DOWN THE KIPPAX STEPS

A SPORTINGUISTA SPEAKS

2012-03-07T15:46:00.000-08:00

Tom Kundert has been lounging around the press box at Estadio José Alvalade for many moons and is well placed to answer some pivotal questions ahead of City's Europa League tie in Lisbon:

1) HOW WOULD YOU SUM UP SPORTING’S SEASON SO FAR?

A summer revolution at the club promised a bright new dawn, but unfortunately it’s been as disastrous as the last two desperately poor seasons. This is particularly painful for Sporting fans after a new president, a new coach who had enjoyed remarkable success over two years at Braga, and practically a whole new squad appeared to signal that Sporting where back in the big time.

After a sketchy opening spell, things started falling into place as Domingos Paciência oversaw a run of ten straight victories. “Sporting are truly back. We are no longer the laughing stock of the três grandes!” Sporting’s long suffering supporters, myself included, felt with warmth in our hearts. We were wrong. Some key injuries and an incomprehensible loss of form and confidence led to a horrible run of results in the New Year. Only two wins in ten games led to the shock sacking of Domingos, supposedly the most integral part of a long-term project – less than 24 hours after president Godinho Lopes had categorically told reporters Domingos was at the Alvalade to stay. What was that I said about being a laughing stock…

2) OF THE 18 SUMMER RECRUITS, HAS ANYBODY MANAGED TO GEL?

Several of the new players have shone to varying degrees and at various times – but the crux of the matter is in the question. Bar the aforementioned purple patch in September and October the TEAM has not gelled. Giant centre-back Oguchi Onyewu, left-back Insúa, central midfielders Schaars and Rinaudo, wingers Capel and Carrillo and striker Wolfswinkel have all looked like excellent players on occasion, but only sporadically and rarely in unison.

3) SÁ PINTO? THE RIGHT MAN OR A STOPGAP?

It was a huge gamble bringing in the man better known for punching the national team coach Artur Jorge after failing to make the squad and punching team-mate Liedson than for his commendable career as a fully committed attacking midfielder and Sporting icon. Pinto’s only previous coaching experience was with Sporting’s youth team. The players seem to have taken to him, but the jury still very much out. If pressed, few in Portugal would bet on him seeing out his 18-month contract.

4) THE BOARD – DO THEY KNOW WHAT THEY ARE DOING?

No.

5) THE SUPPORT – STILL STAUNCH OR BEGINNING TO FRAGMENT?

This is perhaps the saddest part of a broken season. The wave of enthusiasm that heralded what was supposed to be a new chapter in the club’s history completely enveloped the club’s fans. The sheer numbers turning up and the unstinting support at the Alvalade during the first four months of the season was at complete odds with the flat, unhealthily tense or utterly unbelieving atmosphere more conducive to aiding the opposition than the hosts in recent seasons. Alas, still several months from the end of the season and this optimism has all but dissipated.

6) PLAYERS TO LOOK OUT FOR?

Spanish winger Diego Capel is full of willing running, albeit often choosing strange diagonals, and a fine crosser of the ball. Young Peruvian winger André Carrillo has shown flashes of genuine brilliance, although at 20 years of age he is still very raw. Dutch striker Ricky van Wolfswinkel couldn’t stop scoring during Sporting’s good spell. A chronic lack of confidence has blurred his sights, but the feeling remains there is a big talent there. If fit, the all-action Argentine midfielder Fito Rinaudo will make sure the Manchester City midfielders do not have it all their own way.

7) WHERE CAN SPORTING DO SOME DAMAGE?

Out wide on either flank. Both Diego Capel and André Carrillo have the ability to trouble the best defences on their day.

8) WHERE CAN CITY MAKE A DIFFERENCE?

A big worry for Sporting will be that they are simply outmuscled. City showed their physical power against FC Porto (probably Portugal’s most physically robust team) in the last round, especially at the Dragão. Particularly if Rinaudo does not play, the Lions will find hard to live up to their nickname.

9) EUROPA LEAGUE CAMPAIGN SO FAR?

A record of 5 wins, 2 defeats and 1 draw does not sound bad on the face of it. However, Lazio is the only team of any standing Sporting faced, having got the better of the might of FC Zurich, Vaslui and Legia Warsaw in their other matches. On the plus side for Sporting, the thrilling 2-1 win over the Italians at the Alvalade is without doubt the high point of their season. Perhaps the occasion will inspire a repeat. Sporting can also draw a measure of confidence from a run of 13 matches unbeaten at home in Europe. The last two teams to beat them in Lisbon were Bayern Munich and Barcelona in 2008/09 (both of whom scored five times).

10) OUTCOME?

