Mark Hughes’ side slumped to an embarrassing 3-0 loss at White Hart Lane on Wednesday which left huge doubts over City’s Champions League credentials. The Eastlands side have won one of their last 10 Premier League games and midfielder Barry lifted the lid on an angry exchange between City’s top stars. He said: “It’s not just the defeat, it’s the way we’ve lost. We lost a lot of pride against Spurs.
“A few words were said in the dressing room and we want to put things right. There were a lot of hurt players and the lads were really at each other’s throats. “It was nothing malicious. We are just desperate to put things right.”
But the England international insists City’s determination to break the top-four stranglehold is stronger than ever despite the defeat at Tottenham. He said: “Our desire to make the top four is stronger after the Spurs defeat. That was our aim at the start of the season and there’s no reason why that can’t be achieved. "We've let ourselves down on a couple of performances this season but not too many. We’ve got a chance to put it right at the weekend against Sunderland. "It's important that we react to this, the best teams bounce back back straight away." After Saturday's visit of Steve Bruce’s side, Hughes’ men face Everton and Blackburn before the turn of the year. And Barry knows the remainder of 2009 will be crucial to his side’s season. He said: “There’s a lot of games in a short period so the chance is there to propel yourself up the league.”
Why what worked at Blackburn isn't coming off at Manchester CityGood team spirit and an eye for a bargain were once Mark Hughes's strong points, but not now
With three winnable fixtures over the festive period Manchester City manager Mark Hughes has the opportunity to get both hands around the mega rich club's season. Photograph: Nigel Roddis/REUTERS
The plane had begun its ear-popping descent towards northern Denmark, the fasten seat belt signs were illuminated and the mood of the Manchester City players waiting for a chicken and pasta lunch veered between impatience and puzzlement. The aircraft's downward tilt made it far too dangerous for an inexperienced charter crew to distribute food on trolleys and the pilot wanted to scrap a late running meal service and land within 20 minutes.
"We've miscalculated," confided a flight attendant. "We haven't been quick enough to get our trays heated up; it could cost us." In the event blushes, and conceivably jobs, were spared when tense discussions between City's hierachy, the cabin and the cockpit resulted in an agreement to circle above Karup airport, burning fuel for the half hour or so needed to feed everyone.
Some 16 months on from that Uefa Cup trip to Midtjylland – and what everyone agreed was a "classic City moment" – Mark Hughes possibly feels a little like those despairing stewardesses. Events seem to be spiralling out of the City manager's control and no one is sure whether the club's Abu Dhabi-based ownership will grant him the time and money required to put things right.
Tomorrow Steve Bruce has an opportunity to further undermine the job security of a former Manchester United team-mate he has, for assorted reasons, never really got on with, when he takes his Sunderland players to Eastlands. Should Bruce's men prevail, City will inevitably be deemed "in crisis" yet considering they have lost just two Premier League games all season, a raft of new signings are still gelling and it is hard to find an ex-Blackburn or Wales player with a bad word to say about Hughes's modus operandi, this appears rather knee-jerk.
Unfortunately for the Welshman the plausible argument that his side are "nearly very good" is being eclipsed by both the stratospheric cost of its assembly and suspicions that he has invested many millions on individuals who decline to buy into his managerial culture.
City fans are asking whether Emmanuel Adebayor, Kolo Touré, Wayne Bridge and, above all, Robinho, might respond better to a José Mourinho figure in much the same way certain Chelsea players who failed to subscribe to Luiz Felipe Scolari's philosophy became immediately sold on Guus Hiddink's manifesto. Mourinho may be high maintenance, increasingly hysterical - see the Internazionale coach's recent altercation with an Italian journalist - and sometimes overly defensive but even the highest profile internationals endowed with the most outsize egos have a habit of submitting to his will.
Unlike Mourinho, Hughes has not benefited from having his man-management technique fine-tuned by the exacting experience of teaching in a girls school. Even so the 46-year-old has always prided himself on a no-excuses culture ensuring players are so well prepared and so well catered for they can have no cause to complain about poor coaching or communication.
Then there is the City manager's "gym culture". When Roque Santa Cruz joined Hughes's Blackburn and was inducted into a regimen big on ultra fitness and fine detail, the striker immediately declared Rovers "light years" ahead of his previous employer, Bayern Munich, in terms of coaching and sports science.
The fact these cultures have not totally thrived after transplantation to Eastlands probably says more about Hughes's flawed inheritance and subsequent signings than anything else. At Ewood Park sureness of transfer market touch proved his hallmark. Nowadays it seems to be eluding him, with the man who plucked Chris Samba from Hertha Berlin for £400,000 and made him Blackburn's defensive star appearing to have spent an unwarranted £24m on the currently injured, hitherto unimpressive, Joleon Lescott after deeming Richard Dunne surplus to requirements. Dunne is now shining at Aston Villa.
