into midfield – James Milner should also be restored to the team, while Jack Rodwell and Scott Sinclair should also be on their toes this week.
SUMMER SPENDING
With new bosses Ferran Soriano and Txiki Begiristain now having their feet under the table, City can begin the restructuring of the team in earnest, after the abortive attempts of last summer.
Changes can be expected, with a top-line striker, a new midfielder, a young, strong defender and possibly a class wide player all being discussed.
City stood still after winning the title.
Now they need to spend well to go to the next level, and the summer months could recapture the excitement of the first four summers under the new owners.
FINANCIAL FAIR PLAY
With the detail emerging, it appears that City should emerge from the introduction of financial fair play rules – both Uefa’s version and the watered-down Premier League one - unscathed, after all.
City’s £375million-plus Etihad sponsorship deal was expected to some under Uefa scrutiny, but unless it can be fully proved that the Abu Dhabi government has any influence on City, nothing can be done.
City are owned by Sheikh Mansour as an individual and he has half-brothers in key positions at Etihad, but they have no sway over the club.
In fact, if Etihad and other similar sponsors were to expand their deals with City, they would probably be untouchable.
REACTING TO ADVERSITY
The Blues have developed a knack of bouncing back strongly from bad defeats. They lost at Sunderland on Boxing Day and promptly won their next six, before the charge slowed with draws against QPR and Liverpool.
And of course, when last season dipped to a new low with defeat at Arsenal, the Blues rattled off six successive wins to dramatically grab the title.
THE SUPPORTERS
City’s away support at St Mary’s was tremendous and Mancini must be thankful that they continue to sing their support for him on a difficult day.
Away fans have longer memories than most and the City anthem ‘We never win at home, and we never win away’ got a loud airing, followed by a black-humoured chorus of ‘We’re staying up’.
If ever a sense of perspective was needed, that provided it. Winning the title last season was not the end of the City story, it was a beginning and there will be more great days to come.
THE FA CUP
At home to a Championship club in the fifth round, City are three games from the final, and the FA Cup takes on fresh significance with chances of winning the league receding rapidly.
To win the famous old trophy twice in three seasons, with a Premier League trophy wedged between, would have been beyond the wildest dreams of every City fan just five years ago, and City have a realistic chance of finishing the season on a real high.
CHAMPIONS LEAGUE
City are nine points clear of fifth-placed Arsenal, so it would take a remarkable collapse for them to fall out of the top four this season.
That means they will be in the Champions League again next season, probably with a stronger squad, and hopefully with a kinder draw at the group stage.
The Blues need to retain their place at Europe’s top table, for financial reasons as well as football ones, and to qualify for the third season running would be an important achievement in itself.
James Lawton: Has the Premier League title ever been surrendered so pathetically?
Roberto Mancini refused to enter the Manchester City dressing room after Southampton defeat
In the long and not always glorious history of football there may have been more disgracefully gutless performances than the one put in by the champions of England at Southampton on Saturday. There may also have been a more bizarre series of utterances than those which came from the mouth of the man who carried the most direct responsibility, the Manchester City manager, Roberto Mancini, but if compelling comparisons are somewhat elusive there is one thing about which we can be certain.
It is that never before can such a miserable example of broken down professionalism, of abandoned self-respect and a total failure to deliver a sliver of value for money (the transfer value of City's starters was approximately £206m, with substitutes James Milner, Aleksandar Kolarov and Maicon representing another £48m), have provoked less in the way of red-blooded outrage.
Mancini, who before the game lamented the possibility that quite soon very rich men may no longer be able to throw infinite amounts of money at the football team of their choice, did say that "big players" should display rather more convincing evidence that they possess "big balls".
But then given that his extremely expensive team had, in the process of an almost formal defeat by a side whose stars Jay Rodriguez and Rickie Lambert came at a combined cost of less than the year's salary of the missing Carlos Tevez, displayed a collective heart so minuscule the great Bill Shankly would surely have likened it to a caraway seed, it hardly seemed an excessive reaction.
We are told that Mancini will survive at least until the summer, by which time his Abu Dhabi employers might have to conclude that if their rival Roman Abramovich had a well-earned reputation for what might be described as brutal whimsicality, their own had come to occupy precisely the other end of the spectrum.
Sheikh Mansour and his cohorts should have known some time ago that their £1billion-plus investment in City was well on the way to becoming a shocking indictment of an idea nursed so lovingly in the upper echelons of the Premier League. They should have known that they were making a monument not to relentless spending and seamless progress but nightmare entrapment by the prospective demands of Financial Fair Play.