Football is a funny old game they say. Football matches are unpredictable they say. Not that funny and not that unpredictable. Sporting 0-2 Manchester City.

Read all about Sporting and the world of Portuguese football at the excellent Portugoal.net site

A SPORTING CHANCE

2012-03-06T08:39:00.000-08:00

Diego Capel, the ex-Sevilla flier who now plies his trade down the flanks at Sporting Lisbon, is adamant: "We are playing better and better each game," he concluded, after a blistering finish from Russian striker Izmailov sealed a slender one-nil victory over Rio Ave two weeks ago. Whether the speedy Spaniard is talking up his club's current form or they are actually beginning to get their act together is open to conjecture, as they followed up this slender win with a disastrous 0-1 reverse at lowly Setubal last weekend.What is not open to debate is that Sporting are the nation's soap opera and, for that reason alone, City supporters should feel some sort of empathy already.

What cannot be argued is the fact that Sporting have been a shambles for more or less the entire season. Much had been made of the eighteen new recruits brought in over the summer, the brand new manager, Domingos Paciencia, hired from Braga after the remarkable success he had had in leading the Arsenalistas to Dublin and the Europa League final against fellow countrymen FC Porto, and the relatively new board and president. Nothing, it seems, stays the same at the Estadio José Alvalade for very long.

Already the relatively new manager has been replaced by a brand new manager, in the shape of the robust Sà Pinto, an ex-Sporting hero on the pitch, who was often dangerously close to controversy during his playing days and who is the proud owner of a notably short fuse. He is short on management experience and is seen as a trumpet blowing stop-gap until the summer, but his Sporting credentials should see him through that far at least.

The grand old lady of Portuguese football has certainly seen better days and plenty of them.As recently as 2005, Sporting played in the UEFA Cup Final, ironically in their own stadium, cruelly nicknamed the Casa de Banho by Benficistas, after its brightly coloured decorative tiles. That they lost the final to CSKA seems to fit with a modern penchant for shooting themselves in the foot, but it was not always thus. As Sporting's founder José Alvalade famously announced:

"We want this Club to be a great club, as great as the greatest in Europe"

Alvalade awaits

The 40s and 50s ushered in Years of Plenty for Sporting, winning 10 out of their current total of 18 Championships during these decades, with 4 out of their 13 Portuguese Cup triumphs also happening at this time. From 1946–47 to 1953–54 season, Sporting won seven of the eight championships contested. This was the era of the Cinco Violinos ("The Five Violins") that would bring international fame to the club. The term was coined by a journalist called Tavares da Silva who wished to compare the sweet music constructed by the club's enigmatic and potent forward line of Jesus Correia, Manuel Vasques, Fernando Peyroteo, José Travassos and Albano to an orchestra. Certainly, the sweetness of the music of this era has seldom been replicated to the same melodic heights since.

Sporting's successes would continue in the 60s and 70s, with a trail of glorious titles and a long line of illustrious players, topped perhaps by the arch Argentinian goal-getter Hector Yazalde a striker who could not stop scoring for the green and whites. In Europe Sporting's reputation stems from daring deeds in the 60s and 70s, winning the UEFA Cup in 1964 and were losing European finalists in 1974 and 1991, as well as 2005. Recent years have ushered in a barren spell, which threatens to place this grand old club amongst the chasing pack of the Portuguese professional elite. These days, Braga and Guimarães are vying for 3rd, 4th and 5th places with the green and whites, whilst Benfica and FC Porto push on at the front.

So, where do we start to analyse a club, which creates such a funk wherever it goes? Perhaps it is sensible, first of all, to state that Sporting are really not a patch on FC Porto, already dealt with in a summary execution in the Manchester rain three weeks ago. This in itself should be heartening news to City followers everywhere and appears to be the main reason why the vast majority of Sportinguistas appear to be preparing themselves for the worst, come March 8th, with a resolute form of pessimism that truly reminds me of happy days following the misfiring backfiring Manchester City of the mid-eighties or the even worse spectacle of the misshapen lump that was Manchester City in the mid-to-late nineties. Truly, our green and white hooped brethren have taken up the mantle of arch pessimists with a power and passion that reminds the casual observer of the true Portuguese soul of melancholy, Fado, "saudades" (a longing for the past and for missed ones) and quiet introspection.

Still, they sit a somewhat shaky 5th in the table, behind Maritímo of Madeira, well adrift Braga in 3rd, and Benfica in 2nd, plus new leaders and recent City opponents FC Porto. With Guimarães picking up pace in 6th place, there is a real danger that the green and white hoops will not even make it into the Europa League next season. If they fail in the league, however, they will have a second chance come May, when they confront Académica de Coimbra (City's only other Portuguese opponents in European competition) in the final of the Taça de Portugal at Jamor in May.