Moreover with Wales and Blackburn Hughes was renowned for not just tactical acumen – "Mark was the cleverest manager I played for," says Gary Speed – but an envied rebel-taming capacity. Previously awkward characters including Craig Bellamy, David Bentley and Robbie Savage turned strangely serene under the guidance of the former Manchester United striker and his trusted coaching lieutenants, Mark Bowen and Eddie Niedzwiecki. Things are vastly different at City though where several big-name foreign players have no reason to be grateful to the so-called "Tafia" for reviving their careers and are not remotely impressed or intimidated by their manager's reputation as one of the most formidable centre forwards of his generation.
Hughes's on-going failure to persuade Adebayor to recapture the consistency which had begun evaporating at Arsenal, let alone inspire the woefully underachieving Robinho seems emblematic of his travails. Off-loading Robinho's fellow Brazilians Elano and Jo, along with Tal Ben Haim, has minimised debilitating dressing-room cliques but, even now, loyalists, most notably Bellamy, are still being forced to carry the odd passenger in certain – frequently drawn of late – games.
Such problems are arguably exacerbated by Hughes's laudable determination to imbue City with flair-filled fluidity symbolised by genuinely attacking, tactically sophisticated, 4-3-3 formations which place extra pressure on defenders. At Everton and Chelsea, Lescott and Bridge played for more cautious managers and the difference is perhaps exposing previously undetected vulnerabilities.
As a striker, Hughes excelled at ingeniously combating problems and duly developed an expertise at volleying in order to avoid "getting constantly whacked on the head by the ball." A trio of "winnable" fixtures against Sunderland, Stoke and Wolves should afford him an ideal opportunity to show off similar resourcefulness and prove why he is still the right man for City. Equally, there can be no doubt that the festive period represents his "last chance" at Eastlands.
WAG OF THE MORNING - Missy Peregrym
http://www.thespoiler.co.uk/index.php/2 ... y-peregrym
City have already approached Guus Hiddink about replacing Hughes, according to the former Chelsea manager's agent.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/footba ... agent.html
MANCHESTER City want Arsene Wenger as their next manager.
Former Arsenal star Brian Marwood – appointed Man City’s football administrator in March – has persuaded owner Sheikh Mansour the Frenchman is the man to turn the club into title challengers and Champions League regulars.
Marwood and Wenger are said to have a “very good relationship” and although the prospects of landing the Frenchman may seem slim, there have been signs Wenger is becoming increasingly frustrated with the lack of funds at Arsenal. That would not be a problem with City, who have spent around £200m boosting Mark Hughes’ squad. The Abu Dhabi United Group are not convinced Hughes has what it takes to lift City into the big time. And Wednesday night’s 3-0 defeat at Spurs – which left City six points behind fourth-placed Aston Villa – made it just one win in 10 in the Premier League. Wenger has been with the Gunners since 1996, but the club have not won anything since the FA Cup in 2005. A source close to Sheikh Mansour said: “They are looking for someone to replace Hughes, but there is nobody out there who is available now. “The one they really want is Wenger. Marwood is driving this and he has a very good relationship with Wenger.”
Money has never been an issue with Wenger, but the 60-year-old – who has this season and next on his Arsenal deal – knows he will be able to negotiate a fabulous contract with City which would make him the best-paid manager in the Premier League. He would want total control on transfers, but with his amazing record as a wheeler-dealer at Arsenal, that is unlikely to be a problem. Although a Wenger coup is a long shot, Marwood plans to do all he can to pull it off.
Mark Hughes Under Pressure . . . bomb bomb bomb tiddle om pom, bomb bomb bomb tiddle om pom ...ding ding
The Manchester City manager is likely to make another foray into the transfer market as his team's dip in form has seen them drop to eighth in the table.
MARK HUGHES’S future at Manchester City has entered a critical period as he battles to convince the club’s owners over the next few weeks that he remains the manager to realise their long-term vision. The City manager is again under scrutiny following Wednesday night’s meagre offering at Tottenham Hotspur, where a 3-0 defeat to fellow Champions League hopefuls left the club languishing eighth in the Premier League.
City have now won one, lost one and drawn eight of their last 10 league matches and despite receiving unequivocal support from the chairman, Khaldoon al-Mubarak, and the club hierarchy in the past, Hughes is under renewed pressure to oversee an upturn before the January transfer window. City face Sunderland, Stoke City and Wolverhampton Wanderers in their final league fixtures of 2009, a trip to Middlesbrough in the FA Cup third round on January 2nd and then the eagerly anticipated League Cup semi-final with Manchester United. The prospect of guiding the club to its first major final since 1981 can be presented as evidence of tangible progress by Hughes, who appeared to have revived City’s season only a fortnight ago with victories over Arsenal in the League Cup and Chelsea in the Premier League. City’s owners, however, have higher ambitions for the season following an outlay of €133 million on new players last summer – notably a sustained challenge for Champions League qualification – despite their acknowledgment that there will be inevitable dips in the rebuilding process.