Mancini whined that he had been miserably supported in the summer transfer window and that because of this, rather than a painful lack of evidence that he might be able to develop the force and coherence of by far the strongest squad in the country, his defence of the Premier League title and expansion of hopes in the Champions League had been virtually destroyed.
Another truth was much easier to grasp this last weekend. It is that City have become a parody of a club who might be anywhere near taking their place at the heart of European football. Their dismissal from the Champions League was one shocking development. The tolerance of the Mario Balotelli situation was an affront to professional standards. The reinstatement of Tevez after his Munich mutiny was another compromise to make the flesh crawl.
After saying that Tevez would never again wear the City shirt, Mancini soon enough agreed that he might well be a powerful asset in the race for the Premier League finish. That, no doubt, helped to deliver City's first title since the one they landed rather more emphatically with the help of Lee, Bell and Summerbee 44 years earlier. But how much should you pay, in money and basic values, for one championship which in less than a year seems as if it might have happened in another lifetime?
When Gareth Barry scored his tragi-comic own goal at Southampton he displayed the body language of a zombie. It was also a reasonable way of defining the performance of most of his team-mates. It wasn't a defeat. It was a submission. It was a terrible statement about what happens when a team is separated from any sense that it can still achieve its most basic ambitions.
For many, it was almost entirely the fault of players grossly overpaid and seriously under-motivated. Of course they had their huge responsibilities and it wasn't only Mancini impelled to ask what had happened to the command and the wit of men like Yaya Touré and David Silva. Mancini says: "A player who plays like that should stay at home, not even be on the pitch. I don't want to see a player like we saw on Saturday. Usually, we play well and even when we don't play well, we put everything on the pitch. But we didn't even do that."
No, they didn't, demonstrably not, but then isn't it quite a key part of the manager's job to avoid such disaster? Mancini was recently pictured with his hands reaching for Balotelli's throat. There is another study of him linking hands with Tevez. He is, no doubt, an engaging football man with some notable achievements as both a player and a coach, but this doesn't mean so much now when he has to prove that there is really enough money in the world to make a great football team.
Meanwhile, Sir Alex Ferguson tells us that he sharply strengthened his planned team for the winning game against Everton after watching the City debacle. His reward was a 12-point lead – and the latest evidence that his once dangerous rivals surely have to think again.
Italian media say Manchester City will see off Arsenal threat to sign Jovetic
Italian newspaper La Nazione have reported today that Manchester City are clear favourties to sign Fiorentina star Stevan Jovetic as other clubs are being priced out in the chase for the Montenegro international. Juventus have been monitoring the player for some time and reports in England last week linked him with a possible move to Arsenal.
It now seems it will be only the current Premier League champions able to fund a deal with the likes of Juventus unwilling to compete for him at such a high transfer fee.
TMW pick up the story and say that a price of €30m has been put on the striker and, following the departure of Mario Balotelli, Mancini's club are hoping to purchase the 23 year old in the summer to improve their attacking options. Manchester City have already done business with Fiorentina after bringing in defender Matija Nastasić in the summer and therefore will be confident in approaching the club again for another of their key players. Nastasić and Jovetic also share the same agent which is another advantage for the Manchester side.
TMW say there's even been talk of a pre-agreement between Manchester City and Fiorentina for Jovetic's summer transfer, but go on to confirm that the club have denied that.
Manchester City's own website carried quotes from Roberto Mancini last week which gave an insight into the interest. Speaking to Forza Football, Mancini said that Jovetic is somebody they are keen on.
“It is hard to find a replacement for Balotelli in January. Jovetic really interests us, he would be a good fit.
“We are moving now, because in May champions are already reserved. We are interested in Falcao, but Jovetic is also a fit.”
The Daily shit-stirring cunts reported that Arsenal are also showing an interest in Jovetic. A few days ago they said that Arsene Wenger had been looking at the player and sent scouts to watch him. However, Arsenal would have to smash their club transfer record fee to sign him in the transfer window and La Nazione and TMW think that the price Fiorentina want means it's only Manchester City who have any chance out of the clubs linked.
This has now changed in Italy from a situation where the clubs Jovetic may go to was increasing by the week, to one where it's been whittled down to just Manchester City. Fiorentina don't seem interested in dragging the situation out and would prefer a clear situation, and their ties with Manchester City will help that.
