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GEEKSHEET - SHEFFIELD WEDNESDAY FA Cup home

January 5, 2015, 10:05 am
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More contributions to modern science. This time a detail showing David Silva's "explosive" entry into the game, a shift by Manuel Pellegrini that - along with the simultaneous introduction of Samir Nasri - changed the game in City's favour. An FA Cup tie that was stubbornly refusing to bend City's way, suddenly turned and, with seconds to spare City were through. Player ratings for ESPNFC are here.

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EVERTON BLUES

January 9, 2015, 10:19 am
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Luke O’Farrell
ESPNFC Everton writer gives his opinion on how the Everton/City relationship stands in 2015
Twitter:https://twitter.com/lukeofarrell

“On and off the pitch, time has widened the gap between Everton and a Manchester City side who have cemented their place at the top table in recent years. The two are in the same league only by default, particularly on the monetary side. Even the new television deal cannot hide the gulf between the two.
Everton produced record turnover last season of £120.5m; City were not too far away from tripling that with their £347m turnover. As such, the blue half of Manchester barely registers in our thinking, save for the two occasions the sides meet on the pitch.
You are title challengers on a yearly basis and we are Champions League chasers at best – and on current form, we could not be any further away from that goal, or a revitalised City team led by the outstanding Sergio Aguero.

One thing to lessen over time, though, is any ill will previously afforded City. The Joleon Lescott saga is old news and the bitter ramblings once dished out by Mark Hughes and Roberto Mancini no longer concern.
City has the finances, modern stadium and strength in depth Everton can only dream about and yet there is no begrudging your success, which is perhaps due to the similarities of years past, with the two built on a loyal fan base with all too recent memories of bleak days.
As City emerge convincingly from the shadow of their high-profile, more prominent neighbours, Everton aspire to do the same."

Simon Hughes
Everton season ticket holder since the 60s sees his club thrust suddenly and unexpectedly into a crisis of confidence and management
Twitter:
https://twitter.com/SimonHughes5

“
Two years down the line since Everton’s last games against City under Moyes and much has changed. Unfortunately, the overarching picture and likely outcome against City remains pretty much the same. Everton drew that game thanks to a goal bundled in by Fellaini – he doesn’t do pretty – and a resolute defensive performance that was typically Moyes-esque. Fellaini’s gone, so has Moyes, and Everton’s resolute defence now has more holes than my old socks. However, the intervening season, the first under Martinez, was a thing of beauty. Suddenly the Blues were playing expansive, progressive football. We had more possession than we knew what to do with and our fullbacks were spending more time in the opposition area than in our own. We didn’t need money, we had the magic formula. Pass, pass, pass. Typically for Everton we still managed to miss out on the top four due to some late aberrations, but a return to Europe set hearts aflutter and hopes were high for a further push.

Summer was therefore a bit confusing. We had a bit of money, but most of this went on retaining the services of the previously on loan Lukaku and Barry. Besic and Atsu were welcome arrivals, but hardly ones to make an immediate impact. The squad looked good, but not necessarily stronger particularly with players returning from a tiring World Cup. A feeling of slight unease began to creep in when it appeared we had scant pre-season fixtures and were putting them together last minute with all the professionalism of the White Lion second eleven. A slow start ensued, the team looked half-fit at best. We took the lead at newly-promoted Leicester – twice – and threw it away. Two goals up against Arsenal led to an inevitable draw. We took the lead against Palace at home – and lost. A pattern had set in, only interrupted by confident displays in Europe that saw us despatch Lille and Wolfsburg. Injuries, a perennial problem at Goodison have played a part with Barkley, Barry, Stones, Alcaraz, Oviedo, Kone, Mirallas, Coleman, Pienaar, McCarthy and Naismith all spending time out. Just as we seem about to develop a head of steam it comes sputtering to a halt. One nil up against Spurs and Hull led to defeat and a draw.

Questions are now being asked of Martinez, as it does appear that teams have sussed Everton out. We like to pass it about and rarely put crosses in. As a result teams keep it tight and press us in midfield in the knowledge that the distribution from the back – I’m looking at you, Sylvain – is likely to return the ball to them sooner or later. The fact that our full backs charge onwards also leaves gaps in behind for teams who can break quickly. Palace exploited this, so did Hull. God knows what City might make of it. Saturday will provide a major test of Martinez. Naismith, McCarthy and Stones would be ideal for this fixture – and he needs to find a way to get a result. Is he prepared to change his philosophy? Does he know how to? We’ll soon find out, but I fear playing an in-form City will be too much for an Everton lacking energy and confidence.
School of Science solution?
It’s fair to say that this season so far is probably the most bizarre and disheartening I’ve experienced, and I’ve experienced a few. These days football is increasingly predictable (mainly due to the constraints of finance) but no-one predicted the shambles that Everton has become under Martinez, who seemed almost universally well-regarded.

There had been a few warning signs. I’d previously mentioned the ridiculous pre-season preparations. I’ve never know a top-flight team have so few fixtures, almost entirely organised at the last minute and therefore often against poor opposition. We drew with Tranmere and Porto, lost to Leicester, Celta Vigo and Paderborn. Players joined training late. We looked unfit, but it was only pre-season. By contrast Liverpool, a good comparison, played 8 pre-season fixtures almost entirely against top-level opposition. We barely strengthened the squad, but then the squad was pretty strong with decent cover in most positions.

 What was readily apparent at the start of the season was the lack of fitness with the team conceding goals late on and throwing leads away with regularity. This lack of fitness and preparation has translated to all the significant performance stats. We fail to press and close down, we make fewer tackles than any other team, we’re offside more than anyone and make more individual errors – and we get punished for them.

We don’t cross the ball – ever. I’ve never seen a team play with such lack of intensity. We have the two best full-backs in the league and they’ve been reduced to bystanders. Our passing is incredibly slow, so that when the ball reaches a player he’s already closed down. Barry is playing so deep he might as well be in the crowd and we just concede the midfield. He’s been as awful as he was good last year, but still gets picked. Selections and substitutions have been very strange.

Besic is one of the few to play with energy, yet gets ignored or subbed. On numerous occasions we’ve played with three Number 10’s, all getting in each other’s way. Injuries have also played a massive part and we’re missing key, reliable performers like McCarthy, Osman and Stones. The number of hamstring and muscle injuries is ridiculous and you have to wonder what goes on in training. The suggestion is we don’t train on full pitches, we don’t practice defending or corners at either end because it doesn’t fit into the Martinez philosophy. The Head of Medicine has left the club and the Head of Fitness seemingly due to disagreements with Martinez, who is a qualified physio!? Confidence has now gone through the floor and we’re being well beaten and bullied by shit teams. What will happen when we play City doesn’t bear thinking about.

Unless something drastic changes we’ll go down. Martinez doesn’t seem willing to take the pragmatic approach to get results and I don’t think he can turn this around. I think he’s only got a couple of games before this explodes in his face. Personally I’d get McLaren in from Derby (you have no idea how much it hurts to say that) or go for a temporary solution with Joe Royle and Sheedy (both already at the club) just to try to keep us up. Unbelievable
.                                                                                                                                ”
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DAYS OF HOPE

January 11, 2015, 3:46 pm
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On Sunday 21st April 2002 Manchester City successfully completed their promotion season under Kevin Keegan and claimed the unrestrained cheers of a 34,657 sell-out crowd at Maine Road. Keegan had brought the club back from the wilderness and into the Premier League. Many in the crowd that day could not remember the last season City had entertained us so royally from start to finish, possibly because such a thing more than likely simply did not exist.
 
That last match, a 3-1 win over Portsmouth, will remain in the memories for many reasons, not least the stunning 108 goals scored to equal City’s all-time record. Stuart Pearce’s last minute penalty miss had put a typically City cork in a season of incessantly flowing champagne. It was also Pearce’s last game in 20 years of professional football and the miss left him hanging forlornly on 99 career goals.
 
There was laughter and there were tears for the end of a season so full of brisk attacking football, so many goals and so many fabulous team performances.
 
City finished ten points clear of West Brom with a goal difference of +54. The Premier League awaited Keegan’s maestros and a summer of high anticipation awaited the rest of us.
 
For much of that season – and indeed for the final part of the Portsmouth game – Keegan had chosen to play with a midfield, which was vibrant, fluid, technically brilliant and collectively unstoppable. It was an engine room that purred and cantered through so many games, creating and indeed scoring an absolute hatful of goals.
 
It is ironic then, in the light of this week’s atrocities in Paris, to remember that it was a midfield containing a pair of down to earth Brits (Shaun Wright Philips and Kevin Horlock), plus the most unlikely pairing of creative magicians the English game had seen for a very long time: one, Eyal Berkovic, an Israeli, a Jew, had played the day the Twin Towers fell, in a Worthington Cup tie at Notts County, a match which surely would have been better off being cancelled. The other, Ali Bernabia, an Algerian Muslim, joined the club two days later and made his debut in the very next game, a 3-0 home win over Birmingham, where he marked an astonishingly accomplished debut with a plethora of laser-accurate passes and an assist for one of Shaun Goater’s two goals.
 
Benarbia, in the twilight of a beautiful career that had mainly been played out in France, would play 41 games that season and Berkovic – hampered by injury – 30. It was their first season together at the heart of the City engine room and it will be remembered for many a long year for the cohesion and spirit shown by the two players.
 
 
 
The following season, the pair would once again feature heavily, Berkovic clocking 28 games and Benarbia contributing to 35, as City easily consolidated their new found place in the elite.
 
In the twisting, fizzing acceleration of the Israeli and the clever, minimalist passing of the little Algerian, City had found a kind of footballing heaven and the two protagonists had found in each other their perfect foil.
 
It was perhaps not so evident then – despite the searing recollection of the attacks on American soil that autumn – but the pair came to symbolise what sport could manage and politicians plainly could not. In light of the many heart-warming reactions to the week’s events in the French capital, it may not after all only be the world of sport where a rapprochement of faiths and backgrounds can work for the harmony of the greater good.
 
 
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GEEKSHEETS: ARSENAL home

January 18, 2015, 1:26 pm
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Contrary to the firm and lucid words of that good fellow Manuel Pellegrini (to the effect that there were two reasons for City's defeat here, a wrongly awarded penalty and a lack of creativity), I put it to you that there were in fact three reasons and not one of them was a wrongly awarded penalty.

1) WELL DRILLED VISITORS Arsenal played (excellently) a structure that they seem seldom to be even mildly bothered with. In its solidity and depth, it stifled City at source, blocked the talents of David Silva and Sergio Aguero and paved the way for the fast forward-breaking players to shift into gear. In this respect, the defensive play of Coquelin was imperious, as was fellow reserve Bellerin at right back, who gave Milner no chance to shine at all. Standing out even more was a player, who has often appeared lightweight and ill at ease against the really top sides, Santi Cazorla. A vivid display from him put even David Silva in the shade. By finally embracing the idea that Arsenal don't have to be aesthetically perfect every week, Wenger managed to blunt City's own beautiful build-up play in the process.

2) DEFENSIVE MIDFIELD STALENESS In choosing Fernando and Fernandinho, Pellegrini supplied the game with a midfield duo who managed only to duplicate each other's simple stuff, and in Fernando's case, not to any great standard. Missing was the thrust of Yaya Touré and the variety of passing he and Samir Nasri provide. Although Fernandinho was successful with a number of early diagonal balls out to Jesus Navas, as the game wore on, they both got bogged down trying to play short balls that were intercepted time and time again by a hungry and well drilled Arsenal middle order. Playing this duo has worked in away games, where a certain tightness can function to the teams benefit, but here, in a home game where City had the onus of splitting a tightly packed Arsenal open, they were too alike. In this respect, Pellegrini's post match analysis was correct. One wonders then, in retrospect, why he played them both? Presumably he thought that Arsene Wenger would wait until hell freezes over before setting up Arsenal to play like they did.

3) POST INJURY STIFFNESS Once again City's main players looked like they had been hurried back into action a little too quickly. Was Vincent Kompany ready? Although he started well, his passing was a little ragged and he over-elaborated on several occasions. Worse still he picked up a booking for pulling down Giroud and - worse again - he gave away the penalty that set Arsenal on their way, by standing in the way of Nacho Monreal. Despite Pellegrini's protestations, it looked like a good shout by refere Mike Dean. Meanwhile Sergio Aguero looked off the pace at first but grew into the game as City took over in the second period. Still, by the end, he was caught out by the pace of Kieran Gibbs and pulled him back, earning himself a yellow card.