Hughes confirmed that he intends to return to the transfer market in January and the next few games are seen as key to retaining the confidence of his employers in Abu Dhabi.
The performance against Spurs represented a severe setback to those aims. “There is a minimum requirement in terms of work-rate and effort and we didn’t have a platform to be able to get into people’s faces and close people down,” the City manager conceded. “We don’t profess to be the finished article and that was shown. We have to pick ourselves up. We have a big game at the weekend and it is important we get back on track.”
The former Wales and Blackburn Rovers manager has overhauled City’s football operation since Sheikh Mansour bought the club in 2008 and there is reluctance among the owners to start anew. Equally, they also want evidence that City can compete in one of the most open Premier League seasons for several years. Hughes’s task has not been helped by an untimely sequence of injuries to defenders, the latest being the knee problem that has sidelined Joleon Lescott for between six and eight weeks. The England international underwent surgery in London on Wednesday to remove a piece of bone that came loose when he hyper-extended his knee during the 3-3 draw at Bolton Wanderers last Saturday.
Lescott joins Wayne Bridge in the treatment room, with the left-back also out for six weeks with a knee problem, and with Kolo Toure bound for the Africa Cup of Nations next month the City manager hopes to reinvest in January.
“We will see what’s out there,” said Hughes, who also has the influential Nigel de Jong suspended for the match with Sunderland on Saturday. West Ham United’s Matthew Upson and Neven Subotic of Borussia Dortmund are among the possible candidates for a new City central defender.The Eastlands club have a game in hand on the four teams immediately above them in the Premier League and Gareth Barry, Hughes’s first expensive recruit for this season, admitted there is plenty of scope for improvement on the side’s showing at White Hart Lane.Barry said: “We are very disappointed and we are really hurting in the changing room, and the best thing we can do is try to put it right on Saturday. We’ve only got a couple of days to put it right, but we want to repay the fans that came down to Spurs.”
Midweek has left Mick McCarthy and Robinho with egg on their faces
By Robbie Savage
Mick McCarthy has done a brilliant job at Wolves but I think he blundered playing that reserve team at Manchester United on Tuesday night. It might sound daft in the light of a 3-0 thumping at the champions, but I think that if Mick had stuck with the lads who beat Spurs so well on Saturday, they might actually have taken something from a game against a United side shorn of defenders and short of confidence after losing to Villa at Old Trafford. It was a great time to have faced United and I was shocked when I heard the Wolves team. Points in the Premier League are too precious to give away without a fight. I feel sorry for the supporters who would have had this date in their diaries from the day the fixtures were announced. I feel sorry for the first team players who missed out. It's conceivable that some people from both camps will never get to go to Old Trafford again. And I feel worried for Wolves that this might rebound on them when Burnley visit Molineux on Sunday lunchtime. As a player, it is very hard to turn the tap off and even given Burnley's poor away form, there is no guarantee that Mick's gamble is going to pay off.
ROBINHO'S TUNNEL DIVISION
Robinho let himself down twice on Wednesday night. First by the way he played against Tottenham and second by heading straight down the tunnel when he was rightly substituted on 59 minutes. It showed disrespect to Mark Hughes, to his team-mates and to Roque Santa Cruz, who replaced him. And it didn't look like the work of someone who believes what he said on TV the day before, that he wanted to stay at City for years and years. I usually hate being subbed but the least you can do is swallow your pride and disappointment and cheer your team-mates on from the bench.I've certainly never stormed down the tunnel... although I might have thrown a glove or kicked a water bottle... or two!
WIN £100 MCF.net prize Bollox
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Jamie Redknapp's SEASON’S BEST?
Has there been a better signing this season than Richard Dunne? Martin O’Neill has made a number of important buys, including James Milner, but none have made a bigger impact than Irish powerhouse Dunne. He is one of those warrior defenders who everybody wants in their dressing room. He gets his head in where it hurts.
...OR SEASON’S BEST?
One player who might rival Dunne, because he only cost £2million, is Spurs midfielder Niko Kranjcar. He’s such a clever, understated player. Now that he is really fit and rising to the challenge of playing with better players, you can see how good he is. He scores goals, rarely wastes a pass and drifts in from his base on the left.
SORRY TO HEAR, JOI worry about Manchester City’s Joleon Lescott, who is out until the New Year with a knee injury. I had a similar problem and know what it takes out of you as a player. With fellow centre back Kolo Toure soon off to the Africa Cup of Nations, as well as struggling for form, it’s easy to see where City will buy when the transfer window opens next month.