None of this can take anything away from the clear and painful fact that 2011-2012 has been a disaster for Sporting. From the failure of Domingos Paciencia to match the board's wishes, through the mildly ridiculous tunnel affair when Sporting's directors sanctioned the use of giant murals depicting some of the club's hooligan element "in action", to Valeri Bojinov's farcical penalty episode when he took the ball from usual penalty taker Matias Fernandez and proceeded to miss a vital last minute penalty himself, Sporting's season has lurched from comedy to tragi-comedy and back again.

It is without doubt nigh impossible to make a squad containing 18 new recruits gel properly and this was undoubtedly what undid Paciencia, but the squad has been together for eight months now and is plainly neither strong enough nor deep enough to challenge properly at the high end of the season. There is definite star quality in the shape of athletic 'keeper Rui Patricio, excellent right back João Pereira, attacking wide man Diego Capel, artistic playmaker Matias Fernandez and the ever-willing young Dutch pair Stijn Schaars and the enigmatically named Ricky van Wolfswinkel, but the rest of the squad does not pass muster. The sight of Anderson Polga, a slow-to-turn Brazilian defender who has played at Alvalade for nine seasons, still occupying a central defensive birth alongside the giant American Onyewu, should say enough.

City should be on their mettle, however. This is a side with nothing to lose. In Sà Pinto, they have a green and white legend, who might be notoriously short of brain cells, but who is passionate and will set the side up to have a good go at their northern European counterparts. Expect the lively João Pereira to cause plenty of havoc down the right, where City's defence is not at its strongest, and although Van Wolfswinkel has not scored in European competition since a December group game with FC Zurich, he is Sporting's only hope of a goal, as replacements Rubio (12 games) and Ribas (6 games) have yet to score their first goals for the club. This is how Sporting set up in their last game, a one-nil defeat in Setúbal:

Rui Patrício

Arias -- Xandão -- Polga -- Insúa

Carriço

Elias -- Schaars

Izmailov -- Ribas -- Capel

May your God go with you

With Oguchi Onyewu injured, the inexperienced Xandão may be asked to continue in defence, whilst Ribas should drop out for Van Wolfswinkel. It is not entirely clear whether the recently injured pair Jeffren and Rodríguez will be available in time, but - whoever plays - rest assured Sporting under Sá Pinto will not go down without a fight, will be well backed from the terraces, where a larger than normal turn-out is expected (recent attendances have fluctuated between 20 - 25,000) and will be spiky and energetic in their pursuit of an unexpected Premier league feather in their cap.

** Sá Pinto participated fully in the elimination of Newcastle United from the quarter finals of the 2004-05 UEFA Cup, a run which included defeats of Middlesbrough and AZ Alkmaar, before Sporting lost in the final in their own ground to CSKA Moscow.Here he is scoring the second in a 4-1 win that knocked the Geordies out >

THE EUROPA LEAGUE: A WARM & PLEASANT PLACE

2012-02-20T12:49:00.002-08:00

Building bridges

Having failed to either come to terms with or even particularly enjoy the whole Champions League Thing some of us might have been forgiven for wondering about the worth of going through more pain to witness the Europa League in action. Some even went as far as to say that City should hot foot it down the road marked "early exit" as quickly as possible. Do a Villa. Follow 'Arry. It was a waste of time and strength, a strain on the club's playing resources and our own financial resources.

We would really be better off without it, wouldn't we?

I think it is probably safe to say that anyone, who went to Porto to support City, will be dead against anything but more Europa League. A lot more Europa League. This is the sorry tale of wine, dance and sunshine that accompanied us through an away win at the house of one of the greats of European football and the holders of the UEFA Cup, as I like to call it.

Settling in to new surroundings

The Quai de Ribeira is the sort of place, when bathed in Spring sunshine, with its little port barges puttering past, the wine lodges basking on the other bank, Gustave Eiffel's giant iron railway bridge spanning the great divide, with its rows of decorative trinket shops and eateries and the warm glow of sun on your back, that you could gladly call home for as long as the locals will put up with you. With City's game against FC Porto another nine hours or so away, this is exactly what many Blues had decided to do. In this idyllic setting, we started our day, met with old faces and new, turning the taps slowly on what would become a day's worth of Superbock and red wine and wallowed in our sheer bad luck to have been drawn to this beautiful old coastal city in northern Portugal to watch top class European football.