You can read here my ESPNFC player ratings for City


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BORO v CITY: A LONG HISTORY OF DISASTER

January 23, 2015, 2:56 am
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1974-75, Maine Road: Colin Bell speeds towards the midfield barrier of pre-baldness David Armstong and pre-curling tongues Graeme Souness in a two-one home win for the Blues


1975-76 League Cup semi final second leg, Maine Road. The Daily Mirror brings all the action from a memorable night as City reach Wembley after a 4-0 (4-1 on aggregrate) victory. Even the Beatles leave centre stage.
1978-79 Programme cover from the New Year's Day clash between the clubs. Peter Barnes is the thinly disguised Santa in this typically 70s "festive scene".
1978-79 Image from the same game in a subsequent programme, as Kaziu Deyna shoots for goal in the Maine Road clash, which ended 1-0 for City.
1978-79 Here is how the programme covered Deyna's winner in the same match, a 52nd minute shot with the right foot to seal the win for City.
1979-80 Programme cover from the next season, with a photo of future blue Bobby McDonald sporting the, er, famous brown of Coventry City
1979-80 For the second season running, Kaziu Deyna was the match winner. He famously swung on the crossbar after this late goal. He also scored the winner against league champions Nottingham Forest in a memorable week for the Polish star.
1979-80 Steve Daley's City career was not exactly blessed and in the Boro home game he even managed to break a toe.
1980-81 Ayresome Park. A hard fought 2-2 draw in the North East included this unfortunate goal for the home side, as Steve Mackenzie deflects the ball past reserve 'keeper Keith MacRae.
1980-81 Programme cover from the Maine Road game, won 3-2 by City
1981-82 Jim Platt looks transfixed as Trevor Francis slides in to score at Maine Road.
1981-82 Francis celebrates scoring in the same game
1981-82 Joe Corrigan under attack in the game at Ayresome Park in the same season, a dull 0-0 draw in front of just 11,709 spectators.
1983-84 The clubs meet again in the 2nd division. Here's Derk Parlane putting City ahead at Maine Road in the Blues' 2-1 victory, a win that put them 2nd in the table.
1983-84 Same game, different scorer. This is Jim Tomie, the new Kevin Keegan, making it two for City with a stylish waft of his right leg. The Kippax looks packed but Peter Swales' special crowd figure for that game was 24,466
1983-84 Alex Williams takes action in the 0-0 Ayresome Park draw, possibly the worst I have ever felt at a football match. Cold, hunger-over, hungry, bored and expecting a chasing through the streets of Middlesbrough at the end. Halcyon Days.
1984-85 The clubs are about to exit the 2nd division using spearate doors. David Phillips has just knocked another nail in the Boro coffin at Maine Road.
1991-92 An early season Premier League nightmare for Paul Lake, as he collpases at Ayresome Park, one and a bit games into a painful comeback bid. This would be the beginning of the end of his promising City career, as City lost the will to play and went down 2-0. Niall Quinn was sent off to cap an awful night.
1996-97 2nd division City give Premier League big spenders (yes, I know) Boro a real game in the 5th round of the Cup, but a late clincher from the slippers Juninho takes the visitors through, on their way to meet Chelsea in the Wembley final.
1997-98 Now the sides meet again in the league, 2nd division, with City heading downwards towards the 3rd. Uwe Rosler bangs in a dramatic Maine Road winner against table toppers Boro. A great day to be at Maine Road in a season of disasters.
1997-98 Kind Observer headline from the same match, as City prepare another false dawn for us all. Next game we went to Crewe and lost 1-0.
1997-98 Uwe Rosler's shorts are high, as are feelings in Maine Road as he salutes the North Stand after putting City ahead
2000-01 Maine Road witnesses Boro for the last time, as Gianluca Festa scores in a dull 1-1 draw with both sides back in the Premier League.
2000-01 A wild and ragged game at The Riverside, with Keith O'Neill sent off for lunging at Gerard Wiekens and a perfectly good Danny Tiatto winner ruled out for an offside that wasn't.
2000-01 More action from the same game, with City desperately in search of points to stay afloat. Yet another relegation would follow at the end of the season.
2002-03 City are at The Riverside again after a season in the second tier. Nicolas Anelka joins the action in a 3-1 defeat.
2002-03 Newsof the World report on another drab 0-0 draw, this time at the City of Manchester Stadium. 
2003-04 Paulo Wnachope fights for the ball with Franck Queudreu in a 1-2 City defeat on the penultimate day of the season at the Riverside.
2004-05 Another Boro win at the Riverside, where City's record is extremely poor.
2004-05 Perhaps the oddest moment of the lot, as Stuart Pearce *tweaks* his tactics, bringing on a second keeper to try and force the goal that would qualify City for the UEFA Cup. Strangely enough, it didn't work.
2004-05 Even worse is to come as Robbie Fowler's injury time penalty is saved by Mark Schwarzer and Boro go into Europe instead.
2006-07 Richard Dunne turns away in delight after scoring at the correct end in the sides' meeting in Manchester, a 1-0 win for City.
2007-08 Another *interesting* moment between the sides, as Elano finds some electric pace to exit the playing surface after an astonishing 1-8 reverse on the final day of the season. Sven Goran Eriksson thanks the fans for their support as the axe falls on him and the curtain falls on a complete debacle.

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QUALITY IN DEPTH

January 24, 2015, 10:33 am
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Manchester City 0 Middlesbrough 2
All hail the Cup that runneth over and spills unmentionable stuff all over your going-out trousers.

There will be some who bemoan the fact that Manchester City's players only arrived back from their warm weather training ("lucrative Middle East friendly" when translated into Sanskrit) the day before this game and - in fact - it is written in the Bumper Book of Elijah, that "he who cometh out of the desert and doth not give himself enough time to empty his plimsoles of sand, will fall into a deep pool of his own excrement. Try telling Fernando Reges and Dedryck Boyata about that just at the moment.

And if you do, then tell Captain Vincent too.

City carved out enough chances in a lively first half to have been well ahead, despite the sand-filled (or was it cement?) boots. You got the distinct impression that the deeply fragrant Phil Dowd could be a game changer with his nonchalant waving away of a City penalty for hand ball, but, in the end Middlesbrough didn't need him. They did it all by themselves (with minimal help from a troublingly obliging City defence), and with something to spare too.

The second half saw quite the most eye-watering transformation since Frank Maloney shipped up in Harley Street. City, nonchalant to the point of being criminally negligent, suddenly looked like long flights in and out of the promised land did mean something after all.

There were culprits all over the pitch, so it would be childish to pick out Kompany, Boyata and Fernando for special mention, but Saturday evening was never a time to be completely grown up, so let's do just that. Kompany did not look fit, Boyata did what he always does and Fernando's grim antics will have made some people pine for Javier Garcia, never mind Nigel de Jong.

City became more ragged and less convincing as time dripped by.

The thought crossed gently through the mind that Manuel Pellegrini is still to make a convincing purchase in the transfer market. All of City's Big Football Men were brought in under Roberto Mancini. Yaya, David Silva and Aguero all arrived on the Italian's watch, whilst the currently strangely diminished Kompany came in under Mark Hughes. Yes, those were the days of building the powerbase, but equivalent amounts have been spent since then on the likes of Fernandinho and Mangala with far smaller returns. Maybe FFP has destroyed the club's ability to bid for the real superstars, but the calibre and capability of new recruits is clearly on a different scale these days.

There is something to be said for having two players of equal ability for each position, but City have clearly not managed to purchase this dream.


Where does this all leave City then? Well, after an equally limp exit from the League Cup to Newcastle and a widening gap at that top of the Premier League, some might say its time to concentrate on the Champions League. That of course, sounds like the man in the pub making plans to take Demi Moore down to The Golden Dragon for a plat of chicken chop suey, but it is suddenly the only competition where City will start in February with a clean bill of health.

Ironically, it is also the only competition where an upward trend can be noticed. The 3-2 skipping-out-of-the-grave win against Bayern and the amazingly adroit showing in Rome pulled the club through to the knockout phases as only the 7th team in Champions League history to qualify from the initial groups after failing to win any of their first 4 games. That statistic certainly has something of the night about it and City will need to be quite something again if they want to put anything more than a small twig in Barcelona's spokes. Still, it will be nice starting that tie as the continental version of Middlesbrough entering the grey precincts of Manchester in the FA Cup.

Expectations low, output high.

In the meantime, we will enjoy the view of Bradford City and Palace and Leicester and West Brom in the 5th round. We will wait to see if Cambridge and Preston can join them in the world's most revered cup competition and secretly inside we will chuckle that the old pot can still throw up all these dramatic, romantic storylines that mean we can never take it - or the opponents it throws up - for granted.

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KINGS ROAD COUNTERCULTURE

February 1, 2015, 10:19 am
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Fernandinho put in a Man of the Match performance
Coming away from Stamford Bridge with a point, having come out on top in every aspect of the game except actually winning it, should not be scoffed at. For those stating it was the big opportunity missed, I beg to differ. An opportunity, perhaps, but it is diffcult to imagine there will not be more moments to take advantage of in the next three months. Even in the light of twenty four hours to digest the ebb and flow of a fascinating contest, the word "missed" might still not be the most apt.

Did anyone expect Manchester United to lose at Wigan and concede a ridiculously careless 4-4 draw with Everton three years ago? Did anyone believe Liverpool would self-combust against Demba Ba and the gathered might of Crystal Palace a year ago? Football continues to enthral and surprise and will no doubt do so again before the end of this campaign. We just don't know how and who it will affect.

City have plenty of previous on the catching up leaders against the odds front and, even if key players are three years older than the first time they managed it, they can plainly still do it. As some have begun to hint, a side whose core has has been together for four years, will soon necessarily begin the process of overhaul. But here at a darkened and atmospheric Stamford Bridge, it was City's elder statesmen carrying the game to Chelsea for long periods of a tight physical battle.

With Chelsea backpedalling to such a degree in the second half that they looked like the away team, City's territorial dominance was not matched with really clear cut chances. When chances of sorts did occur, they fell to an Aguero in improving form but not quite back to the full coruscating net-blasting impishness of pre-Christmas. Two other presentable opportunities fell to Fernandinho, one of the side's less potent threats in front of goal. The first he skewed just wide, then met a second half cross with a downward header so ill directed, it nearly burrowed underground before bouncing over the bar. The evening was, soon afterwards, done.

City, though, had much to be pleased about. Dominance is a fake friend when the opposition choose to reduce their input to stalling tactics, but in doing this, far from simply preserving their five point advantage, Chelsea were admitting they could not do any better.

As statements of intent for budding Premier League champions go, it didn't exactly shout superlatives from the main stand roof.

Pellegrini had clearly done his homework. Bacary Sagna, a surprise inclusion on the right of defence, had his best game in a blue shirt, raiding willingly up the flank and partnering the surprisingly effective Navas in subduing much of the obvious threat posed by Eden Hazard. Tellingly, when Hazard did free himself to get on the end of Ivanovic's crossfield pass, his cleverly volleyed cross back across the City area - taken early to wrong foot the onrushing defenders - resulted in the opening goal, with Kompany again looking suspect as he made it into position but retracted his right leg at the last moment. Whether trying to avoid knocking it into his own net, or uncertain whether he'd reach it or not, with Remy right behind him, Kompany really had to attempt to get his foot on it in one form or another.

This was a shame both individually and collectively, as both the captain and the side in general had been performing much better than of late. With Navas also finally pounding for the byline instead of circulating in that infernal cutting back loop that he sometimes seems trapped in, he was City's most effective attacking threat and, with Sagna, provided City with a strong outlet down the right.

Fernandinho in the centre was immense, shutting out the threat from Matic and making up for Fernando's lack of zip. Matic is an immense player and can run riot through the central areas if left unchecked. Much like the missing Yaya Touré, if allowed to boss the middle areas, he will do just that with consummate ease. It is curious that City's raids on the Portuguese Liga for defensive midfielders has brought Garcia and now Fernando northwards but never alighted on Matic, easily the best of the lot. With Clattenburg generously allowing a string of his fouls to go unpunished, whilst booking Fernando for leaving a loose leg hanging, Matic could maintain a robust presence and City needed all of Fernandinho's wiry energy to stunt the big Serb's progress.

With Milner providing his usual spirit on the other flank and David Silva desperately foraging for any tiny spaces that he might be able to open up, City bossed the game territorially, had the better of the possession stats, provided almost all of the game's shots on goal and - in their substitutions - were clearly the only side trying to win it as the game grew old.

One man's handywork
Five points remain between the two sides, still a mere trifle at this stage. With Touré and Nasri to return and the firepower of Bony to be added to this side, there is no reason to doubt that City can continue to provide a strong challenge in the coming weeks. Chelsea, stuck in a habit of playing the same side each week, may well rue this later on, if and when tired limbs begin to give up on them or loss of form finally affects some of their more important players.

All to play for, certainly. Chelsea have the points advantage but a supposedly record global audience watching on tv around the planet, will have noted which side was hungrier, which side had the greater cohesion and which side came closest to winning this breathless and compelling top of the table clash.
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COMPETITION

February 3, 2015, 3:21 am
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Not really sure how we've all survived these long years without CampoRetro, but now they're here, they make a difference to our mundane and tepid lives, spent buying disappointing pies and chasing next door's cat with a cricket bat.

Now they have taken the wise move of offering one of these beauties for FREE. All you have to do is answer the question below the images. 






QUESTION: Of Mike Doyle, Paul Lake, Neil Young and David White, WHO WON THE GREATEST NUMBER OF ENGLAND CAPS?


You won't find the answer here, but you'll find a heap of stuff you'll want to wear: http://www.camporetro.com/Shop-By-Team/Premier-League/Manchester-City 

You should state preference for one shirt or another and mention in calm tones just how large you have become since becoming addicted to wagon wheels. Answers to the quiz should be sent in to competitions@camporetro.com
 
Entries in before 25th February please.

Best of luck and remember the answer is not, was never and never will be Buster Philips


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THE COWARDS OF EUROPE

February 22, 2015, 9:20 am
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"This team will frighten the life out of Europe. It will frighten the life out of the cowards of Europe. It will take them and shake them and frighten them. Those cowards of Europe will not know what has hit them"


Mr Allison’s words. These were Mr Allison’s words. They were Mr Allison’s words of war and they were words of war made for the European Cup. For the players and staff of Fenerbahçe, the unknown Fenerbahçe, who must now surely be trembling in their hastily fabricated and cheaply constructed football boots, made out of goat’s hide and sticky back plastic.

The words of Mr Allison were in every newspaper. They were in English and in Turkish. Mr Allison’s words were translated into Turkish. Mr Allison’s words were in English. The words of Mr Allison made good reading in the newspapers for the readers. The words made good reading in Turkish, with their sedillasand their circumflexes and their noisy guttural palatalisation.

Mr Allison’s words looked just fine in Turkish and were read by the supporters and staff of Fenerbahçe, the unkown Fernebahce, with their makeshift boots and their cowardly aroma of sticky back plastic.

These were his words of war. These were his words of European Cup war.

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No spine. One man team. This is what they said.

No spine. One man team, they all said. And they repeated it. No spine. One man team. All the newspapers repeated the phrase: one man team. It was a one man team and it was a team that was going to be beaten, because it relied on only one man. All the readers of newspapers digested the words and remembered them. It was a one man team waiting to be beaten, a one man team waiting to be dispatched, waiting to be parcelled off by the men from Rome.  