The Rise and Fall Of Manchester City’s Scott Sinclair
What a difference a year makes. One year ago, Scott Sinclair was bombing down the left wings of Swansea City in their first season in the Premier League. There was talk in many circles of a possible England call-up. The former Chelsea winger played on the Great Britain Olympic side, where he scored once in four games and impressed many with his performances. Weeks later he joined Manchester City for a transfer fee of £8 million. Since then, he has practically disappeared off the radar.
Clearly his move to Manchester city was a poor decision, one which I’m sure was motivated by money. Sinclair has moved from guaranteed first team football, being arguably one of Swansea’s best players, to rotting on the bench for Mancini. He has made zero league starts this season, and has played only 113 minutes in his 7 appearances as a sub in league matches. At Swansea last season, he had the second highest number of assists and goals. His lack of playing time has been detrimental to his ability and he needs to leave as soon as possible to have any chance to revive his career.
While Sinclair’s career could be ruined if he doesn’t get out soon, it’s his own fault. By getting in bed with City, he signed a Faustian pact. Not so much signing away his soul, but by signing away any chance of real playing time. He is the new Wayne Bridge of the Etihad, getting paid loads, but not stepping on the turf due to Mancini’s obvious distrust of the winger.
Eleven months ago he was involved in Swansea’s dramatic win over Manchester City in which he nearly scored. Now the closest he gets to the goal is when he gets off the bench and walks past it on the way to the tunnel at full-time. He has come out during his City career and stated he’s happy to wait for his chance. But we’re nearing the end of the season, and it still hasn’t come. Surely it’s time to cut his losses.
What we also can’t forget is this isn’t the first time Scott Sinclair has done this. In 2005, he moved from Bristol Rovers to Chelsea. In four seasons for the Blues, he made 13 appearances and was loaned out to six different clubs. It seems as long as he gets his paycheck, he is prepared to be second best and not get any playing time on the field.
I show no sympathy for the once rising star at Swansea. Many people would love to be a footballer with his ability, but he has thrown it away for money. This brings us to a bigger issue with football culture in general — from players to clubs to agents, it’s now all about the money. I doubt we will ever see the likes of Gerrard again, a player while offered more money has stayed at Anfield his whole career and truly loves the club. With multi-million pound TV deals, players wages soaring over £100,000 a week, football has changed. It’s no longer about playing for your local club, but how you can get the most money. Maybe Scott Sinclair isn’t to blame, but the entire modern football culture is the culprit instead.
[spoiler]
[/spoiler]Ireland training with the kids? Not sure if I agree with that - Up the Villa blog
I was massively excited when Stephen Ireland was part of the deal that saw James Milner join Man City, and I know plenty of other Villa fans were too. As we all know, it hasn’t really worked out for the player here, with Ireland only showing glimpses of the undoubted talent he possesses. He did win supporters player of the year last season, but he hasn’t really pushed on, and it’s hard to see a long term future for the player here.
With that being said, the Telegraph have suggested that the player is the latest to be banished to the youth team, joining Hutton and Warnock, and we all know what happened to those two:
‘Ireland, the current supporters’ player of the season, has been instructed to train with the youth squads by Lambert and is keen to have talks with his manager this week.
The former Manchester City midfielder has been excluded from the last two squads and fears he is being punished for Villa’s humiliating defeat over two legs by League Two Bradford City in the Capital One Cup semi-final.
Ireland has not appeared since the second leg last month and arrived at the training ground on Friday to be told he could not be accommodated with the first team squad of 22.’
If he has been singled out for the whole side losing to a league two team, then that’s just ridiculous, it really is. I’m still a fan of Lambert, but I’m not sure if I agree with his apparent policy of simply dumping players to train with the youths. Regardless of your thoughts on Ireland, and I know many of you don’t rate him, surely there has to be more constructive ways to deal with this situation?
As I saw someone write on twitter, it’s degrading really, and I felt the same regarding Warnock and Hutton. You never know what will happen in football, and if we have a shed load of injuries, it’s hardly ideal to bring him back into the fray.
Again it smacks of cost-cutting, as he’s another senior player on big money. Even if he’s not a starter, I’d still find space on the bench for him, but ultimately it’s Lambert’s decision. If we’re safe this season, then these decisions might not ultimately matter. If we do go down though, then there should be plenty of questions asked about some of our managers decisions.
