Kid in a Candy Shop – Mark Hughes must have felt like someone who found the money cheat for Championship Manager 97 in the summer, when he was allowed to dip into the club’s rather deep pockets. Joleon Lescott arrived from Everton for £24m, a shockingly inflated sum considering his ability, Kolo Toure and Adebayor came in from Arsenal for £12m and £25m respectively, Tevez crossed the Manchester divide for the princely sum of £25m (although it’s since been rumoured to be £47m) and Gareth Barry finally put us all out of our misery by finally departing Villa for £12m once again citing the need to play Champions League football to develop his career (Oh dear Gareth.)
Great Expectations – After some extravagant spending in the summer, Man City were firm favourites out of the likely customers to be able to crash the ‘Big Four’ party. Their rivals thought so too, Aston Villa manager Martin O’Neil stating that “They might not be favourites to win the title, but they should be” before adding that “City’s side are going to be so strong that they can withstand anything during the year” with Spurs manager Harry Redknapp even conceding that they were heavy favourites to break the top four monopoly. A season of optimism beckoned.
The First Test – So how could these Johnny-come-lately’s truly fare against the league’s best then? Well on the 12th September 2009, Arsenal rocked up to Eastlands with several interesting sub-plots developing. Toure and Adebayor play against their old paymasters for the first time after some particularly tasty pre-match comments from the spiky tempered striker. How would new signing Thomas Vermaelen fair against a physical centre forward like Adebayor. What would prevail – Hughes’ big bucks or Arsene’s miserly ways? Well, the game certainly delivered on the pre-match build-up for once. City went in 1-0 up at half-time courtesy of a soaring header from Micah Richards. Arsenal hit back through Robin Van Persie before Bellamy put City within touching distance of a famous victory on 73mins before Adebayor’s moment came, the one we’d all been waiting for – a colossal header that resulted in a classless full length sprint of the pitch (never saw him run that quick for Arsenal mind you) with him celebrating and goading in equal measure in front of the baying away fans that had come to adore him just a couple of seasons before. Wright-Phillips sealed the deal by making it four before Tomas Rosicky pulled a consolation goal back, not to mention a nasty and deliberate stamp by Adebayor on former striker partner Robin Van Persie. What a lovely character. What a cracking game. They’ve arrived.
The Owen Derby – Sorry to call it that City fans, but that’s what it will always be known as. I too have a deep amount of personal hatred for the part-time little submarine (Dive ! Dive ! Dive!), but on this occasion he made the difference with a typically expert and deft finish in the 96th minute in stoppage time after collecting a superbly chipped pass from the evergreen Ryan Giggs. The balance looked to be shifting, but Man Utd held on and exerted their experience in these situations against their plucky adversaries. This was the game that finally established that Rio Ferdinand no longer has any pace, Craig Bellamy really is rather good, Ben Foster is not and that injury time can be a hugely contestable issue (where did the extra 15 seconds come from? Does anyone care?). Probably the best game of the season and a great example of Premiership football at its finest. Whatever happened to the drab 0-0 affairs in big games eh? Mark Lawrenson must be having kittens over at the BBC with his wildly inaccurate predictions column now losing the basis of any of his stale and out of date arguments.
Draw me another one – Just when City threatened to turn into genuine title challengers, a degree of inertia set in and they drew 7 Premiership games on the trot, a run that lasted exactly two months. True to their unpredictable form throughout the campaign up until this point, this all ended with another great performance in a big game at home to Chelsea on December 5th with a 2-1 victory. Dropped points at home to Hull, Fulham and Burnley would come back to haunt them later on in the campaign though. The pressure begins to mount on manager Mark Hughes.
Hughes is sacked – After only collecting 2 wins from their last eleven league games, a run that included 8 draws and only one defeat the Welshman is giving his marching orders and paid the price for failing to match up to expectations after spending over £200m on new players. The LMA and various managers around the league, even Ferguson and Wenger deplored the rushed nature of the sacking and to be honest it did all seem a bit harsh. I never really saw the logic myself in sacking a manager half-way into a season after giving so much money to spend and the basis of an entirely new squad to work with, it all smacked of short-termism with the feeling always persisting that the Sheikh’s wanted their own man, a bigger name to manage their growing club. He most certainly could have used the money better, but that’s not a sackable offence in itself and former manager of Italian giants and three-time Serie A winning manager and playing legend (yes Robbie Savage, we know you played at Leicester with him for a few months, there’s no need to constantly referring to him in a cringe-worthy fashion every chance you get as your ‘mate’) Roberto Mancini.