The words were not those of Mr Pellegrini. They were in English and in Italian, but they were not the words of Mr Pellegrini. These were words of war, but they were not Mr Pellegrini’s words of war. They were newspaper editors' words of war. They were the words of war for a different war, a war of newspaper editors waging war on reader numbers and website clicks.

And the reader numbers clicked by as the words flowed. And the war was waged on all of us.

***

Mr Allison looked at the team sheet and bit his nails. He looked at the team sheet and puffed on his cigar. He puffed long and hard on a big, fat cigar. He looked again and asked his captain what he thought. His captain said he thought it would be fine. His captain Anthony Book looked through his manager's hastily constructed cigar smoke and nodded.

It would all be fine, he said.

Mr Allison also thought it would be fine. All fine. Mr Allison looked at that team sheet and stared at the names upon it. It would be fine, he thought. His captain thought the same thing. Anthony Book, captain of Manchester City, thought exactly the same thing. Mr Allison's cigar tasted just fine too and the smoke smelled just right.

He looked through the list one more time, admiring it, staring at it: Kenneth Mulhearn, David Connor, George Heslop, Alan Oakes, Glyn Pardoe, Colin Bell, Anthony Coleman, Michael Doyle, Michael Summerbee, Francis Lee and Neil Young. That would do, he thought. That would do nicely.
And captain Anthony Book thought so too. It would do. Even though Anthony Book, captain and right back, captain and inspiration, would not be there to play the makeshift men from Turkey. Not only would it do, it would be fine.

***

Mr Pellegrini asked Mr Cousillas what he thought of the team’s chances in the circumstances. The circumstances were grim. No spine left, one man team. This is what the press had been saying. This is what the press had been saying all week. This is what they always said. And no spirit. No team spirit. And these were the words of war that the newspaper readers read.

Mercenaries with no team spirit. Mercenaries playing for the petro dollars. Petro dollars and nothing else. Oil money. No team spirit and no spine left. Just dollars from the micro petro state in the sun.

Mr Pellegrini rubbed his chin and looked at the team sheet. Joseph Hart, Pablo Zabaleta, Gael Clichy, Martin Demichelis, Eliaquim Mangala, James Milner, Samir Nasri, Fernando Reges, Fernandinho Rosa, Jesus Navas, Edin Dzeko.

But no spine and no spirit was the message from the men in the press.

It might not do, he thought. And Mr Cousillas thought that too. It might not do, they both thought without uttering the words one to the other. It might not do. It might not do at all. And the press might be right.

***

The day of the match. No sleep. A terrible clatter, banging outside the hotel, drums and shouting, wailing and sirens. A terrible clamour. A terrible clatter. People running around in the dark, car horns sounding, people wailing in the streets.

Kenneth Mulhearn rubbed his eyes and looked at the clock, the digital clock, the new fangled digital hotel clock. The new fangled digital hotel clock read 05:05. It was five o’clock in the morning. It was five minutes past five in the morning. Five past five a.m. Istanbul time. Local time. Time for the locals.
Kenneth Mulhearn rolled over in bed and looked at the curtains. Dark green curtains with a little yellow stencil pattern. The dark green curtains with a little yellow pattern looked back at Kenneth Mulhearn and he did not sleep anymore.

Next door David Connor also looked at his curtains, as did Michael Summerbee in Room 106 and Alan Oakes alongside in 108. Nobody slept anymore, owing to the clatter and the din in the street. The clatter and the din just kept getting louder and louder.

***

Joseph Hart awoke at eight-forty five precisely. The liquid crystal digital read-out on his mobile phone read 08:45 Roma. The mobile phone was vibrating and pulsing. It made little noise and the streets outside made little noise. Owing to the triple glazing and the specially chosen location and the police cordon of little yellow and orange bollards, the street outside made little noise.

It was a quarter to nine in Rome. Rome time. Joseph Hart thought of the day ahead, stretching, exercising, preparing, talking to microphones. Stretching, exercising, preparing, talking to microphones.

Joseph Hart looked into his mobile phone to find music and to find the newspaper headlines that would talk of mercenaries and last chance saloons and failure and gladiators and Roman ruins.

The mercenaries. The pound stretchers. The bunch of cowardly individuals that were not a team. The cowards of Europe.

Joseph Hart yawned and put on his headphones. Joseph Hart yawned and scratched his head and put on his headphones to listen to music.

***

The BJK İnönü Stadyumu was already packed. The new digital time display in the stadium read 09:23. Breakfast time in Istanbul. The BJK İnönü Stadyumu was rolling and rocking. The BJK İnönü Stadyumu was full to the rafters at breakfast time. 
Kenneth Mulhearn joined his team mates. David Connor, Michael Summerbee, Francis Lee. They all looked tired. Michael Summerbee did not look as if he had slept at all. Kenneth Mulhearn felt a little like Michael Summerbee looked. The players gathered in a meeting room. One by one they gathered in the small hot meeting room. One by one the players, looking tired and flustered, sat down in the hot and small meeting room to listen to the words of Mr Allison, who also looked tired and hot and restless.

Mr Allison did not smoke a big cigar.

Mr Allison looked at the players and sighed. Mr Allison’s confidence was shot through. Mr Allison, for the first time, wondered if they might not lose. Mr Allison told them that he felt confident and he repeated it, but his face told them another story, his eyes told them another story and everyone understood what his face and his eyes were telling them.

***

The Estadio Olimpico was empty. Thousands upon thousands of empty blue seats. A silence lay around the place.

Jospeh Hart arrived in the lobby with his headphones and his bag. Fernando Reges did the same, as did Fernandinho Rosa. They all looked bright and well presented. Mr Pellegrini noted that they all looked well presented and bright. Mr Pellegrini and Mr Cousillas both noted that all looked well and shiny eyed, that all looked like they had slept the sleep of the unworried, the sleep of the uninterrupted.

Mr Pellegrini told Mr Kidd that he thought everything would be fine. Mr Kidd nodded. He also thought everything would be fine. Mr Kidd looked at the faces and the eyes of Joseph Hart and Fernandinho Rosa and decided that all would be alright, that all would be alright.

***

The roads were choked. Choked roads with thousands of people. The players of Manchester City
looked out of the windows and watched the choked roads with their thousands of people. 

Kenneth Mulhearn looked at the roads and the people. Kenneth Mulhearn shifted in his seat and returned to his newspaper, with his bloodshot eyes and his heavy head, which kept sliding down the window. Kenneth Mulhearn did not feel at all like playing football.

Mr Allison looked at the roads and sighed. Anthony Book and Michael Summerbee looked at the roads and sighed.

The people bounced and jumped, bounced and jumped. The people in the choked roads lit flares and banged drums. They shouted and sang and made a frightful din. The din entered the coach and the players of Manchester City sank behind their newspapers, with the din ringing in their ears.

***

Joseph Hart and his team mates sat silently in their modern bus. It slid down empty streets towards the stadium in a swish of near silence. The roads were dark and still.

Joseph Hart listened to music on his headphones. Mr Pellegrini watched and sighed. Mr Cousillas and Mr Kidd watched and sighed. Mr Pellegrini looked at Mr Kidd and he looked at Mr Cousillas and Mr Pellegrini nodded.

The three men lent back in the chairs in the silent bus and felt comfortable. The players behind them looked rested and alert, rested and alert. Joseph Hart felt like playing football. Joseph Hart really felt like playing football. And so too did Pablo Zabaleta and James Milner.

***


The BJK İnönü Stadyumu was surrounded by people. They looked wide eyed and excited. The people jumped up and down and thumped their fists on the side of the bus as it edged forward, inch by inch, inch by inch.

Kenneth Mulhearn had a headache. He closed his eyes and he closed the curtains. The little curtains only went halfway across the window and the people thumped even more. Kenneth Mulhearn had serious doubts and serious pains in his head. He did not at all like the look of the scene outside his unfamiliar smelling bus.

Anthony Book revised his thoughts. He did not any longer feel that all would be well. He felt something knotting in his stomach and he turned to Mr Allison and told him so.

Mr Allison smiled a weak smile and said none of the things he usually said on the bus to the stadium.

Francis Lee gripped his knees and looked out of the window. Tonight was going to be a difficult night. Tonight was not going to be his night.

***

The Stadio Olimpico was already reverberating to the distant noise of firecrackers and song. Red favours fluttered past the graded windows of the luxury bus as Joseph Hart looked out at the excited throng. Joseph Hart adjusted his earphones and settled a little lower in his luxury padded seat. He did not hear the faint bangs or the distant cries. Joseph Hart heard only music.

Out in the dank streets, people moved in the shadows. No noise came through the graded windows. The graded windows shielded them from any noise. The bus glided and the people mouthed wordless things.

Behind him Samir Nasri looked out too and gripped his knees with his hands. Tonight was going to be an interesting night. Tonight was going to be his night.
↧
↧

THIS JARRING MAN

March 15, 2015, 3:21 am
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The juggernaut has ground to an almost complete stop. Voluminous palls of black smoke emit from its back end, whilst a rhythmic clicking sound comes from under the bonnet. Is it the sound of time passing or a proper man-sized problem under there somewhere? Its driver stands alongside, charred silver hair, eyes glazed, a helplessly wan smile playing across his grey features.

Manchester City under Manuel Pellegrini have run out of oil.

On Saturday, City - possessing one of the strongest squads in English football history - lost with a whimper to Burnley. Beforehand, I had written for ESPN that two season-defining games confronted the Blues. City did not play like the game at Turf Moor held the keys to the successful denouement of this stop-start 2014-15 campaign. They played like a team that had already given up hope. A team with its mind elswhere.

Worst of all, they played like a team trying to get rid of its manager.

Anyone from Barcelona watching at the weekend, must have left the ground puzzled. Was this the side that would attempt to wrest control of their last 16 tie in the Champions League from the tight grip of the imperious, near flawless FC Barcelona? How could all these great individual players, with their world-renowned skills and temperament, produce such a sodden, lumpen whole? And what, if anything, was the management team doing about it before Wednesday?

When, in the final minute of a scuttling, erratic performance, Pablo Zabaleta was brought down by a rash tackle, a degree of face might have been saved. The referee, possibly blinded by the 90 minutes of incompetence City had put on for the public up to then, waved play on and Burnley escaped to claim the win they so richly deserved.

On the touchline, the cameras homed in on Pellegrini, an increasingly embattled figure in his blue puffer jacket. The Chilean, briefly raised his arms at the prospect of a last minute levelller from the spot, held them there, opened his mouth as if to begin a sentence and froze. In this twenty-second cameo, he revealed himself briefly to the wider public. A man left with no passion, no voice and no energy to carry the fight forward. Even the elderly Arsene Wenger - you would have expected - would have exploded at this last desperate chance going begging. Mourinho would have been well inside the pitch's boundries f-ing and blinding in his own inimitable way. Pellegrini just stood there, like a man who has forgotten where he put his wallet and now cannot buy the bus ticket home.

Early success brings it own well-documented problems, as we have seen many times in the past. What last season looked like a man rising above the sweaty clamour of the tetchy and bitchy Premier League managers' rat run, a calmness, a control, a peacefulness that said I am quietly confident in what I am doing, this season smacks of diffidence, hesitation, worst of all, cluelessness, powerlessness. The Charming Man of yore stays rooted to the touchline like a ghost tethered to a pole.

A ghost, moreover, with no influence on the horror show unwinding before him. A spectre, a whisp, an aphemeral light, flickering before going out altogether, a light mist, a gentle trance, a far off sound that fades and floats on the wind.

Proceedings at the Etihad are beginning to take on worryingly similar dimensions to the end-phase of City's last great man in a suit, Roberto Mancini, who arrived a gladiatorial maestro and left with his reputation singed and folded. Taking City from nearly men to FA Cup gloryboys and then Premier League winners and Champions League participants, he ended his days - lest we forget - with his side refusing to play properly for him on the worldwide stage of an FA Cup final.

Those there that day saw the obvious final act of treachery, the final act of a play that had turned from light, breezy success story to Roman tragedy. A team, as well endowed as the current one, playing out a showpiece final against little Wigan Athletic much like yesterday's megastars trundled about thoughtlessly at Turf Moor.

With exactly the same result. A needless and lightly pathetic defeat when it was least wanted, least needed.

What are we reduced to? Vincent Kompany, that giant stone bulwark, once again dibbling a weak header to the first attacker, who, in this case, made decent connection and walloped it straight back to where it had come from. Zabaleta, that iron willed metronome, reduced to jittery hesitancy. Yaya Touré, the man who can carry an entire game before him, pick it up and mould it to his liking, a disinterested passenger in midfield. And worst of all, David Silva, the heart beat, the artist, the sculptor, reduced to misplaced little passes into areas of the field utterly devoid of dark blue shirts. The whole display stank of end of empire and only the Gods now know what is in store for us when we step timidly out on to the Rambla de Catalunya in three days time.

Pellegrini is heading down the same dark tunnel on this showing. Ineffective, unable to change the flow of things and stubborn to the point of spiting himself, those two games to shape the season have now become one. In Barcelona. The Nou Camp. Where only a two goal win or a high scoring one goal win will suffice. City have surprised us on countless occasions through the club's ridiculously unbalanced history, but that, my friends, would surely top the lot.
↧

FOOD FOR THOUGHT

March 24, 2015, 4:00 am
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Perched at the end of the wooden bar at El Pintxo, there is scant time to think about West Bromwich Albion. 

The artichoke has arrived slightly singed and, it has to be said, a little oily. You could, if you were being picky, accuse it of lacking a little salt too. I have taken it upon myself to eat some stuff that I would not normally wave a long pole at and the first item is sadly lacking in star quality. Expecting a delicious bite size Rakitic, I am already lumbered with a lumpy slice of Fernando. As it were.

At this rate, we are no more than a few short seconds away from retracing the safe old batatas bravas trail.