Scanning the local football press proved an illuminating start. In O Jogo João Moutinho was busy stating that "City will have to prove to us that they are the best", whilst Hulk confirmed that "City are one of the best sides in the world". Porto's young manager, Vitor Pereira, also joined the throng, offering challenges of his own, whilst a full page ad put out by the club itself depicted a demented looking dragon clutching the UEFA Cup whilst snorting copious amounts of flame and fury under the banner "It's ours. Just try and get it!". All confident stuff, if a little melodramatic. With 40,000 tickets sold the day before the game, the locals too seemed to be up for a fight, the Dragão's 53,000 capacity coming under serious danger of being filled. City's support along the quays was certainly in good form, as the season's favourite songs rang out from the top row of bars down to the massed ranks of Blues sunning themselves riverside. The Noisy Neighbours were being made to feel very welcome here.

"Manchester's a shithole, we wanna stay here" rang out loud and clear as tin trays and soup spoons were commandeered for percussion practice. It is always at times like these that you are reminded what a fantastic experience an away trip in Europe can be. Old familiar faces and new unfamiliar ones streamed past. A hug, a handshake, a volley of old reminiscences. The place was awash with the good and great of City's bedrock support, with the lined faces to prove what we had all been through to finally merit a day and a half in the sunshine of southern Europe.

The talk of Carlisle in 84 and Grimsby and Lincoln, of trips to Barnet and Wrexham, Bristol Rovers and Shrewsbury put this bright sunny place into stark perspective. For so many faces, creased deep by the labour of love, this was like a reward at the end of a long hard journey. As the red wine flowed and the stories broadened out into what might become of us, minds were trained on the job in hand. Would City be full strength? Would Mancini risk throwing Yaya in so soon after he had completed African Nations Cup duties? Would we last it in this heat slogging back bottle after bottle of red wine?

Boom boom boom, went the tin trays again. "Oh David Silva, Oh David Silva, he scored the 5th goal at Old Trafford...."

By the time the light began slanting down over the port lodge roofs on the opposite bank, there could be only one outcome to the day's wonderful meandering melodies. We headed to the trains and coaches, expectation and, in various cases, heavy bladders getting the better of us. A mild altercation in the underground ensued as some visitors became confused by the strange local custom of paying for tube travel, but there was no stopping the flow of merry travellers from completing the short journey to station "Estadio do Dragão".

Watching the plebs getting frisked from the UEFA staircase

Exiting into what was now night, the giant bulk of this brand new stadium (constructed for Euro 2004) shone out at us, it's great open end allowing the first glimpses of the dark blue seats which would soon be occupied by 48,000 bellowing believers. There was just time for the typical modern football experience of disappearing into the neighbouring shopping centre, where Portistas were devouring pancakes and coffee. We opted for ice cream and red wine, which seemed particularly apt at the time.

At this point I was reminded of the large piece of laminated plastic attached to the lapel of my coat. Ah yes, of course, I would - thanks to the doyen of the Sporting Lisbon press box Tom Kundert - be taking in this game from the sweaty ranks of the press! I had almost forgotten. Luckily, by imbibing heavily during the day, I would not stand out too much in my amateurish shufflings from the rank and file of the Men of Letters..

"pencil, notepad.....razor, toothbrush, hair drier, what's this square one for?....."

With a lack of sleep, food and oxygen beginning to make me hallucinate, I took my place alongside Paul Simpson in the press area. Paul Simpson!!! Don't stare, you'll look a complete imbecile, I told myself, as I stared right at him organising his papers. I fingered my dictaphone, as one does in moments of tension and looked for paper of my own to shuffle and organise. Sadly, all I had was a little leather embossed flip-open note pad, which did not need organising, so I stood to take some pictures of the royal view instead.

"Please, Sir!" came the firm but polite voice of a teenage security boy, bedecked in shirt and tie, walkie talkie and UEFA embossed credentials. "Not here for pictures!". Why not, I shrugged. "UEFA!" came the all-empowering one word explanation. You don't need to say anything else, do you? I had visions of that nasty Anglophobe Mr Platini doing a Gallic shrug and getting me thrown out. There was no space for argument. I sat, defeated and put my little camera away. Little did we know, the young fellow would have recourse to far stronger words than that to get me under control later on, when the football excitement would mount towards volcanic levels.

For now I slipped back into my seat nonchalantly flipping the pages of my notepad and checking that my pen was still functioning. Preparation involved writing "Ready Steady Eddie" just to look busy for a minute. Try writing this under the influence of alcohol after being told off for taking photographs, whilst wearing a meaningful expression of serious intent on your face. Ready Steady Eddie!!! And I had even put a row of exclamation marks alongside it.