GET OFF MICK'S BACK
I can’t join the chorus of criticism for Wolves manager Mick McCarthy. If his team go on to beat Burnley on Sunday, it will have been a brilliant decision to play his reserves at Manchester United, where they were never going to win even with their best team. McCarthy is not the first manager to pick a weakened side. Give the guy a break.
SUPER BURNLEY
Owen Coyle’s Burnley have lost only three games in the whole of 2009 at their Turf Moor ground. Out of their 22 home games in all competitions this year, 10 have been against Premier League opposition. Burnley have beaten Manchester United and Tottenham, and drawn with Arsenal and Aston Villa. They have been terrific.
DRAB WITHOUT FAB
Arsenal are running out of players. Cesc Fabregas is now absent with a hamstring injury and they are having to play midfielder Andrey Arshavin in attack. How long can Arsene Wenger keep up the pursuit of Chelsea with so many injury problems? Arsenal certainly need more firepower at the end of their pretty football.
ALL AGOG OVER NGOG
Much has been made of Liverpool’s failings this season,
but it’s time we recognised that striker David Ngog is making progress and looks as if he might emerge as an exciting talent. He has been overpromoted at times this season — Liverpool should have signed a player to supplement Fernando Torres — but, with the pressure mounting, Ngog has played well and really looked the part in the 2-1 win over Wigan.
TRANSFER BOLLOX
Chelsea have given up on signing Franck Ribery and will concentrate on signing his £25m-rated Bayern Munich team-mate Bastian Schweinsteiger in January instead.The Sun
Atletico Madrid striker Sergio Aguero expects to complete a £32m move to Chelsea next month.The Sun
Chelsea are also considering a £20m swoop for Wolfsburg striker Edin Dzeko. Daily Telegraph
Crystal Palace forward Victor Moses has attracted attention from Barcelona and German side Hoffenheim but wants to stay in England, with Tottenham keen on the £5m-rated teenager. The Sun
Burnley manager Owen Coyle asked Arsenal boss Arsene Wenger if he could sign teenage Gunners midfielder Jack Wilshere on loan when they spoke just before kick-off at Turf Moor on Wednesday. Daily Mirror
Nottingham Forest are set to make a £3m bid for Tottenham's Welsh defender Gareth Bale and will spend the same amount to turn Nicky Shorey's loan move from Aston Villa into a permananent move. Daily Mirror
Wigan have opened talks with Argentine side Velez Sarsfield about signing Chilean defender Waldo Ponce. Daily Mirror
Derby boss Nigel Clough has been told he will have to pay £800,000 for Bournemouth striker Brett Pitman. (The Sun)
Blackburn are leading the chase to sign 16-year-old Bosnian midfielder Marko Maletic from Dutch side De Graafschap, with Celtic also interested. Daily Mirror
Ipswich hope to beat Wolves, Newcastle and Middlesbrough to the £2.5m signing of Derby striker Rob Hulse. (The Sun)
Charlton will take Livingston winger Andrew Halliday on trial in January with a view to signing him but face competition for the 18-year-old from Sunderland, Wigan, West Ham, Fulham, Rangers, Hearts and Hibs. (Daily Record)
OTHER BOLLOX
Dundee United boss Craig Levein says he won't become Scotland's new manager unless he is convinced he is the right man for the job.Daily Record
Liverpool defender Jamie Carragher turned down an invitation from England boss Fabio Capello to reconsider his decision to retire from international football. The Times
Chelsea midfielder Frank Lampard has warned his side that they need to rediscover their killer instinct if they are to hold off a title challenge from champions Manchester United. Daily Mirror
Former England manager Steve McClaren, currently in charge of Dutch side FC Twente, does not want his next job to be in the Premier League and would prefer to work in another foreign country, preferably Spain, next. Daily Mail
Liverpool have insisted they are willing to invest the estimated £15m needed to upgrade Anfield to a World Cup venue for 2018 or 2022, should the club's proposed new stadium fail to materialise.The Independent
Former Peterborough boss Darren Ferguson is favourite to become Reading's next manager following the departure of Brendan Rodgers. Daily Mail
Premier League clubs will face a pre-World Cup fixture backlog if the weather causes postponements in the next few weeks as there are few free midweek slots to fit in rearranged games and the end of the domestic season has already been brought forward.The Guardian
FINAL BOLLOX
Manchester United boss Sir Alex Ferguson served Christmas dinner to the club's youth team at their Christmas panto, which saw United's youngsters mock their superstar club-mates in the senior squad.The Sun
Wayne Rooney's in-laws are being tormented by their pet parrot, who keeps squawking the name of Rooney's son after the Manchester United and England striker taught the African Grey to say "Kai Wayne Rooney" for a laugh.
The Sun
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