Spicy mayonnaise. Who invented that? And was he sufficiently rewarded for his findings?

Whilst the omnipresent pan con tomate and the over-generous triangle of tortilla de ceba cannot be ignored, there are also squadrons of intricately arranged anchovies and chef's best attempt at paëlla using noodles instead of rice. It's all happening in El Pintxo. 



The four ample-girthed French women alongside are tucking messily into a plate of char-fried chipsticks and traumatised egg. Egg and chips! The French ladies think they are being sophisticated but it takes more than Catalan egg and chips with a French accent to sway us. If the big one doesn't wipe the egg yoke from her chin, we might need the referee in to show a few yellow cards.

Dora brings more goblets of Estrella Damm. The talk can move from the French women and their treatment of runny egg to the real reason we are here: to see Lionel Messi being shackled by the machine-like efficiency of City's mechanical grip, Martin Demichelis.

Just like the regimental rows of anchovy fillets in front of us on the bar, Martin - pony tail or no pony tail - will eat the stumpy Argentine for dinner, the bottom of the Estrella Damm glass tells us. 

I check along the bar. There is nothing called Bits of Messi, or DeMichelis Delight. I chew down on a skewer of garlic prawns instead (not served here in a Premier League style sandwich) and consider for a moment what it will be like later on to see Yaya Touré decorate the Camp Nou with a replica of that monster run he finished with a goal against West Ham in the Capital One Cup or the weaving piece of one man destruction he visited upon Aston Villa at the Etihad that time. Narrowing the eyes just enough I find you can replace a hobbling Ron Vlaar with Sergio Busquets quite easily. One-nil to the Estella Damm.

It is not clear whether Sigmund Freud, whose clear notions of knowing but not-knowing might have liberally applied to Manuel Pellegrini in his somewhat bedraggled Year Two Format, has ever visited El Pintxo and bitten into the succulent pimentos padron, but he would almost certainly have enjoyed the delicate irony of Ron Vlaar invading our thoughts on the august Rambla de Catalunya. 

The Society for Psychiatry and Neurology of Vienna, to whom he (Freud not Vlaar) addressed his firm ideas on the subject in April 1896 will have known very little of how it feels to be dumped out of the Champions League. They will not have visited the raw disappointment of Bacary Sagna or the strange feeling of longing that bumping into Uwe Rosler in a dark alley bring, but this is all still in front of us, way in front of us.

First Plaza Reial for more sustenance. You don't watch Manchester City step out at the Camp Nou needing a two-goal win sober, after all. With some differences of opinion between the merits of €9 plastic beakers of Volldamm and the €1 cans of Estrella Damm being hawked around the square by a small army of entrepreneurs, predictions of City's fate later in the evening vary from the foolhardy through level-headed Mancunian despair to the absolutely outlandish.

Nevertheless the sun is out and Catalonia's capital is sharing a little cultural depth with north west England's finest. There is even a heavily tatooed man swimming in the beer can infested fountain. Joyous times are being had. Local women in fur coats step into the square and veer off dramatically on seeing the Gran Festa Mancunia in full swing.

 

***

A week earlier popular conjecture had it that City had two critical games to realign their season towards a satisfactory climax. The response so far from Manuel Pellegrini and his men has been to lose flimsily at Turf Moor. City, back to being a mystery wrapped in a conundrum, will now attempt to do to Barcelona in their own towering ground what they failed to do in the prefab grey slab of Turf Moor.

We walk the streets towards the tottering 50s edifice where City's fate will be decided, the raw upswell of Mancunian voices rises over the hubub of excited Catalan bonhommie. We clatter our way into Lizarran. One last uncoordinated attack takes place on the town's most recklessly displayed tapas.

Swaying newcomers watch in awe as access to hundreds of tasty snacks seems barred by nothing more than a guilty conscience. "You mean you just lift that up and take it?" one hungry man exclaims. "Fuckin ell. John, look at this, fellas. It's free. Call the others."

Replete, we take to the great ramps of the stadium, twisting their way up into the heavens. I appear in my unstable state to be wandering in a phalanx of over-excited forty-somethings directly behind a man whose profile - even from the back - seems familiar. 

I have seen the front version of Uwe Rosler many hundreds of times, the image of that smiling assassin throughout a troubled nineties decade that started for City in the Premier League and ended in the cabbage patch of the third tier. His goal poaching lit up our sad existences as City slid through Middlesbrough and off out to Lincoln and Port Vale. 

Well-known for his love of the Blues, despite being the high profile ex-manager of Brentford and Wigan Athletic, he is now lumbering along in front of me. "Uwe" I shout in my slightly falsetto excitement. 

And now he here he is grinning in front of me. 

I clasp him in the growing dark like the elated son reunited with his father after losing each other at a ferociously busy car boot sale.

The German, far from being peeved by yet another inebriated trickster wanting to be his best friend, puts his arm around me and starts singing. Even the prospect of Bacary Sagna suddenly seems palatable at this euphoric moment. We take a few steps together, arm in arm, sharing a verse of The Best Team In the Land and All the World, before he is coralled away for another photo opportunity with more over-excited fifty year olds from Denton.
***
We are perched high up just like last year, but there appear to be many more than a year ago. 5,000 apparently in place of last year's 3,500. We have numbered tickets too, an upgrade on last year's free-for-all. Down below is a multinational sea of plastic flag waving diehards from all corners of Planet Football.

That match starts and immediately Kompany is caught dawdling on the edge of his own box and Neymar nicks it from him and hits the inside of the post. It is to be another of those long evenings, we quickly agree.

There are clearly two outstanding performers on the pitch. Sadly for us, City's is the goalkeeper. "BraveHart" the Catalan press will trumpet with some lack of originality the next day. Barcelona's class comes in the shape of Lionel Messi, a darting, omnipresent maverick, who wreaks constant havoc on City's defensive lines. He is quick, he is sharp, he is unstoppable in his curving swerving lines and his unorthodox slipperyness.

Rakitic celebrates his piece of skill with the omnipresent Messi
City are chasing shadows. Messi is joined in the high ranks of the gifted by Rakitic, a maestro of subtle movement, the solid rocks of Mathieu and Piqué and - when they occasionally need him - goalkeeper Ter Stegen. I even find myself admiring Neymar's gritty workrate, which leaves me feeling glum and perplexed. Only Dani Alves sunglasses-and-gold-lamé-winklepickers-cavorting on the right is living up to expectations. 

City somehow withstand everything, with help from the goal frame and Joe Hart's elasticity. With ten minutes left, we are even treated to the award of a City penalty after Aguero is upended. We are going to draw level at the Nou Camp! Sergio dusts himself down and dispatches the shot mid-high to the keeper's right (all the others have been low to the left in my hazy recollection). It is duly saved and we slump in resignation, "fight to the end" dying in our throats, just as it was being dusted down for several more choruses.
***

Wait please, all those from 1983
Half an hour later we are still in the ground, evidently far too dangerous to be let out at the same time as the tourists that make up Barcelona's bedrock support. They have managed three bursts of "Barça, Barça, Barça!" in the whole game, but 92,500 of them have made up the biggest home attendance of the season so far.

The authorities are obviously under the impression that we have travelled on direct flights from 1983 and we are kept waiting for an interminably long period. Amongst our number are several gents too old to walk without sticks and many more that have obviously seen City in Europe when the penny farthing was the way around town. They wait, leaning on sticks and shoulders to be freed from this barbarous cell. Downstairs squadrons of riot police and shivering stewards await our every step. Too tired to even laugh we pass by in silence.


Back in the warm embrace of a bar down the main drag from the stadium, deflated, defeated and demoralised, the chat and the beer is flowing again.







 "If you cannot enjoy playing against Barcelona in the Champions League and fighting for the title, you should go and see a doctor." - Dr Manuel Pellegrini




I check quickly. There is space for an appointment the following week.

City have been eclipsed by a little man on the very tip of his game. His game being the flap-free, pose-lite array of deft touches and slide rule passes, gliding movement and unmatchable guile that has left City chasing shadows. Lionel Messi, a majestic king of the simple things has carried the game to (and through) City and only found Joe Hart capable of raising an answer of any sort. Nobody else has anything to say for themselves.

Just three days later, City will batter 43 attempts towards West Brom's goal, collecting perhaps the easiest three-goal victory in the history of the Premier League. The scandal of the stolen tapas will be quickly forgotten, even if the chasing on the pitch might linger in the memory a little longer.

The morning editions of Mundo Deportivo bring some telling adjectives to our attention. Barcelona's appear, to my inaccurate grasp of Spanish to embody power, greatness and supernatural ability, whilst City's are full of "decepcionante" and ""frustrado".

The full list for those lovers of language are here: Demichelis, the mechanical grab of all our dreams, gets a desultory "lento".


West Bromwich, not even allowed to look like Barcelona with striped shirts anymore, certainly bear no other small resemblance to the Catalan giants. Deprived of a player -- the wrong player -- after two minutes, they form the the ideal antidote to Champions League depression. From Pep Guardiola's grand legacy of tiki taka to Tony Pulis and the percentages game in the blink of an eye. The footballing week had brought us rich rewards, embarrassment and ends with the cold comfort of Premier League thud and blunder to finish.

This time it is City who play the Barcelona role, racking up more efforts on goal than everyday statisticians should be expected to keep up with.

Farewell to all this
With the memories of one of Lionel Messi's greatest ever individual performances beginning to fade a little, those football bruises are healing fast. The season is almost up for the Blues. For the rest of us, Barcelona represents the last of this season's forays into foreign climes. This is sad on a number of levels.

For Pellegrini and his players, however, this second consecutive steamrolling from Barcelona may also offer a watershed of kinds. Only the arrival of the summer months will tell us who is to survive what will almost certainly be a significant cull.
↧

DERBY DAY

April 11, 2015, 2:25 am
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Mike Hammond digs deep to remember his first Derby match, in March 1983
Season 1982-83 March 5th 1983, Maine Road: Manchester City 1 Manchester United 2
Att 45,400  Scorers: Reeves; Stapleton (2); HT 1-0

 
IT’S
 

Saturday March 5 1983. A 10 year old sits in the passenger seat whilst his dad drives down the Princess parkway. As I look to the left, on the concrete banking, a slogan has been spray painted. It's a lament to Bobby Sands and remains visible amongst the weeds despite the fact that he had let go of life almost 2 years before.

Manchester was a different place then, but for one boy making his way towards Moss Side it's a special day. Past the brewery, the glorious aroma of hops are distinct even to my uneducated nose. We park up and four get out of the Ford Escort. Two blue and two red. It's not been a great season, and it will get much worse, but today is derby day. My first.

Sitting in the North Stand, the ground is full - officially 45,500 are present but it feels like more. I've never seen so many people before, the noise is tremendous. In the first half City go 1-0 ahead, my hero Kevin Reeves scores and life is good. At half time I look to my left, the kippax is a sea of blue scarves and the two women on the row in front delight me with songs of how fat and round Ron Atkinson is.
The enemy advance

Forty five minutes later and City's season has been summed up in one game. We had been top of the world after 3 games, 2nd in the league after 12, and then it went wrong. I look to my left again, that same Kippax is now a sea of red. I'm crying, deep heartfelt sobs. My red cousin consoles me, "don't worry, it'll be alright", but I know it won't. I wanted the day to be a great day, a day we'd beat United and gain the family bragging rights. It didn't turn out like that, and it was to be like this for a long time.

I have been to a lot of derby matches since that first time. On each of those occasions we have been considered by all right minded people as the overwhelming underdog. We have more than fought our corner though, and have frequently bloodied Fergie's nose. I've always felt that this match meant more to us blues than it did to them. It's always meant the world to me anyway.

In so many ways, something changed in the FA Cup semi final. Wembley in April was a watershed moment for City. I shed a lot of water too, lots of us did. We were the poor relations of the family no more, we deserved our place at the head of the table. For those of you who have been on a similar journey to me, nothing tasted sweeter than the that. You have to be poor to truly appreciate the finer things in life. United have never been poor, so i don't think its ever meant as much to them.

I was thinking on my train journey home from the capital that sunny day in April, about a quote from Dear John, by Nicholas Sparks:

"The saddest people I've ever met in life are the ones who don't care deeply about anything at all. Passion and satisfaction go hand in hand, and without them, any happiness is only temporary, because there's nothing to make it last"

We've been through a lot since my first derby, and I wouldn't have it any other way.




 

You can follow Mike on Twitter right here
 



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IN THE HEART OF ROARING LIES SILENCE

April 13, 2015, 6:51 am
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“...I remain restless and dissatisfied; what I knot with my right hand, I undo with my left, what my left hand creates, my right fist shatters”   ― Gunter Grass, The Tin Drum
Quick out of the blocks, alert and aggressive, sure-footed and thrusting, a tuned-in-looking City took the derby to United for a mighty impressive ten minutes before deciding enough was enough and downing tools. Thereafter the baton was handed over to their counterparts, who went on to dominate the remaining 80 with Louis van Gaal's much maligned brand of, apparently, kick and rush doing far more damage than anyone could have imagined. It was far more than that, of course, but the tactics were simple and fresh and too much for City to deal with.

Spending a game of this importance being given the runaround by the one team they could not afford to allow that pleasure was not a particularly sound move by Manuel Pellegrini, whose swiftly diminishing box of tricks showed no lustre, no shiny surprises and not a single idea on how to pull the Blues back into a game speeding frantically away from his team from the tenth minute onwards.

A mauling at the hands of your nearest and dearest is not something owners and boards usually take kindly to and the money spent on City means Sheikh Mansour, Kaldoon al-Mubarak and the boys might just be in a slightly touchy mood right now. Being shown up by Manchester United is not, after all, something that has featured regularly during his watch so far.

As for the increasingly frayed-looking Manuel Pellegrini, specualtion will now -- if it had not already done so -- go into overdrive. Will he last until the end of today? The end of the week? Before or after the West Ham match? Or the end of the season? It all seems now to be just a matter of time.