Liverpool, Manchester United, Manchester City and Tottenham are on alert after 21-year-old Denmark midfielder Christian Eriksen rejected a new contract with Ajax. DSSC
Liverpool are considering a summer move for Malaga's 28-year-old Chilean playmaker Manuel Iturra, who could be available for £3m. Daily Express
Real Madrid are planning a £38m move for Tottenham winger Gareth Bale, 23, this summer. talkSHIT
Chelsea could step up their pursuit of Atletico Madrid striker Radamel Falcao, 27, by using 20-year-old Belgium goalkeeper Thibaut Courtois as a bargaining tool in negotiations. Metro
Southampton's new boss Mauricio Pochettino failed in a last-gasp club-record £15.25m bid for Morocco midfielder Abdelaziz Barrada, 23, from Getafe. talkSHIT
Bayern Munich president Uli Hoeness insists a deal to sign 24-year-old Poland striker Robert Lewandowski, who is a reputed Manchester United target, from Borussia Dortmund has not been agreed. ESPN
Fulham goalkeeper Mark Schwarzer, 40, has revealed he has entered into contract negotiations to extend his stay at Craven Cottage. Fulham Chronicle
Hull boss Steve Bruce is planning to move for Peterborough winger George Boyd, 27, but must pay a hefty loan fee. Daily Mirror
Republic of Ireland defender Alex Pearce, 24, is signing a new deal at Reading despite interest from West Brom and Sunderland. Daily Star
Huddersfield are targeting Coventry boss Mark Robins, 43, to take over as their new manager. Daily Mirror
West Brom are considering a summer move for 19-year-old Leeds right-back Sam Byram. The Sun
Chelsea interim manager Rafael Benitez, 52, claims he is not bitter towards the Stamford Bridge boo-boys. Daily Mirror
Brighton boss Gus Poyet, 45, is the shock name in the frame if West Ham do not renew 58-year-old Sam Allardyce's contract at the end of the season. Daily Mirror
Former England striker Emile Heskey, 35, says it is a privilege to be playing in Australia's A-League for Newcastle Jets. DSSC
Chelsea midfielder Florent Malouda has criticised the club for excluding him from the first-team squad and forcing the 32-year-old to train with the under-21s. Sky Sports
The Blues have suffered a major blow in their search for a new permanent manager after Borussia Dortmund coach Juergen Klopp, 45, insisted he will not move to Stamford Bridge next season. Evening Standard
Liverpool's principal owner John W Henry, who also has a major stake in Major League Baseball club Boston Red Sox, has defended his dual ownership. Boston Globe
West Ham striker Wellington Paulista, 28, turned down the chance to go on a sunshine break to Dubai so he could stay in England and play in a Development Squad game. The Sun
Chelsea striker Fernando Torres, 28, has shown off his skills in the kitchen by making a cupcake for a TV advert. The Sun
England forward Wayne Rooney, 27, told his new team-mate Wilfried Zaha, 20, that he will have to pay for his subscription to TV channel MUTV via Twitter. 606 podcast
Barclays denies misleading shareholders over £3bn investment linked to Manchester City owner Sheikh Mansour
Barclays announced in 2008 that Sheikh Mansour had agreed to make the cash injection, which helped the bank avoid a state bailout.
Barclays Bank has denied claims made in a BBC documentary that it misled shareholders over a £3bn investment linked to Manchester City owner Sheikh Mansour.
Barclays announced in 2008 that Sheikh Mansour had agreed to make the cash injection, which helped the bank avoid a state bailout.
But last night's BBC Panorama show said he did not invest in the institution himself and that the funds actually came from an Abu Dhabi government-backed vehicle called International Petroleum Investment Company, which he chairs.
It was alleged Barclays did not properly inform shareholders about changes to the source of the investment, a claim the bank has described as “completely unjustified.”
The show made a series of allegations about exactly when shareholders were told about the source of the funds changing.
But Barclays said the action it took was “entirely appropriate.”
The programme also alleged changes in ownership of the Jersey-based company used to make the £3bn investment were not properly communicated to shareholders.
That claim was also rejected by Barclays.
There was no suggestion in the programme of any wrongdoing by Sheikh Mansour. Both he and Manchester City declined to comment.
Barclays said it had “repeatedly” demonstrated to Panorama why the claims made in the programme were “completely unjustified.”
It added: “Barclays is satisfied that the steps taken to disclose the change in ownership of the companies which were investing in the bank in 2008 were entirely appropriate in that, immediately following receipt and verification of that information we made overnight amendments to the relevant disclosures relating to the investors in the prospectus documents.
“The change in ownership of the investing companies had no bearing on the transaction or required approvals.
“The irony in Panorama’s characterisation of their ‘findings’ is that they are sourced entirely from information previously published by Barclays – they have unearthed nothing that was not already in the public domain for many years, and which has been previously examined multiple times.”
more soon ...