Owing to the excitement billowing up inside me, I now take shelter in the scribbled "Matchday Notes" from said little book to remind me of what exactly happened. This of course represents an abridged version as there are pages and pages of the stuff:

Ready Steady Eddie!!!
No photos, you daft pleb. What an embarrassment. Learn the UEFA rules you laughing stock amateur! God, what a start

Pudge-bellied City official in ill fitting maroon jumper. Looks awry in amongst hoity toity UEFA suits. Good old City! All the wannabe's leaning into their laptops. Like Blakes Seven up here. Small note pad = deeply embarrassing.
Paul Simpson alert!! Ian Cheeseman!! Looking serious, just tried to sharpen my pencil, only to realise its a biro. Sitting down opposite the REAL Pros!! Alright, gents, how's it going!!
Music: "We are Porto, we are Porto", sounds like a funeral dirge. Still checking pen/pencil for escaping lead/ink..
Fireworks in the City end. Still party time over there then! Hope there are no UEFA pigmies chasing them up.
Balo, Yaya, Nasri all play. Get in, get down, and get in again.
Appear to be sitting in tv and radio area, nice man is moving me down a bit to sit with the newspaper bods. At least he's not throwing me out. See ya later, Simmo & Cheesey!.
(At this point I appear to have attempted to draw a tiny team formation - very small notepad, remember - but it looks a little like a Rorshach test with a fellow called "Sweating" upfront for us and a flock of caped bats in midfield..
Looking through bars. pay nothing, look through bars. Oo we're off....
7:17 Yaya! Big Yaya. Nice to have you back, son.Floating, stinging, cruising.
Big Argie flag...big Brazil flag. Something about the Armada. De Jong on Moutinho, tasty! Small v small and only one winner.
Barry tidy but risky. 19 is James, not bad start. Constant Porto support. Nasri, woof woof.
We're Not Really Here ringing out. Hulk x de Jong big splat. Silva EVERYWHERE. Alavaro Pereira EVERYWHERE. Oooer Nasri - corner.
Big Sleepy at near post, Varelaaaaa 17 in case you didn't notice. 1-0 to the insiders. Moderate noise.Gah.
Code red from away end! Nordic reporters studying laptops, drinking WATER so calm! Going into action. Take them out one by one. We are CITY from Maine Road.Preparing Blakes Seven tool box.
30:45 Clichy NOOO! Balotelli ooof. 36:00 taxi for James.
BIG THIRST COMING DOWN. Weetabix mouth. Fernando clatters Silva. Is this gig working with Nasri? Sort of.
HALF TIME. Where's the UEFA buffet. BLOODY VENDING MACHINE!!!! a vending bloody machine.tut and you have to put coins in it. A non-free vending machine....
Long punts to Balo - not paying off.
49:18 Richards post right side, oof. Sit down sit down, you ape, he'll shout at you again.
51:10 De Jong-Balo- Barry- Yaya- nice nice....Balo just saved, Atmosphere hotting up HOT level RED again, going wading into UEFA suits in a mo
Maicon flattens Balo. City man in maroon pullover's back, nearly went headfirst down the steps. Call for UEFA teenage helper crew.
53:?? Own goal own goal!!! Under the desk punches going in in in. Paul Simpson's watching from the balcony above! Try a hard man press smile at him. Not looking. Turn round. One ONE, get in the old onion bag my son, CMON BLUES
Yellow Kompany...yellow de Jong....yellow Barry. What the ... is happening. Its 3 card trick time!
Filha da Puta!!! every time Harty takes goalkick.
62:== Hulk thru, cleared away. Clichy UP and DOWN, Up and then DOWN
66:00 Blues starting to get on top!!!
66:52 Helton running around like its last minute. HAS CLOCK STOPPED? What's going on???? Something in his tea? Amphetamines somesuch tripe. Or loaded tripe.
68:05 Hulk touched by de Jong, goes flying rolling. Immediate surgery needed!! Dear me, for a big lad..
69:05 ref playing for us.
70__ Looking at Yaya cruising, CRUISING around. delight to have him back.
72:00 Superdragões have shut up at last. COLD-THIRSTY-DEHYDRATED Vending machine now anything will do
Yellow Nasri, dear Jesus. 78:00 Aguero for Balo. Where's Milner? All this way for a press conference. Not on bench!!!
79:00 Moutinho big loopy into stands. Not going for them
81:00 Losing hands, circulation, COLD UP HERE. Found a mint that tastes like those toilet blocks.The blue ones. Micah and Alavrao Pereira 2 BIG athletes..BOOM
Aguero sky blue boots!!! oh no Kolarov...oh no!! - for Silva! It's over now. One one.
84:00 goaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaL----- get in!!! get in!! get in!!!!!! GET THE BUGGER IN!!!!!!!!! Air Kissing Paul Simpson. ~~Lips tongues, you name it.~~ Slight ruckus in the press area, centred on....oh, me. Sit down, Sir, or we take you away. This is press area, not supporters. Where's your laptop, sonny? You do understand UEFA pressbox etiquette? So stop shouting!
86 - Kolarov you little beauty! We Are Not Really Here. People leaving all around!!
Blue Moon now. Saw me cold in my coat. Still time for 2-3!! Yellow Richards, dear me. Refs from Turkey.
93:00 we win in Europe. Oh boy! Press are leaving at speed. Where to now, nobody knows. Follow the Nordics. Press face attached, dictaphone magic coming up!! "Er Paul, could I have a quick word, mate?" *fumbles with on/off switch like a complete amateur....* ...Be with you in a second.