As it became painfully clear which way the dice had fallen, Sky's coverage of the game gave us several uncomfortable close-ups of City's Charred Man and the closer they got, the redder his eyes seemed to be. Pellegrini has in recent times become a rather sad image of his team: tired, pasty and slightly bewildered-looking, forlorn, drawn and confused. The blood-shot eyes suggest a man deeper into the pressure game than he likes to let on. His "the buck stops here" quotes will weigh heavily on judgement day.


"It is my responsibility and the only way we can change this is by winning games..."

EMPTY WORDS EMPTY GESTURES

Winning games is precisely what City are not doing of course. This was the 8th defeat in 14 matches since January 18th. As Bacary Sagna said after the limp showing at Palace, "there are seven cup finals left for City". Well, there had been eight before that game and now there are six. It smacks a little of the Tiny Tim announcing there are only five sleeps till Christmas. And then what, exactly?

City, needing a big performance after all the recent desperate ones - were out-played, out-thought and out-manouevred by a mobile, aggressive United side, playing simple, effective football. Passing back to their keeper rather a lot, utilizing fast, robust long balls rather frequently, it still worked famously. Van Gaal's gameplan came unstuck initially with Aguero's opener but was vindicated by half time with United turning it all around and positively celebrated thereafter.

With Aguero notching his 99th and 100th City goals and the corner count (not that City's corners have produced a single item of interest in the last six months) heavily in City's favour, the attack carried a temporary threat. If you were a United fan after ten minutes, you might have been hoping to restrict the score to below recente drubbings, but there was a pleasant surprise in store for all prepared to keep the faith. City were about to go back into hibernation.

MAKING ASHLEY YOUNG LOOK GOOD

At the back there was carnage and much of it, it has to be said, was caused by yet another pedestrian
Pass the towel
performance by Yaya Touré. Himself dominated by the much-maligned Marouane Fellaini, he was caught dawdling in midfield time after time. His inertia pressed Pablo Zabaleta into a difficult decision between doing his job at right back and helping cover the overrun Fernandinho in midfield. This in turn allowed Ashley Young a miniature field day down the wing.

On one early occasion, lightly fouled in midfield, Touré, a big man, went to ground, producing the usual high armed theatrical protest from a prone position. Referee Clattenburg refused to play ball and let the game run on. As the resultant United possession morphed quickly into a proper attack, you looked for the fast back tracking bulk of Touré, but it never appeared. Jogging back, he made no attempt to catch up with play, contenting himself with a watching brief just inside his own half.

Touré's performance by the end amounted to a dereliction of duty, an abdication of sorts, a sad footnote to what has been a magnificent innings in Manchester. Who will now want to buy a player of his age (31) on his wages is anybody's guess, but the last two months have seen him join a lengthening list of players many City supporters will want out this Summer. Touré, the man who lit the blue touch paper against the same desperate foe in 2011's FA Cup semi-final, is one of the reasons City are where they are today: double Premier League champions, FA and League Cup winners. He will live long in the annals of City folk heroes, but his wonderful contribution is being tarnished by these late days of empire.

For those, who do not want to see blackness in the blurred and subjective terms of player and team performance, there are other more scientific ways of measuring just how grim it was out there: City's 4th consecutive defeat was the first time they had managed such an inglorious run since the Alan Ball masterminded relegation season of 1995-96.

City's pass accuracy in this game was an almost entirely alien 71%, a full seven points below the next worst for this season. So often were the targets of City players' passing missed that it looked like Alan Ball had had an influence on that too.

Similarites are being drawn between this fall-off of form and how Roberto Mancini's last season in charge finished, but this time two years ago City were producing a magnificent FA Cup semi-final performance to sweep Chelsea aside and book a place at Wembley. That "downing of tools" by Mancini's team looks magnificently celebratory in comparison to Pellegrini's late term offering in 2014-15.

The papers will now have their day, dispatching players to the summer transfer whirlpool and sucking out the managers foolhardy enough to offer themselves for a job, which will now involve wholesale overhaul of squad, post-graduate level understanding of financial fair play mathematics and the handing out of plentiful positive platitudes to a network of supporters becoming a little low on tolerance of a club that has again shot itself in the foot.

UNTYING THE KNOTS

Questions must be asked: Who has the final say on buying and selling? Are they being held accountable for the state of City's squad today? How have the powers that be let a brilliant squad age en masse? What input does Pellegrini have in player acquisition? Why was the decision taken to roll over and take UEFA's FFP edict with legs in the air and tummy waiting to be scratched? What has happened to the form of the side's bulwarks, Zabaleta, Kompany and Touré? Why was Lampard kept on then not played? Why was Bony bought and not played earlier (despite a month of action in Africa)? Why has nobody in the management team come up with a cure to City's ills when rattled out of possession by aggressive high-marking opponents? How come there is such a marked difference between City in confident possession of the ball and City (half-)trying to win it back again? Why has the club gone for a severe hike in season ticket prices when they needed to keep the hardcore support onside?

A mephistophelian knot of intrigue awaits City's manager this summer. If it is to be Manuel Pellegrini, a miracle of biblical proportions must now make itself apparent. If not, the faithful await news on who, how and when. Wheover steps into the breach will have a job akin to peeling the layers off an onion. Layer upon layer needs that man's immediate and undivided attention.

The runners and riders must wait for another day. The mainstream press is already tying itself in knots with different permutations. City now prepare to chase or be chased. A home win over West Ham will reignite the run-in for a club that has two in-form teams ahead of them in the pecking order for the 2nd and 3rd places that will grant straight qualification to the Champions League. Miss that and prepare for an uncomfortable mix-up with Lazio, Sporting or some mysterious invaders from the dusty east.

Clinging to small mercies used to be an occupational hazard for fans of this great old bastion of the slapstick and the colourful, but there are precious few to cling onto after Sunday's game.
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ELEVEN GAMES THAT FLOORED CITY

April 28, 2015, 10:24 am
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Manchester City


sit precariously in 2nd place in the Premier League table. Precarious second places don’t come by very often, but we appear to have one on our hands here, so we must make the most of it.

Manuel Pellegrini, looking bright eyed and bushy-tailed, was heard saying the immortal words-

“It is no shame if City are runners-up. You cannot improve every year”.
Subtle attempts like this to boost personal ratings pre-summer camp are all very well. They allow those of us who have nodded off and not noticed the ugly string of defeats that City have decorated spring with to think all is well in the cookhouse. 

Sweaty meetings with your desert paymasters are understandably tricky hurdles to jump, especially when you've overseen something of a damp squib of a season, so it is well worth a quick blast of positivity to see if it works as well as it surely does for our slightly-too-clever politicians.


Just last season
No shame indeed in 2nd place, Manuel, for we have been in a fair few darker places than that, but let us not climb aboard the bone-shaker to Sincil Bank yet again. Not when the first class sleeper to the Nou Camp is apparently our chosen method of transport these days. No parking the penny farthing against a privet hedge outside Moss Rose anymore for us. It's load up with tapas and bratwursts and break out the Lonely Planet Moscow. 



The manager is of course right. Shame takes many shapes but second place in the Premier League is not usually one of them. Not if you support a club whose previous occupants of the fabled hotseat considered 0-6 defeats at Liverpool “entertaining” or believed five months without a home goal to be adequate pay-back for continued support. Shame exists in football in a variety of rude shades, from Alan Pardew’s wicked tongue to people who choose a minute’s silence to abuse Cesc Fabregas for no longer wearing a red and white football shirt. 2nd place is undiluted delight alongside all of this.



No, if there is shame in City’s season, it has nothing to do with 2nd place in the world’s toughest league™ but stems from eleven matches which could and should have been won but were not. The consequences of that will follow Señor Pellergini deep into the desert this summer.



Here they are, in all their chronological beauty.



▐ ► ONE: Sunday 10th August Arsenal, Community Shield– Before we had even sat down to enjoy the start of proceedings, here was one gigantic wake-up call that went unheeded. An admittedly below strength side taken to the cleaners by Arsenal. No redeeming features, no excuses, no way out. This was a horribly lax performance that would be reconstituted in similar form several times in the ensuing months (mainly in the following passages of this article). The game had any number of other tellingly repetitive elements: a haphazard Fernando midfield performance, a defence at sixes and sevens, a depleted Yaya Touré being pulled off after less than 60 minutes, a first and last view of the potentially iconic Bruno Zuculini, the first of scores of weird non-penalty decisions (for Chambers’ brutal check on Jovetic)  and one of the last sightings of Matija Nastasic in the sky blue. □ After match Manuelism: “We played better after the break…”



▐ ► TWO: 31st August Stoke (h)– Stoke, yet to score at the Etihad since their 2008 arrival in the biggest and best league, managed one here in another match that revealed tasty items of what was to come: plenty of tippy tappy and heaps of possession, followed by a big yawning void; Fernando pulling his groin by putting his foot on the ball; everything Yaya touching going into the sky; a whopping hand ball by Wilson in the area ignored by a strolling, loose-faced Lee Mason and an ill-adjusted defence, featuring slow diagonal runs away from the line of the ball by Kolarov and Fernandinho, allowing Diouf to run in from somewhere north of Burslem and slot past Joe Hart. □ After match Manuelism: “We lacked creativity.”



▐ ► THREE: Saturday 25th October West Ham (a)– Having inexplicably thrown away a two goal lead away to CSKA Moscow in the Champions League, City managed to match that generosity at Upton Park against serial lambs to the slaughter West Ham. 70% possession for City, away from home, a wonderful David Silva goal and absolutely no points whatsoever. More patterns developing. Chelsea already opening a clear five point gap at the top of the table with patient, powerful, unspectacular football, but football that ended up with three points at the end of the game. □ After match Manuelism: “Tiredness from the trip to Moscow was not to blame.”



▐ ► FOUR: Wednesday 29th October Newcastle (h) Carling Cup– Another whopping 70% possession (any pennies dropping yet) and a 2-0 reverse to yet another of City’s accustomed whipping boys. Give us West Ham, give us Norwich – if they’re around - give us Villa and give us Newcastle, but not this year thank you very much. Lacklustre and fragile, with Silva crocked after ten minutes, the holders of the Carling Cup departed the tournament early and in a dishevelled state. Just the three trophies to concentrate on now. □ After match Manuelism:“The team tried to run, tried to do things better but we couldn’t because we’re not in good form…” (October, this, remember)

 

▐ ► FIVE:  Wednesday 5th November CSKA (h) Champions League– 2 points from the first four Champions League group games meant continental prancing had also been reduced to a hobble at this (early) stage of proceedings. Here we were treated to more shambolic defending, a free header for Doumbia whilst Yaya counted pigeons overhead and a red card for Fernandinho and another one for Yaya Touré’s Muhammad Ali impersonation. All signs of a growing European presence were at this stage hiding behind a very small rock. □ After match Manuelism: “Qualification is not impossible.”



▐ ► SIX: Sunday 28th December Burnley (h) – Mince pies may have been eaten but there were still plenty of turkeys hobbling around at this one, as City threw away a 2-goal lead (becoming a little repetitive, isn’t it?) against an average Burnley side with plenty of energy and enthusiasm and, in Danny Ings, a player who could cause wobbly defences problems. Wobbly defence, did you say? Walk right up! More unprovoked full back rotation, both being swapped, plus an absent Vincent Kompany, crocked again, told more of the season’s narrative before it was half over. □ After match Manuelism: “We still have 57 points to play for.”



▐ ► SEVEN: Saturday 18th January Arsenal (h)– Outplayed and tactically outmanoeuvred by a compact Arsenal side playing to cancel out City instead of going toe-to-toe at tippy tappy, this result revealed two things: that City’s off colour season was no flash in the pan and that Chelsea’s relentless charge was not going to be easy to match with this kind of form. A run of five without defeat went up in smoke on Aguero’s return to duty after 8 games out. Also returning, captain Kompany, who gave away a needless penalty when bringing down Nacho Monreal. 65% possession though. □ After match Manuelism: “A lack of creativity cost us here today.”



▐ ► EIGHT: Saturday 24th January Middlesbrough (h) FA Cup– Here went the second cup possibility, with even less of a whimper than Newcastle and the distant sounds of people exploding on the streets of Manchester. 65% possession (just copy and paste from previous passages) proved absolutely useless as Boro' tore City open on the counter attack. None of this was made any easier by one of the away scorers being a Chelsea loanee (Bamford), City were bamboozled by Boro’s front runners and unable to make any impression at the other end. No Wembley trips this year then but we always had the timely….> □ After match Manuelism: “We got scared.”



▐ ► NINE: Saturday 8th February Hull (h) – City needed a 90th minute equaliser from James Milner to avoid defeat at home to Hull, who – like Burnley – had offered little more than lively resistance and bodies in handy places in handy numbers. 74% possession this time, but let’s not dwell on the uselessness of passing backwards and sideways. Lead at the top stretched to seven points after this one. □ After match Manuelism: “We needed more urgency in the final third.”