What do you mean you don’t wear a scarf on a honeymoon period? – Let’s get it out of the way straight away shall we? It’s a cracking scarf, he just simply reinforces the stereotype that all Italians are fashion Gods, but its summer now, well sort of anyway, but when is he bloody well going to take it off? Back to the football – the timing of Hughes’ sacking was thought to have been deliberately timed to coincide with a favourable run of fixtures that were coming up, after all Hughes had already played Arsenal and Chelsea at home and Man Utd, Liverpool, Spurs and Villa away, not the easiest run of fixtures in your first 17 league games. Mancini came in to try and bridge the gaping chasm that existed between expensive centre half pairing Toure and Lescott and bring a degree of attacking verve that had been sorely lacking. Mancini’s first three games were against Stoke, Hull and Blackburn and rendered two clean sheets and 9 goals – pretty good right. It continued with a Tevez inspired win over city rivals Utd in the Carling Cup semi-final, with some truly excellent taunting of Gary Neville as he warmed up, before it all come crashing down in the second leg at Old Trafford. Normality had been restored; unpredictability and frustration were back in fashion, not as much as that scarf mind you. What followed that month and the proceeding ones was the great acquisition of Boro winger Adam Johnson for £7m, a player of real purpose who added another dimension to City’s attack and a less than savoury, and if you believe the red-tops, a deeply filthy and sordid affair between Wayne Bridge’s ex-girlfriend and our ever-so wonderful and inspirational leader John Terry. The handshake that never was followed and yet again City delieverd in a big game, putting Terry & Co to the sword in a 4-2 away victory. A double over the would-be Champions is not to be sniffed at for any side.
Gary Cook – The CEO of Man City after the takeover by Thaksin Shinawatra in 2008, an owner whose civil rights record in his native Thailand probably wasn’t as offensive as some of the rubbish being spouted out of Cook’s mouth. Universally hated, he doesn’t talk like a man who knows football, he gives City a bad image when he’s employed to do the opposite and he has a complete lack of class in both defeat and victory as typified by his comments after the first-leg Carling Cup victory over Utd at the semi-final stage. A truly deplorable human being that City would do well to ditch before they become the most hated club in the country by default. I do not hate City, far from it, I think it’s great they’re finally getting their chance at the big time with a bit of cash, it makes the league more exciting and I admire some of their players, I do not begrudge any success they have had until now, or will have in the future, but I truly detest this shocking individual.
Robinho – Scarpered back off to sunnier climes in the January transfer window to boyhood club Santos after suffering terribly from second season syndrome. Has found the Premiership tough going on a consistent basis since his arrival, and he’s struggled to get to grips with the physicality. Whilst he maintains the £32.5m quality to sparkle in his boots, he’ll go down as a flop unless he does more on his return. His signing was important nonetheless last term at signalling the club’s intent and it’s debatable whether they’d have such a star-studded squad now without had the Brazilian not been prepared to take a punt on the blue half of Manchester, even if he did think he’d signed for Chelsea.
Mancini fails in objectives – Has anyone else noticed that Mancini has failed to reach both the desired total of 70 points that was supposed to seal Champions league qualification (and did in the end for Spurs) and the Champions League football he was brought into secure. The crux of the issue behind Hughes’ sacking was that on their current point’s trajectory, something which was completely distorted by the 7 successive draws may I add, Hughes’ City side were only going to reach a points total of 64, 6 shy of the desired target, a total that would have got them sixth place in the final Premiership table. Mancini’s finished total was 67 points, with easier games in 5th. He’s failed to stamp his authority on the team, constantly tinkered with positions, tactics and formations – so was the sacking really worth it after all? I’ll leave that up for you to decide.
Europa League here we come – At the moment Man City are a team without an identity, a true philosophy in transfer policy about whether to go for emerging or established players and one that’s so ragingly inconsistent, the side themselves cannot know which one will turn up on match day. This Jekyll and Hyde character has turned out to be both their greatest strength and their biggest weakness; their unpredictable nature makes them dangerous, but at the same time can also render their form indifferent and sloppy at times. They’re a manager’s nightmare. Make no bones about it, this is not an easy job, creating a playing squad and being told to mould them into champions is extremely difficult, it’s an unenviable task despite the large sums of money available to use. I personally think they’ve achieved about right this season, I always thought the media, managers and pundits alike overestimated how good they’d be, football’s just not as simple as just buying good players and winning games otherwise we could all do it. They didn’t buy particularly smartly in the summer and they invested heavily in unproven top level talent and flaky characters, which rather neatly have been two staples of their season’s progress. I think next year they’ll be a real force to be reckoned with as their form against the big sides this season testifies to and for the time being they’ll have to contend with the Europa League, a step in the right direction. It may seem like a season of failure for the fans, but have a little patience, you’re time will come. Rome wasn’t built in a day as they say.
Arbitrary marks out of 10 – 6.5/10 – Inconsistent, frustrating, but on their day absolutely devastating. A decent start.
Written By James McManus