tabloid hack begins non-football story

Down in the bowels of the stadium, serious people are readying themselves in the time honoured way. They have done this hundreds of times. I have done it once before, in a bare room occupied by two journalists waiting to interview the respective managers of Atletico and Belenenses in the Portuguese 2nd division. This is note pad heaven! In fact there are no note pads here at all, just laptops, mics and intimidating technology. I finger my pen. The auditorium is large and slopes viciously down to what I will call the dias at the front (journalists probably have their own special name for it). The British tabloid crew are immediately obvious. They are camping on the front row. Shaved heads, scarred skulls the lot. A living parody of what they really are. Astonished and blinking, I shuffle into row two, alone and still fizzing from the wine, the cold, the win.. Portuguese and Nordic serious squad way back in rows 12 and 13, just in front of huge array of tv cameras. This is exciting. I'm warming up but still extremely dehydrated. There are leggy UEFA girls in skirts and blazers all over the place. Teenage sit down squad has disappeared. We are close to the stars now, so we usher in leggy lovelies instead. The door opens, chatter stops, in walks Roberto Mancini. Small and surprisingly slight when you are close up in a professional sort of manner. UEFA leggies towering over him. He sits down between two translators. Or a translator and an interpretor. Or an intepretor and a lifeguard. Or a lifeguard and his brother in law. The lifeguard has an old coat and a ridiculous moustache.

UEFA leggy alert. Coming right at me! hands mic to tabloid boys in front of me. I now regurgitate word for word because I am stunned:

Scarred Skull: "Roberto, what do you think of the racist chants at Balotelli?"
Mancini, surprised: "I no hear nothing, bat eet ees for other people"
Skull: "How did the racist chanting affect Balotelli and Yaya Touré"
Mancini: "Eeer, I hear, we hear nathing on the bench, nathing, so I don't know"
Skull's mate: "Will City be reporting Porto over the racist chanting, Roberto?"
Mancini (looking deflated): "I don't know about thees."
3rd reporter: (affecting deeply disinterested voice) "So what chance you go through now?"

...with this the tabloid pack are satisfied that they have asked all the sentient questions they could think of after City's win at the holders of the Europa League. Stunned, I find myself waving at Leggy One for the mic, in order To Restore The Reputation of Albion and Its Fine People. She nods, I nod. A frisson of understanding, deep understanding passes between us. I hear angels, UEFA angels, singing in the distance. One has a harp, the other a mouth organ or a banjo, one of those quality ones, not George Formby, not in the slightest George Formby. My mouth goes dry. I glance ahead. Mancini is waiting. The words on the laptop in front of me are already being committed to text. Match report. It says: "Manchester City's win here was marred by racist taunting....". The tabloid slant. I am cocked ready to go off. The moment is mine. Time stands still.

Mancini deals with my question whilst moustachioed interpreter waits to translate the bons mots

Paraphernalia of a true Football Man

I have the mic in my hand. A big one, with a big end on it. A two hand job to hold in front of my face, like those massive ice creams we'd have as nippers. The UEFA Leggy winks at me, as if to say "Go for it, kid". She knows like I know that there's a football question coming. She is looking at a football man. Her stare doesn't unnerve me, but I grow strong from it. Mancini is looking at me. Who is this stranger, he must be thinking. Daily Star? Daily Rat? Daily Gutter? But I am a football man and my question is a glorious one: "Roberto," I can hear myself stutter in a strange little voice, "City looked different with Yaya Touré back in the side. How difficult was it to put him back in so soon after he landed from Africa and how much difference does he make to the side?". I can a feel a glow all around me. The tabloid boys are eying me with a cocktail of mistrust and disgust. Ms UEFA is shooting me a glance of admiration that is making my underwear smoulder. Roberto seems to recognise a fellow football man and visibly relaxes in his plush UEFA seat. The interpretor is now dealing with my words, popping them into Portuguese for the others to see just how clever I have been. I glance around and nod at the crowd with a smile. "No," he says suddenly. "No player is more important. Yaya is tremendous footballer. No difficult to put in team quick, but no footballer make the difference. They are all good players." I wink at him. His secret is safe with me. I too know that Yaya is so precious it was no trouble flinging him in less than 24 hours after a bumpy flight from the Ivory Coast. He knows. I know. He knows I know and so do I. This is what it is like to be a football man amongst the UEFA ~~legs~~ bigwigs. Supping at the high table. Hob-knobbing with the dandelions. Me, Roberto, Ms UEFA and Paul Simpson. We all know, because we are on the inside. Now, if somebody will just tell me where the UEFA accredited buffet is, I'll hop along there and stock up...