▐ ► TEN: Saturday 14th March Burnley (a) – 70% possession for this one. Story of a season underlined one last time by Burnley’s answer to Rivelino, George Boyd, smacking one home when City’s profligate forward line could not find the target. Burnley, almost certainly destined to go down, thus completed a four point haul against the Blues this season. In previous seasons possession has led to goals, cannon fodder has been fired into the blue yonder and City going in front has almost inevitably meant City winning. Not this time, buddy. □ After match Manuelism: "We shall defend our nets, whatever the cost may be, we shall fight them in the centre circle, we shall fight them on the training grounds, we shall fight them on the field and in the penalty areas, we shall fight on the flanks. We shall never surrender."**
 
Pre-match bravado
▐►ELEVEN:Sunday 12th April Manchester United (a)– A game that put the seal on the whole foul-smelling affair of 2014-15. Taken to the cleaners by the club that had, we thought, – with City’s assistance – become a laughing stock. Chasing a club record of 5 consecutive victories against the old foe, City caved in. When Van Gaal had taken over the reins from David Moyes, it had looked set fair for more japes and laughs. Only the last laugh here was on City, as United powered back from a goal down and showed the Blues what fight, determination and organisation can do against eleven supposedly better players. Another lead lost, another bragging post dismantled. City were now 4th, four points behind United. □ After match Manuelism:  “It’s not easy to think there is just one problem. There is a lack of trust in this moment”


All of the elements mentioned above have either fallen away this season in comparison to last (ability to take the lead and hold on to it) or have appeared out of nowhere (extreme defensive frailty). Pellegrini’s Manuelisms (“not too bad”, “quite good”, “not so so bad”, “a little bit lacking here”, “not quite sharp enough there”) may just be attempts to hide the blazingly obvious or the signs of an old man struggling with a new language. A team may occasionally find it difficult to improve every year, although it is not out of the question to see slight chinks of light here and there. To stagnate, which City have done this season, or go backwards, which some will also accuse them of doing, was not on the Abu Dhabi menu. When the Chilean sashays into the Middle East next month, he can expect to be welcomed with the customary politeness and largesse. Once the canapés have been scoffed and the talking starts in earnest, however, it may prove to be as comfortable for him as a sand-infested poncho.



** may not be entirely his own words.
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SHELLING OUT AND SAVING UP

May 18, 2015, 2:57 pm
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Michel Platini, remembered these days less and less as one of the most beautifully balanced midfield craftsmen ever seen gliding across a football pitch and more for his pronoucements from inside a baggy but expensive suit about FFP and related niceties, has seemingly opened another can of worms with the news that UEFA may well be considering relaxing their own carefully constructed financial fair play regulations this summer.

If this comes as music to the ears of some, it must be making those at Manchester City and Paris St Germain vibrate with indignation. In the long run, however, it is likely to be good news for well run clubs like City, who have done their best to comply with stringent UEFA legislation.

The president of UEFA has intimated that there may well be some changes afoot, with the limits that clubs have been battling to stay inside set to be remodelled and, therefore, those clubs cut a little more slack.

City, who some have said were rumoured to be close to taking UEFA to court over the huge fine handed down to them last summer, might just be regretting not doing so now, after a massive curb on transfers and Champions League squad numbers played a significant part in a disappointing season for the Blues. With defensive woes knocking a considerable hole in City's performance over the season, it is intriguing to know what (or more poignantly who) any extra cash might have been spent on instead of the likes of Bacary Sagna and Willy Caballero. Practically all City's restricted budget was blown on the ill-fated Eliaquim Mangala from FC Porto.
 
"I understand that we are in a world of false bottoms, but we say this openly. I think we’ll lighten things up."

False bottoms indeed. And plastic party noses too, somebody at the back of the hall added quietly.

FFP rules were first implemented 4 years ago, to attempt to curb certain clubs from spending what UEFA deemed to be "beyond their means", but allowed certain clubs massively in debt to carry on regardless. Those clubs under wealthy new ownership appeared to have to tread water. The moves were enthusiastically received by the drawbridge crew of Manchester United, Milan and Bayern Munich, aware that new money could mean only one thing, the one element that puts the greatest frighteners on all of the elite clubs - extra competition on a broadly flat playing field.City have done their best to fit in and the latest financial figures showed they are in a much improved financial position. Manchester United (£145.5m), Liverpool (£113m), Arsenal (£92.5m) and Chelsea (£82.6m) have all spent more than City's £68m net since the penalties were introduced two years ago.

The monster clubs of Europe, grown fat on yearly Champions League pay outs that have allowed them to maintain a slot ahead of the challengers in their domestic leagues now find themselves in a brave new world where Zenit can afford to pay €40m for Alex Witsel and still have plenty left over for Hulk, whilst Monaco thought nothing of shelling out €45m for Porto's James Rodriguez.

Suddenly in a bit of a dither, United, Barcelona, Bayern and Real Madrid have started to do what they have always been able to do down the years: shell out big fees in a desperate bid to lock the stable doors before too many of the horses have the chance to bolt.

One or two horses have already fled across the prairies. The others didn’t make it out of the ranch before the irate farmer burnt the place to the ground. It has always been a thing of wonderment when viewing which English clubs voted for FFP in the Premier League, like turkeys voting for prolonged and lusty Christmas banquetting. Stand up and take a bow, flightless birds Everton and Aston Villa, suddenly smitten by the idea of never ever being able to compete on anything like a high European level again. European winners both, they now look utterly plucked.

For others, a summer of intrigue is opening up coquettishly on the horizon. Liverpool’s American owners FSG went on record as saying that they bought the club on the back of FFP, citing it as a 'key aspect' to their continued interest in the deal. Arsene Wenger, the author of the financial doping quote, has since taken comfortably to paying some of the Premier league's highest tarnsfer fees for the likes of Mesut Ozil and Alexis Sanchez. The dizzying changes of attitude and position could only really take place in football or politics, where morals dissolve quicker than a water borne aspirin, when exposed to fast corroding cash.

"This will be for the Uefa Executive Committee to decide. You’ll know the outcome at the end of June," said Platini today.
There will be penty of interested parties waiting to see what these outcomes are. Taking a
Moratti: "No more shelling out"
cursory glance at the Serie A table will tell any avid accountants what FFP has ended up securing for the likes of Milan duo Inter and Milan. Grown heavy on sustained big boy status, the pair now find themselves rubbing shoulders in the still waters of Serie A midtable. Milan, long in favour of anything that kept them at the top of the tree, have seen FFP explode in their faces, as Berlusconi’s patronage nears an end. Inter too, for decades propped up by the millions of the Moratti shipping family, have seen the false bottom fall out of their football world.

Both now find themselves vying for elbow room with Hellas Verona. Milan, Sacchi's Milan, the elegante double European champions, the last team to retain the trophy, slum it three points ahead of Sassuolo, counting points and pennies.

Moratti it was, who famously bleated to Platini (along with Chelsea's Roman Abramovitch) that he "didn't want to shell out" anymore. Milan too are said to be now deeply in favour of this mooted relaxing of the stringent FFP rules. They've leant one way and now they are leaning the other. They are lucky that Platini's language has softened somewhat since he announced with one eye on City's spending that "FFP regulations must be strictly adhered to". Suddenly, now that some of these clubs are being deeply inconvenienced by it, it seems to be time to loosen the ropes again. One has to admire the barely concealed self-indulgence.

Perhaps the recently announced FFP fines for this season should have been a forewarning of all this, as significantly deflated fines were handed out to Sporting Lisbon, Monaco, Kuban Krasnodar and others recently, making City's €49m fine look like the unbalanced victimisation many called it to be when it was announced.

It would seem that the very clubs that FFP seemed set to protect are now experiencing the opposite effect. Manchester United, up to their ears in their fascinating Glazernomics, which have seen the club mired in huge debt, found it necessary to break the bank vaults last summer with an stonishing outlay on Di Maria, Falcao (perhaps the most profligate transfer in football history), Herrera, Rojo, Blind and Shaw. For a king’s ransom, they look like securing 4th place.

Do not underestimate what it means to them to be back on the Champions League ladder, however, as this is where the Money has always been coralled. United will be happy to be back in the fold, even if they do have to negotiate a potentially tricky qualifying round first. What Milan and Inter wouldn’t give for that.
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RUNNERS AND RIDERS

May 26, 2015, 2:56 pm
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A long and winding Summer awaits Manchester City and its legions of bedraggled and semi-bedraggled followers.

The press has long since started its compulsive chatter. People in the know point and gesticulate hither and thither about the undulating path through hot, hazy days of transfer bedlam. With mobile phones set to melt and agents hurrying over the horizon with arm's-length lists of demands, the silly season is upon us. Dmitri Seluk, that man of immaculate white suits and large, fuel-injected boats, is already primed to go off at midnight on May 31st, as is the ill-begotten fellow looking after Raheem Sterling's future. So, the question begs to be asked, where now for City with their looser purse strings and grand ideas?

Firstly, the good news with which to start the bonfire: Last summer's paltry spending, hampered by a UEFA cap of £49million, and possibly the one biggest reason for City's 2nd place finish, a whole eight points behind champions Chelsea, will no longer be a thing. If we are to believe Manuel Pellegrini, this was the one big reason for the points deficit on Chelsea. In a way, he has something of a point, although few will feel sorry for the manager of a club that can still shot off €40M plus on Eliaquim Mangala and live to tell the tale.

Certainly, City's progress in continental competition found itself bound by red tape from the start, with the club embarking on a 4th consecutive Champions League campaign with its legs tied together.

Meanwhile, every man woman and child in possession of ears and eyes has a clear idea of what City need to pull it all back together again. Although talk of wholesale renewal and massive overhaul is in the air, the excited hyperbole may well give way to a smaller number of crucial signings, rather than the scattergun collecting of médium-skilled artisans of late.

Certainly, City need reinforcements and now have the leeway to go out and capture them. Whether there will be as many as some are suggesting, is open to conjecture.

Denayer: superb season at Celtic
Stevan Jovetic's set of matching Samsonites no doubt stand ready by the hall door and, if only a tiny fraction of the stories on offer at the click of a button come to pass in the next two months, City's squad next season will be approaching the population of an Alaskan seal colony in the mating season and will be managed by a conglomerate of at least seven extremely high profile continental managers with the trusty support of Brian Kidd.

Here, then, are a host of the runners and riders, their suitability or lack of it and the likelihood of any of them showing up on the Costa del Irwell anytime in the next 68 days or so:

1) Managers: A month or so ago Manuel Pellegrini was what was then being quaintly called a dead man walking. Mention was being made (here as elsewhere) of his slightly drawn, weather-beaten look. Now there appear to be signs of life after City's vigorous pursuit of runners-up spot came up trumps, ending the season on the traditional six-game winning streak. Clearly still alive, but a bit under the weather, the question is whether the Chilean remains fit for purpose. There is a distinct feeling that now City have secured 2nd spot in the Premier League, another 12 months of Manueline persuasion would not be out of the question. His season review in the desert will be a sticky one, but the feeling is that he might just survive it.

If so, who are the players he will need to reinvigorate City's challenge at the top?

Meyer: Schalke flier
GOALKEEPERS: No real reason to spend more money in this area when Joe Hart is clearly the number one (in
the country) and more than good enough to remain as such now that he seems to have ceased to believe what his advisers have been whispering in his ears. Willy Caballero has proved a capable enough deputy on the odd occasion he has been called upon.

