There are certain fixtures on the calendar that you take more notice of than others. For this writer one of the more prominent ones is whenever City take on Tottenham. For it was the FA Cup final in 1981 when as a 9 year old I was going to choose my team. All the teams I supported in other sports wore blue. Royal blue. Tottenham wore navy blue shorts and City wore sky blue shirts. Which one would I be more satisfied with? I chose the shirts over the shorts and became a City fan. Sure the colour wasn't what I normally chose but it was nearer to royal blue than navy was. I think you could argue, until recently, that I was doomed for years of mediocrity whichever way I went.
But what if I'd have chosen the other team? How would I approach this game. At the moment I'm predicting a hard fought narrow win to City. I thought an interesting way to preview this game is to interview a Tottenham supporter and get their "expert opinion" on the match and Spurs in general.
They're a secretive bunch over at Spurs. I put some questions to one of their fans and in order to publish I'm not allowed to give his name, nor can I say which forum he belongs to. So here's a Q&A with a guy we'll call Spud from Spudsforum and get his thoughts on the game and Tottenham in general.
1. I believe the majority of elder City fans are still bitter over the FA Cup final loss in 81 and have generally a negative view toward Tottenham, but would prefer you to win your derby against the Arse. What do you think is the Tottenham view of City?
I think most Tottenham fans would simply see City as a very good team. Some quarters see you as financially doped, but there’s also an awareness there that in modern football you need vast sums of money to challenge for honours and many spurs supporters (not all) would love the same level of investment. To get back to your major point about left over feelings from the 81 FA Cup Finals, I often see forum discussions where Spurs fans have looked on City forums and wondered why there seems to be such bitterness. We know there are bad feelings on your part about that, however I don’t think there is any existing rivalry from a Spurs point of view outside of the patented ‘top 4’ rivalry.
2. 3-4 years ago the two clubs had a fantastic rivalry for the final Chumps League place. Although City have moved up the tree, Tottenham have stayed relatively stable. What do you put that down to?
The vast sums of money injected into your club. Not only in terms of transfer fees but in terms of wages. There’s a lot of focus on how much Tottenham have spent this season, but it’s often overlooked that our net spend is minimal (we actually made $3mil). If you look at Harry Redknapp’s last season at the Lane, we were flying high at Christmas and through January. When the chance came to invest we bought in Ryan Nelson and Louis Saha, even baulking at getting Suarez in because he was too similar to Van der Vaart (still, one of my biggest wtf moments in supporting Spurs). The investment in City lets you build amazing squad depth without having to routinely weaken your team by selling your best players and not rejig your team accordingly. Spurs don’t have that luxury and for whatever reason, as a business, there’s strong feeling we exist to make money. If we were in your shoes we would have kept Bale and Modric (although RM is obviously a big drawcard) and added quality to them. It’s no secret that before investment Man City weren’t exactly pulling up stumps.
3. Money. This season you came into quite a bit of it by selling your best player. What do you make of the replacements? Would you give them all back to have kept Bale?
Would we like to have Bale still? Hell yes. Who wouldn’t? On top of that, the whole team was shaped to get the best out of Bale as well. I wouldn’t return all the players although only a few are showing signs of settling – I was prepared for that, you don’t buy 7 players from around the world who haven’t played in the EPL before and expect them all to just hit the ground running. It just doesn’t happen. It’s a balance of potential and squad building versus amazing star player. We’d all have preferred to keep Bale – and I honestly believed he’d give us another season as he genuinely seemed to love it at Spurs, but he’s gone.
4. AVB. How will your fans remember him?
Nice guy, boring football, pushed out VDV for Sigurdsson. I liked him and thought he was doing OK in terms of results despite some obvious car-crashes. His win percentage was good, he went for it in all the cups, but ultimately, the boring football was his undoing. Something like that very quickly makes Spurs supporters unforgiving when it comes to results. I think that sentiment spread from the stands to the players. The home game against Liverpool hurt. There’s no reason whatsoever that Liverpool are 5 goals better than us, but no one seemed interested. Players not moving 5 yards for a throw in, etc…. Once that happens, the manager has to go.
5. Tim Sherwood. Discuss.
Apparently, Sherwood was earmarked long ago by the chairman as a future manager. It’s happened now, which is something that I think surprised and angered many, me included.
The guy doesn’t have his badges, but fans of our youth teams point out that tactically he’s switched on and our youth teams have performed very well in recent years. Obviously the tactics argument doesn’t fit the narrative that’s being used right now. I think that’s because one of Sherwood’s ways to get the fans onside is to almost be the anti-AVB. It’s similar to Redknapp in that he would talk about tactics being overrated but some of our most famous wins from his tenure were clearly about tactics.
It’s very easy to say Sherwood is doing well in the league right now – and we are – but this squad should be doing well and Man U aside we played teams that we ‘should’ have beat anyway. These players and this team, should win most games. It sounds like arrogance, but it’s the truth – you can probably relate to that.
There are questions about him seemingly not rating certain players (Capoue, Lamela) but his introduction of Bentaleb has gone swimmingly, so as big a shock as that was, he’s got it right so far. (Obviously, that points to tactics again, but I give you the pressing of Swansea at their home ground and obviously the re-invigoration of Adebayor. That’s a tactical which gives us someone the ball can stick to in the final third. All that said, it’s still very early days and the jury is still out. I’m expecting you guys to give us the pasting you’ve been regularly giving to other top teams recently and then the way Timmeh responds will give us more of a clue as to where we go from here.
6. The game. You're on a roll now, but it should come as no surprise that City fans are extremely confident at the moment. If you do manage to get a result, what do you need to do to get it?
Keep it tight, start strongly, play Sandro or Capoue and pressure the ball. If you get a moment’s space, you’ll smash us. Unfortunately, you guys have a habit of really playing well against other big teams and stepping up your game. We’ll need to keep it tight and no lapses in the back – basically play very well.
7 Finally, if the footballing gods offered you Arsenal winning the league with Tottenham finishing fourth or Arsenal suffering a heartbreaking final day 2nd but Tottenham finishing 5th, which would you take?
Tottenham finishing fourth. Rivalries aside you want your own team to do as well as possible, right?
Tottenham need a win to keep pace with Liverpool for fourth whilst City can go top with an away victory.
Odds. Spurs 3.75 Draw 2.50 City 2.25
Prediction. Tommy Hutchison to keep the ball out of his own net and City to win the 81 FA Cup.
The mancityfans.net football forum
The BEST FORUM in all the land and all the world