FC PORTO: BRIEF ENCOUNTERS

2012-02-13T00:22:00.000-08:00

Ben Shave is based in London and is a prolific and talented writer with an unhealthy level of interest in Portuguese football. He can be found at Portugoal.net , In Bed With Maradona, Hasta El Gol Siempre and very occasionally on his own blog, Cahiers du Sport.Here he digs into the archives to find some previous Porto encounters with English sides and uses it as an excuse to include a misty clip of a magic moment in Portuguese (and indeed Mancunian) football history. Ah, José. Read on:

Porto’s European history is inextricably linked with English sides. During the era when Liverpool, Forest et al ruled the continent, Os Dragões were also reasserting their status as Portugal’s foremost club, after almost two decades in the doldrums. In more recent times, there have been some titanic struggles against the Premier League’s finest, not to mention a generous helping of thumpings. Here’s four of the best:

Porto 0-0 Newcastle United (Inter-Cities Fairs Cup 1969/70, 2^nd round 1^st leg)

A young Fernando Gomes

Having cruised past Hvidovre IF in the 1^st round, Porto were paired with the defending champions, Joe Harvey’s Newcastle United. In truth this was less of a memorable occasion than the raising of a curtain: the first meeting between the Dragons and an English side was a dour goalless draw, with Newcastle edging the second leg 1-0. The previous season had seen them dispatch Porto’s contemporaries Sporting and Vitória de Setúbal on their way to winning the trophy, and that, combined with Porto’s wretched form under Romanian coach Elek Schwartz (they would finish the season in 9^th of 14) meant that little was expected of them on this occasion.

Porto 4-1 Wolves (UEFA Cup 1974/75, 1^st round 1^st leg)

With Benfica’s golden generation of the 1960’s and early 1970’s beginning to slip into retirement, and a young centre forward named Fernando Gomes coming through the ranks, the mid-1970’s were far happier times for Porto. Portugal itself was in the grips of the Revolução dos Cravos, and the strife was such that the man who began the season as coach, the great Brazilian Aymoré Moreira, was soon replaced by Monteiro da Costa. But not before they handed Bill McGarry’s Wolves a shellacking at the Antas. McGarry had guided his team to the 1972 UEFA Cup final, but by 1974 they were on a slide that would result in relegation before the decade was out. Porto were 4-1 winners at the Antas, but were made to sweat at Molineux; eventually sneaking through after a 3-1 loss.

Porto 4-0 Man. United (Cup Winners’ Cup 1977/78, 2^nd round 1^st leg)

"Oh I say..it's Doo-Dah"

"Err, another one for Sen-een-oh"

By the end of the decade, Porto were firmly on the up. Champions for the first time since 1959 at the end of the campaign, they also reached the quarter-finals of the Cup Winners’ Cup, a journey which included a memorable tie (the first of many) against City’s friends from across town. Despite winning the FA Cup the previous season, this was hardly a vintage United squad, evidenced by their eventual finishing position: 10^th, 22 points adrift of champions Nottingham Forest. The goals came from legendary forward (and future club coach) António Oliveira, and a hat-trick from Duda (or Doo-Dah, if you’re John Motson), but as it turned out, the four-goal lead was nowhere near enough to see off United, who produced a thrilling second-leg comeback, aided by a pair of own goals from the unfortunate Alfredo Murça. But a brace from Seninho (who would depart for the bright lights of the New York Cosmos over the summer) saw José María Pedroto and co through.

Man. United 1 Porto1 (Champions League 2003/04) Q/F 2nd leg José. Giving it the big one. At Old Trafford. Need I say more?

THE EXPERT VIEW: FC PORTO

2012-02-08T15:08:00.000-08:00

Tom Kundert has been running the excellent Portugoaldot.net site since way before the time he taught his Granny to suck eggs and is the obvious person to ask to run the rule over City's Europa League opponents. So I did:

FC Porto v Manchester City

The very first two balls picked out of the pots in the Europa Cup last 32 draw led to sharp intakes of breath the length and breadth of Portugal and threw up surely the tie of the round: a fascinating match-up between perennial overachievers on the European stage, FC Porto, and Manchester City, sitting pretty atop the Premier League, and with greedy designs on continental domination in the short to medium term.