DEFENDERS: City's need here is at full back, particularly on the left, despite Aleksandar Kolarov's abrupt reawakening in the final weeks of the season. One year on from heralding the fact that the club had four excellent athletes to cover the two spots, only one of them continues to be fit for purpose at the very top level. This means that Gael Clichy, Aleksandar Kolarov and Bacary Sagna could all walk this summer. Some of the following might be up to replacing them and making City's work on the flanks look a little more productive:
  • Abdul Rhaman BABA is currently one of the best left backs in Germany and doing great work up and down the left flank at the season's surprise package Augsburg. Previously at Greuther Furth, he has close control, a good engine and measured approach to the sometimes gung-ho world of attacking full backs. Baba has been part of an excellent Ghana side for a couple of years too. Another excellent African defender, this time on the right, is Serge AURIER, who now belongs to PSG and has shone brightly since the 2014 World Cup finals. Although good at his job, he is proving to be a bit of a loose cannon, calling ref Bjorn Kuipers a son of a bitch and stating that his dream move would be to the Emirates, thus not the Etihad. Southampton pair Nathaniel CLYNE and Ryan BERTRAND have both had excellent seasons for the Saints and Clyne is currently dithering over a contract extension. Both would add pace and grit to the full back berths, with Bertrand showing up well not only in the season closer between the two sides but throughout a profitable ten months work for Saints. Closer to home, Everton's Seamus COLEMAN has been a regular and dependable threat down the right for the Toffees, producing gritty pace going forward and a dogged presence at the back. City may well be reluctant to look at FC Porto after the debatable value of recent transfer raids in northern Portugal, but the current crop developing under Julen Lopetegui is rich in promise. Rampaging right back Danilo has already signed up for Real Madrid for next season, but on the left ALEX SANDRO is arguably as good as his right side partner. Fast, athletic and disciplined, he has close control and a real spirit of adventure and would also be a good fit on the troublesome left side of City's defence. 
  • With Pellegrini expected to stick with his main central defenders if he stays at the club, City are well stocked in this department with Kompany, Mangala and Demichelis fighting for two spots and the excellent Jason Denayer (44 appearances this season and 6 goals) and Karim Rekik due back from champion seasons at Celtic and PSV respectively. Despite the fact that the departure of Mateja
    Alex Sandro: a risk shopping at Porto?
    Nastasic last summer still puzzles many, there is unlikely to be further interest shown in reinforcing this section of the side. If there were to be, the Dortmund pair of SUBOTIC and HUMMELS could do a job in the Premier League, as could Atlético rock Diego GODIN. Closer to home rumours have linked City to John STONES at Everton, although he is as yet a little inexperienced and might provide the club with a Mangala-like first season of wildly oscillating bedding in, which is the very last thing City need after this year's shenanigans. Stones is clearly a great centre half in the making, although much the same has been and continues to be said about Mangala. Southampton's José FONTE, older and wiser, has grown into a central defender of necessary stature, however, and - on the back of his best ever season in the Premier League - would be a useful addition to the back-up ranks.
MIDFIELDERS: If we are to believe the rumour mill, City's midfield could also see some interesting revolving-door-action, with Yaya Touré almsot certainly on his way to Inter and Samir Nasri touted as a possible departure too. Long term Liverpool candidate James Milner appeared to be wishing the crowd a long farewell in the last games of the season and can be expected to be on his way as well. On top of all this, Fernando's first term contribution has been largely measured in misplaced passes and nervous dallying and on another occasion he too might not have survived the cull, had there not been so many others around him heading for the exits. Now there seems little point in offloading a player, who is ostensibly back up anyway. Fernando will surely get a second chance to show he is up to the fast moving midfield action of the Premier League.
Nainggolan: free spirit.
  • The obvious big name candidate for Touré's roaming role in the middle is Paul POGBA, who has shone so brightly at Juventus for two seasons now. But, Pogba may already be under close inspection from Paris St Germain, Real and Barcelona and Juventus' rise to the Champions League final has hoisted him into a spotlight where all the Giants of Europe are now looking interestedly at him. If he goes elsewhere, and European football expert Andy Brassell thinks another Southern European location might be his destiny, there are plenty of others,adept at either playing the pivot role or working on their impersonations of Yaya's box-to-box antics: Rumours used to circulate about Everton's Ross BARKLEY and English nationals will always be of interest for obvious reasons. Like team mate Stones, he does not appear to be the finished article and he is ending a less impressive season at Goodison this time around, hampered by injuries and patchy form in an underperforming side. PSG's Marco VERRATTI, however, is at 22, already the finished article and may just come free if Pogba swaps Turin for Paris. Verratti is a fantastic, mischievous little player in the traditional Italian "digger" mould, a ferret and a nuisance, who gets through massive amounts of work and would be a big hit in the Premier league. Don't mistake the ferretting style for a lack of technique, however. Verratti has been superb for PSG this season, with high pass accuracy rates and assist totals going ever upwards. Andy Brassell describes him as one of PSG's "un-transferrables", however, so replacing Yaya may well turn into a bit of a headache if Pogba heads south and Verratti stays put at PSG. Ilkay GUNDOGAN of Dortmund has also been mentioned in dispatches and is another energetic midfield performer apparently attracting the attention of neighbours United. He has also had injury troubles and has been part of the severe downturn at Dortmund in Klopp's final year, making his price and his reputation a little lighter perhaps. Down the East Lancs road, the Liverpool duo of Jordan HENDERSON  and Philipe COUTINHO have both had great seasons amongst the smouldering rubble at Anfield and may be tempted by the Champions League football City can offer, although Coutinho would be a Nasri replacement. Arda TURAN at Atlético would provide a new impetus with his sleeves rolled up attitude whilst the Portuguese-based pair of FC Porto's Hector HERRERA and William CARVALHO of Sporting might provide back-up but would not fill a Yaya Touré sized gap, although rumours persist about Arsenal's continued interest in the latter to do something similar at the Emirates next season. Two more candidates are PSG's energetic Blaise MATUIDI and Roma's canny Radja NAINGGOLAN, who played excellently against City in this season's Champions League games. FC Porto's CASEMIRO is also a brilliantly stable blocking midfielder in the mould of Nigel de Jong, with the added bonus that he can shoot accurately, which De Jong only managed twice in his illustrious time at City. Added to this impressive field must be the flair and ability of Atlético's brilliant KOKE, FC
    Kondogbia challenges Belgium's Fellaini
    Porto's Algerian flier Yacine BRAHIMI, the want-away Morgan SCHNEIDERLIN of Southampton, Geoffrey KONDOGBIA of Monaco and long-standing City target ISCO at Real Madrid. It may be a year too early for Kondogba, according to Andy Brassell, whose watching brief on French football makes him one of the most well-qualified to pass judgement. The same might be said of Schalke starlet Max MEYER, who might not dovetail too well in a side that already contains the mercurial dribbling and short-passing game of David Silva.Andy Brassell: "I like the idea of City having someone who can dribble in the centre of midfield, but how would he play instead of Silva? Best having him develop where he is for now."
    Denis PRAET at Anderlecht and Napoli's Dries MERTENS are two more skilful wide players, who have shone for their clubs. The former is 21 while Mertens at 28 is reaching his peak and showed a good turn of speed and a cool head at last year's World Cup finals in Brazil. Another wide player being linked with a transfer north is Benfica's flying lef winger Nico GAITAN. The left footed Argentinean could be ripe for a move from Benfica, as he is one of the last members of the older generation to have hung around at the Estádio da Luz.
FORWARDS:
  • With the touted departures of Stevan Jobvetic and Edin Dzeko, City will be in the market for one, maybe two strikers to give Aguero and Bony a run for their money. Whilst the papers naturally follow the fortunes of goal machine Alexendre LACAZETTE at Lyon (27 goals in 33 games does tend to draw the attention a little), there are others that could also provide an interesting option to the obvious pursuit of anyone who is a league top scorer. Andy Brassell: "Lacazette is the real deal. A great finisher, incredible work rate (having come into the Lyon team as a winger). Unlikely to go this summer though, unless an absolute mega offer is received".

    The much touted Raheem STERLING would not come cheap either but would also provide a more energetic and direct danger from the flanks than City have achieved with Jesus Navas, Scott Sinclair and Adam Johnson in recent seasons. The hoped for return of Portuguese-Brazilian prodigy Marcos LOPES from his loan spell at Lille should herald an important year for the youngster, as he tries to break into the first team ranks. First he will join the Portugal U20 squad and it is to be hoped that the many youth tournaments will not take their toll on him. Another Belgian getting a lot of attention is Wolfsburg's passer extraordinaire Kevin DEBRUYNE, another Chelsea cast-off,
    Lopes: ready for action?
    who has really come good in the Bundesliga. Debruyne is the ideal all action figure to sit in the hole behind a main striker and would provide a stream of passes through to the likes of Aguero at the business end of the pitch. Marco REUS and Jackson MARTINEZ may well feel it is time to leave Dortmund and FC Porto respectively, but there are many suitors for these two players and City would be unwilling to join a bidding war for strikers that are probably not their first choices. Another of Schalke's brightest stars, Julian DRAXLER might also come into the equation. Andy Brassell again: "Draxler has huge mental as well as technical strength and is a real leader of men (the pressure of playing at Schalke has been too much for many after all). Where would he fit in for City, though? Similar quandary to Jovetic in that sense...". In Germany, Monchengladbach's Patrick HERRMAN is one to watch and Bayer Leverkusen's Christoph KRAMER might have been an interesting option, had he not just signed for the Werkself from Borussia.
City clearly need to aim high this summer, if they are to turn themselves from merely dangerous challengers to the team to beat. For this reason, the likes of Denayer, Rekik and Lopes should be brought back on board and bedded in for the new campaign. Clyne for Sagna and Bertrand for Kolarov/Clichy would suffice at the back if the afore-mentioned youngsters return to challenge the central three of Demichelis/Kompany/Mangala. Pogba must surely be the summer's main target, ahead of everything and everyone else. Failing to land the Juventus player woud mean having to target the next best thing, which probably comes in the shape of Veratti. Neither player will be easy to shift, however, and City may well come up short in the face of competition from Europe's elite in the case of Pogba and from PSG refusing to budge, in the case of Verratti. If Nasri is lost, then Coutinho, Turan or Isco would provide tangible creative quality in midfield. Meanwhile in the front ranks, the expected need for two more strikers leaves a choice between Sterling and De Bruyne, if not both. Another EDS starlet Kelechi Iheanacho might save the club a pound or two if he manages to make the squad regularly at the start of the new season, however.

Clearly a lot of talking is to be done if City are to kick off next August with the personnel they need to mount a more convincing challenge on four fronts in 2015-16. 

My warm thanks to Andy Brassell for offering his opinions on the French and German-based players for this article. You can of course follow him, if you have been remiss enough not already to do so on Twitter here

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    WALKING WITH GIANTS

    June 13, 2015, 8:10 am
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    Tueart celebrates his second goal v Rochester Lancers 1977


    1977. New York was on the football map then, just as it is today.

    Whilst the Red Bulls and New York City FC may just be beginning to discover the weird world of local derby insults and brickbats, the original New York Cosmos were a thriving entity long before the present day MLS came into existence, plying their more than successful trade in the old North American Soccer League. 

    The football world in 1977 - on both sides of the Atlantic - was a slightly different place, however.

    It is the 1977-78 season and Manchester City have just endured a torrid four days exiting both domestic cups. First a League Cup 5th round replay is lost at Arsenal in front of a heaving Highbury crowd of nearly 58,000, then a postponed 4th round FA Cup tie at Nottingham Forest is thrown to the four winds in the East Midlands mud and puddles. For dashing striker-cum-winger Dennis Tueart they are to be his final recollections of playing for City. 

    The season had a few weeks earlier thrown up a home league fixture with Chelsea, a game made memorable for the torrid afternoon dished out to Graham Wilkins, the Chelsea left back brother of captain Ray, by City's Dennis Tueart, who grabbed a hattrick in a rumbustious 6-2 home win. A few weeks earlier Tueart had been left out of the League Cup side to play Luton Town, a reason for relief for first-teamers these days, but in those days an apt enough trigger for clear-the-air talks for a player beginning to make himself a fixture in Don Revie's England squads.

    Unhappy with the response he got from manager Tony Book, Tueart asked for a transfer. A swift return to the first team brought goals and rich form, but the damage had been done. The prolific striker had decided to take the next step, a big step, a complete gamble, but a lucrative one. Tueart takes up the story:
    "I had fallen out with Tony Book, and the American opportunity came when it was beginning to boom in the NASL. It was a great honour when I realised that I would be replacing the great Pele. I had been approached by Manchester United and Nottingham Forest, who were managed by Brian Clough at the time, but the American challenge was something that I felt I couldn’t refuse, so I turned them both down."

    At first thought to be heading towards city rivals United, Tueart had other ideas. With the offer of $2,000 per week on the table, Tueart, a dazzlingly popular figure in City’s great late 70s side, decided to sign for New York Cosmos and, in the process, become the first current England international to cross the pond for good.
    The Daily Express breaks news that Tueart wants to leave City

    In the 70s it had become customary to see many stars of the First Division spend a busman’s summer holiday topping up their tans and boosting bank balances in a brief trans-Atlantic flirtation with glitz and glamour. The so-called razzamatazz of the NASL attracted Rodney Marsh, George Best, Trevor Francis and Alan Ball, but also Alan Durban, Alan Hinton, Kevin Bond, Carl Valentine and a stream of B and C-listers, hoping for their slice of the giant, sweet smelling pie. Gordon Banks was in goal at Fort Lauderdale, ex-Spurs and Wales stopper Mike England shored up the Seattle defence and Luton's Alan West was midfield lynchpin at the aptly named Minnesota Kicks. Players often dovetailed the end of the domestic season in England with a gentle two month keep-fit exercise with the delightfully named Fort Lauderdale Strikers, the Los Angeles Aztecs, Washington Diplomats or the Seattle Sounders.

    Beckenbauer makes the news
    At the forefront of this revolution in stars and stripes were New York Cosmos (soon to become just Cosmos), bankrolled by movie dollars, followed by movie stars and manned by the movers and shakers of the finest leagues in Europe and South America.
     
    The flood was by no means just from English shores. World Cup luminaries Johan Cruyff, Johan Neeskens, Carlos Alberto, Teofilio Cubillas, Franz Beckenbauer, Eusébio, Gerd Muller and the king of them all, Pelé, were all there too. It was a true cavalcade of stars in a cascade of ostentatious cash and glitz.

    Tueart, a robust member of Sunderland’s down to earth 1973 FA Cup overturning of Don Revie’s big hitting Leeds United side and by now a budding England international under the same Revie regime was already a full-blown star of Manchester City’s title pushing side. 

    He played what was supposed to be his last game for the Blues at the City Ground, Nottingham, on a night with more than 38,000 freezing witnesses, as League champions Forest squeezed past City in what was clearly the tie of the round. As Tueart trudged from the muddied pitch at the end, he already knew he would be swapping the quagmires of wintry England for the flat sheen of the Yankees Stadium astroturf in New Jersey. What he could not have imagined, was the size of the difference awaiting him on the Atlantic seaboard.

    One of Tueart's 6 England caps: scoring with fellow City striker Joe Royle v Finland WC77
    Without their chief goalscorer, City were soon to be on a gradual slide away from title pretentions. The rumours of fading relations between Tueart and manager Tony Book were the first rumbles of the quake that would finish City's great side of nearly men (League Cup winners 1976, League runners-up to Liverpool 1977, 4th place 1978). The team that had featured internationals Asa Hartford, Joe Royle, Mike Channon, Brian Kidd and Dave Watson was about to be broken up by the return of prodigal son Malcolm Allison. As ever with Allison, it was to be risk-filled revolution ahead of gentle replacement.

    Before Allison could set foot in the cramped Maine Road foyer, however, Tueart had made up his mind to leave.

    What he found at the other end of his journey must have been quite an eye-opener. Manhattan's skyline offers a singular image of death-defying cubes of steel and glass, not one that could in any form be copied amongst the litter-strewn streets of Rusholme and Moss Side, or anywhere else in the fading red brick post-industrial decline of late70s Manchester for that matter. 

    Suddenly, from training that involved catching a medicine ball thrown at him by Kenny Clements in City's cramped gymnasium, stashed away in the bowels of the ancient Main Stand at Maine Road, Tueart was starting his days drinking kiwi juice and vitamin breakfasts with Brazilian World Cup winning captain Carlos Alberto. Ironic now, perhaps, to think that Manchester City might be seen as a dirt-spattered anachronism alongside the high-tech approach at Cosmos, but Tueart had left the slow burn of Coronation Street and disembarked plumb in the middle of the set of Kojack. 

    These days, a sack of cash and the sight of the sun streaming down on the Statue of Liberty can still prise the likes of Frank Lampard from the grasp of the English game, but in the late 70s and early 80s, the NASL offered journeymen like Steve Hunt - shortly to be a team mate of Tueart's at Cosmos and later a star at Aston Villa, Coventry and on two occasions for England - the opportunity to play against the best the world of football had to offer.
    Hunt would later say of his move from Aston Villa's reserves to Cosmos, "I think it was when they said they'd be signing Pelé that I made up my mind. The first two games I was involved in were in Las Vegas and Hawaii..."

    Whilst Pelé and his countrymen Francisco Marinho, Paulo Cesar and Carlos Alberto were clearly Stateside for one last, generous payday, Hunt and Tueart represented the other side of the playing staff in the NASL; hungry, competitive and ambitious. Tueart's arrival even marked something of a watershed as he was the first current international to swap England for the US. 

     The game was growing, taking real shape and beginning to turn heads in Europe.
    "There were thirteen nationalities in the dressing room in 1978. All the problems that are happening now in the Premier League, and all the little culture issues and breakdowns in communication and man-management…I had that myself at Cosmos in 1978." - Dennis Tueart.
    Cosmos were the height of star-studded, glamour-loaded pop culture. The club was owned by Warner Communications and carried itself on and off the pitch as any multi-million-dollar backed organisation would. Leaving behind a club bolstered by the feeble rewards Peter Swales had gleaned from a life selling television sets and electrical appliances in Altrincham, Tueart arrved amongst real wealth and ambition. The only toasters and fridge freezers that played a part in the diamond-paved corridors of Warner Brothers at 1, Rockerfeller Plaza were in the lavishly decorated hospitality suites that greeted the great and good of film and sport. 

    Swales’ infamous Cuban heels might have more or less passed muster amongst the glitterati, but little else of City’s murky old Maine Road ground would have made it past the behatted concierge guarding the revolving doors down at ground level.

    Tueart had been summoned to a club whose headquarters were dripping in opulence, the Cosmos offices perched loftily on the 19th floor. As the elevator doors opened on starry-eyed visitors to the building, they were met by life-size cut-outs of Pele and Franz Beckenbauer on one side – and on the other side Carlos Alberto. 

    A year or so later a cardboard Dennis Tueart would also stand proudly by the Warner Bros elevators, a one-dimensional tribute to the Geordie's highly successful stint in New York. Tueart was walking with giants.

    He would get a taste of the future of the game as we now embrace it playing at Cosmos, a future that would also engulf his own Manchester City in a big way. Speaking of "a dressing room of 13 nationalities" would not bat many eyelids at the Etihad these days, but in 1977, the club’s idea of foreign exoticism stretched only to Colin Viljoen, a South African born midfield player from Ipswich Town and later Dragoslav Stepanovic, one of Malcolm Allison's quirkier recruits, whose grasp of English was said to stretch only to repeatedly shouting Come On You Blues at his team mates. 

    (Allison, of course, immediately made this great communicator amongst men his new captain.) 

    Further foretaste of what was to come could be seen in the seamless relationship between business and sport in the NASL set-up. There were staggered kick-off times for tv schedules, private jets for the players and grueling tours to the other side of the planet to get the brand placed in the Far East subconscious. The modern passion of making a fast buck was being suitably dealt with in the US 35 years ago. 

    To the stuffy leaders of the game in England, a motley crew of pork butchers and tv rental moguls, the American Way was vulgar and populist. Even beside-the field innovations like pom pom girls,  giant foam-filled mascots and emoticon-obsessed scoreboards appeared anathema. On field 35 metre penalty runs, squad numbers and players' names on the back of the shirts appeared to turn what the British felt sacrosanct into a lude festival of kitsch. What did we know. 75,000 in Giants Stadium couldn't always be wrong, however, and Cosmos regularly played to huge crowds as they made thier way to SoccerBowl 77 v Seattle Sounders. Cosmos won 2-1, the goals scored by Hunt and Chinaglia in Pelé's farewell match.The following year they reached the Soccer Bowl again, this time with Tueart at the forefront.

     

    Cosmos in 1978 bore eery similarities to present day Manchester City. From the celebrity backers – including founding Turkish brothers Ahmet and Nesuhi Ertegun, who ran the club day to day – to the lavish private jets and the showbiz stars dropping in (Mick Jagger and Henry Kissinger were regular faces in the Cosmos' dressing room), the place was dripping in cash and being constantly lavished with media attention. Maverick striker Giorgio Chinaglia, an ex-Swansea and Lazio bruiser and one of the NASL’s biggest stars, most talked about personalities and most unpredictable employees, also drew certain parallels with City's own modern day brushes with Italian short fuses, Mario Balotelli.

    Tueart clearly relished playing alongside the greats of world football, stating that "they never, ever entered the comfort zone" and, like many of his slovenly, overweight and poorly informed peers from the English first division, he quickly picked up a completely new set of habits as a professional sportsman. 
    “Franz Beckenbauer. He was so, so pedantic and particular about things. In the locker
    Tueart takes a blow from the nattily-dressed Dave Clements
    room…he had a little box he put on the side of the basin and he opened the box and in it he had a gold plated shaving bush and shaver. On the pitch, he did not give the ball away just like Carlos Alberto and his desire to win was deeply rooted – despite all of the success he had already achieved”

    Tueart’s energetic style as a winger who could cut in and score so regularly that he was often thought of simply as a striker, went down well in the States. He and Billy Hughes had played either side of big central striker Vic Halom in Sunderland’s glory run to Wembley in 1973 and again in City's 1976 League Cup-winning side, Tueart had balanced the flying left wing raids of Peter Barnes perfectly as they both bore down on the heavily built Joe Royle in the middle of the City attack. 

    Having experienced the glory of scoring City's flamboyant winner in the 1976 League Cup final, Tueart also struck transatlantic gold, scoring twice as the Cosmos won the 1978 NASL Soccer Bowl. A total of 26 goals would come in 47 appearances over two seasons, as Tueart made a mark for himself as a player, who was as valuable as any of the global stars on show. 

    Within two years, however, he was back in England after a personnel shake-up at Cosmos demanded new stars be brought in to give the place a face lift. Malcolm Allison, by this time back in charge of City, had met up by chance with ex-Birmingham City manager Freddie Goodwin, then coaching Minnesota Kicks and on a scouting mission in England for the new NASL season. Asking Goodwin if Tueart would be a sensible buy for City after two years "in the lesser environment of the NASL", Allison sought reassurances of the player's form in America. The glowing report from Goodwin sealed Tueart's return, where he made his second City debut against Norwich at Maine Road on March 1st 1980.

    He would stay on at City for another four years, dropping back into a productive midfield role in his final two seasons. He remains - for those who began watching City in the 70s - one of the club's most popular players ever, but the nagging feeling refuses to go away that Dennis Tueart's best years were actually spent in the green and white of Cosmos in another football world altogether.  

    ****   



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    ↧

    CURTAIN UP

    June 17, 2015, 1:59 pm
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    $ Nicky Reid and Paul Power defend the near post against City old-boy Mike Channon in 1980

    Staring at the fixtures list until you go boss-eyed is for many of us a long-standing tradition. Here then, just to add to the problem of revolving eyes and deep dread nostalgia, are City's opening games from the last 45 years.

    70-71
    15 Aug
    Southampton
    1
    CITY 
    1

    71-72
    14 Aug
    CITY
    0
    Leeds
    1

    72-73
    12 Aug
    Liverpool 
    2
    CITY 
    0

    73-74
    25 Aug  video BBC Motson  
    CITY
    3
    Birmingham
    1 Rep

    74-75
    17 Aug  (Pic below **1)
    CITY
    4
    West Ham
    0

    75-76
    16 Aug  (video below **2)
    CITY
    3
    Norwich
    0

    76-77
    12 Aug  (pic below **3)
    Leicester
    2
    CITY 
    2

    77-78
    20 Aug
    CITY
    0
    Leicester
    0

    78-79
    19 Aug
    Derby
    1
    CITY 
    1

    79-80
    18 Aug
    CITY
    0
    C. Palace
    0

    $ 80-81
    16 Aug DTKS archive material
    Southampton
    2
    CITY 
    0

    81-82
    29 Aug BBC highlights Motson
    CITY
    2
    WBA
    1

    82-83
    28 Aug BBC highlights Parry
    Norwich
    1
    CITY 
    2

    83-84
    27 Aug ITN source
    C. Palace 
    0
    CITY 
    2

    84-85
    24 Aug
    Wimbledon
    2
    CITY 
    2

    85-86
    17 Aug (Pic below **4)
    Coventry 
    1
    CITY 
    1

    86-87
    23 Aug
    CITY
    3
    Wimbledon
    1

    87-88
    15 Aug
    CITY 
    2
    Plymouth 
    1

    88-89
    27 Aug
    Hull 
    1
    CITY 
    0

    89-90
    19 Aug Granada highlights Tyldersley
    Liverpool 
    3
    CITY 
    1

    90-91
    25 Aug ITV highlights Tyler
    Spurs
    3
    CITY 
    1

    91-92
    17 Aug ITV networks
    Coventry 
    0
    CITY 
    1

    92-93
    17 Aug Sky live Hawthorne
    CITY
    1
    QPR
    1

    93-94
    14 Aug
    CITY
    1
    Leeds
    1

    94-95
    20 Aug
    Arsenal 
    3
    CITY 
    0

    95-96
    19 Aug
    CITY
    1
    Spurs
    1

    96-97
    16 Aug
    CITY
    1
    Ipswich 
    0

    97-98
    9 Aug  City Till I Die report
    CITY
    2
    Portsmouth 
    2

    98-99
    8 Aug  442 article
    CITY
    3
    Blackpool
    0

    99-00
    8 Aug 
    CITY
    0
    Wolves 
    1

    00-01
    19 Aug BBC highlights Motson
    Charlton
    4
    CITY 
    0

    2001-2
    11 Aug ITV digital live Tyldersley
    CITY
    3
    Watford
    0

    2002-3
    17 Aug BBC online report
    Leeds
    3
    CITY 
    0

    2003-4
    17 Aug BBC online rport
    Charlton
    0
    CITY 
    3

    2004-5
    14 Aug Sky highlights
    CITY
    1
    Fulham
    1

    2005-6
    13 Aug Sky highlights
    CITY
    0
    WBA
    0

    2006-7
    20 Aug Sky highlights Tyler
    Chelsea 
    3
    CITY 
    0

    2007-8
    11 Aug BBC highlights
    West Ham
    0
    CITY 
    2

    2008-9
    17 Aug City tv highlights
    Aston Villa 
    4
    CITY 
    2

    2009-10
    15 Aug City TV highlights
    Blackburn
    1
    CITY 
    2

    2010-11
    14 Aug BBC online report
    Spurs
    0
    CITY
    0


     














    and in more recent times: 

    2011-12   15 Aug Guardian report Taylor           CITY                      4       Swansea              0   Video

    2012-13   19 Aug City tv highlights                     CITY                     3       Southampton        2
    2013-14   19 Aug Guardian report Taylor          CITY                      4       Newcastle            0
    2014-15   17 Aug Guardian report Taylor           Newcastle               0       CITY                   2
    2015-16    8 Aug                                               WBA                     -        CITY                   -

    **1 West Ham (h) 1974-75


      
    **2 Norwich (h) 1975-76

    **3 - Jimmy Conway makes his debut at Filbert Street, Leicester
    **4 - City start at Coventry in 1985-86





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    SLOW START TO SUMMER BUSINESS

    June 22, 2015, 3:16 am
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    For those beginning to hyperventilate that Manchester City’s much-heralded transfer splurge is yet to break out of first gear, this morning’s ramble through the long corridors of Wikipedia has at least settled the fevered mind of this correspondent.

    You see, I have been idly checking dates. It is the kind of thing one can do in the slow-moving, sun-drenched days of the close season.

    On 28th July 2011 Sergio Aguero swapped the red and white stripes of Atlético Madrid for the sky blue of Manchester City. A year earlier David Silva had removed his white Valencia shirt for the last time and also moved north into the cold, bleak steppes of North West England, signing on the dotted line on June 30th 2010. It must have been quite a week at the Etihad, for -- just three days later -- Yaya Toure ambled through the front foyer with the air of a man in no hurry at all to do exactly the same thing.

    The three most iconic and influential signings the club has made in the new, cash-driven age of success were, therefore, all signed in the end-of-June-beginning-of-Julyperiod of the summer. This means that the early bird getting the worm scenario is not necessarily true in football terms. It is clear that the pressure is very much on City’s Three Wise Men (Manuel Pellegrini, Txiki Begiristain and Ferran Soriano) to deliver the goods -- top quality, well wrapped, pristine goods at that -- in this summer’s transfer market.

    Three seasons of mixed success in this area have passed since City last landed a truly global footballing icon. That the £24m spent on Toure, another £24m on Silva and the relatively huge (then) and bargain (now) £38m spent on Aguero was handed over a good month and a half into the transfer season, underlines the fact that the top transfers in world football these days take a very long time to iron out....

    To read the rest of this article click here to go to ESPNFC 
    ↧

    REMEMBERING ROBINHO

    June 22, 2015, 8:16 am
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    It will not just have been Manchester City fans, who were surprised to see who was the man of the match during Brazil’s critical defeat of Venezuela on Sunday, a win that secured passage to the knock-out rounds of the Copa America.

    At the ripe old age of 31, Robson de Souza, aka Robinho, was instrumental in ensuring his country’s continued presence at South America’s prestige tournament.

    A career that has seemed on a long, winding and slightly unpredictable path -- much like one of the player’s trademark ambling slaloms down the wing -- has taken him from his beloved Santos, around the football globe and back again.

    His time at City -- without being the moment of his greatest achievement -- may well, however, go down as the moment he attracted the most attention.

    Cast your minds back to the summer of 2008. City -- a club with a rich past and a recent history of underachievement on a nuclear scale -- were approaching the end of the transfer window period in a state of some agitation.

    There was nothing new in this and, therefore, nothing in particular for the fans to get excited about. The club, under the somewhat dubious stewardship of ex-Thai leader Thaksin Shinawatra, was enjoying a period of relative calm after the turbulent years between 1996 and 2001, when a yoyo policy between the leagues left everyone feeling dizzy and disoriented.

    Still, Shinawatra’s private financial situation was beginning to show up on the radar of certain renowned international law enforcement agencies and this in turn was beginning to set off some alarm bells in both Manchester and Bangkok.

    What happened next will be for ever etched on the memories of City supporters on all four sides of the planet.....

    Read the rest of this article on ESPNFC's pages here
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