Vitor Pereira: Skoda

In any but the most recent of seasons over the last two decades the Dragons would have started this battle as hot favourites. Not so nowadays. Porto will have to produce two performances markedly improved from anything they have managed thus far in 2011/12 to overcome the Citizens. So what can Manchester City fans expect?

Although with largely the same personnel as the all-conquering side that André Villas-Boas expertly coached to four trophies last season, Porto are a much less daunting proposition for opponents this year. The two major parts missing from the set-up behind that wonderfully attack-minded team of 2010/11 that steamrollered all-comers at home and abroad are the coach, AVB, lured away by the bright lights of London and the deep pockets of Roman Abramovich, and deadly Colombian striker Falcao.

Kléber is no Falcao

But it is precisely the holes those two protagonists left behind that can be identified as the root causes behind many of Porto’s less than stellar performances this season. As is their wont, Porto turned to South American talent in an attempt to replace Falcao, purchasing young Brazilian striker Kléber, who had impressed over two seasons at Marítimo. Six months on and Kléber still looks like a new kid at school trying too hard to make new friends. Unsure of himself, the marksman has looked distinctly ordinary, arguably even regressing from the form shown for the Madeira-based team, both in terms of his finishing and his link-up play. The clever overhead kick which was the “two” in an ingenious “one-two” with João Moutinho in Porto’s second goal against Vitória Guimarães recently was a rare moment of chemistry with his team-mates.

Pereira is no AVB

Likewise, coach Vítor Pereira has wasted little time in engendering among Porto fans a sense of yearning for his predecessor. The two right-backs who had played not inconsiderable roles in Porto’s considerable recent successes - Sapunaru and Fucile - were inexplicably jettisoned and replaced with centre-back Maicon, a man mountain of a defender but one who looks every inch a central defender. Constant tinkering, especially from midfield forwards, has eroded what was a well-oiled attacking unit to such an extent that Porto’s players have rarely looked on the same wavelength this season. And Pereira’s press conferences have at times bordered on the paranoiac, only adding to the feeling that he is a Skoda driver who has been tossed the keys to a Ferrari.

Individual quality

Álvaro Pereira: useful down the flank

However, if Manchester City think they are in for an easy ride, there is a good chance they will be punished. While Porto have struggled to click this season, the squad is packed with outstanding individuals. In what was supposed to be a serious tilt at a 3rd Champions League triumph, president Pinto da Costa kept the core of last season’s side together and added to it in what is the highest budget ever lavished on the team - some €90 million euros. Hulk and João Moutinho have been linked to moves to Barcelona, no less, while left-back Álvaro Pereira and young Colombian prodigy James Rodríguez would also not look out of place in such exalted company.

Returing hero Lucho González, who arrived shortly before the winter transfer deadline window slammed shut adds style and guile in midfield.

New Brazilian Danilo, who cost the club 13 million euros, at last made his debut at the weekend and the right-sided defender/midfielder is likely to add another dimension to the team. For all Pereira’s lack of a clear vision, the most recent displays suggest that Porto may just be about to click.

In what looks like the most exciting Europa League since the tournament was revamped, Porto could be running into form at just the right time. The club’s natural habitat is in the Champions League. Only twice have Porto started the season in Europe’s second-tier competition in the last decade. On both occasions they won it.

Formation: 4-3-3

Possible line-up versus City: Helton; Danilo, Rolando, Otamendi, Álvaro Pereira; Fernando, Moutinho, Lucho; James Rodriguez, Kléber, Hulk

Read more from Tom on FC Porto and Portuguese football in general at the essential Portugoaldot.net here

COD PSYCHOLOGY

2012-02-07T02:53:00.000-08:00

Wayne's World.

A comfortable enough place, located somewhere in the Cheshire Rift Valley, close enough to the primal screams of Croxteth but also a lazy four-iron swing from Mere Golf Club and the gin & toasted almond set. A place of fake furs, fake eye lashes and fake hair, of fake empathy and fake worldliness, where you can retire and close the mock Georgian curtains to play Call of Duty and suck on crisps.

A place to be relaxed and calm after the inner fires have spat their public fury.

Suddenly, Wayne's hair turned green

It is said a little bit of knowledge is a dangerous thing, but in Wayne's World, it may be so insignificant as to not damage us (or him) too much. Who knows? Why was I shouting obscenities into a television camera beaming live to the planet and the planet's children? It just came over me. Why did I give
Miodrag Dzudovic a good kick off the ball in Podgorica? Because he was standing there. Why ask? Dunno.

So, why ask The Thinking man's Potato about his comments last weekend, after his Manchester United side had heroically come back to draw 3-3 with Chelsea? Simply because the young man with the tinted rug decided this was an apt moment to tell the watching world that "Manchester City players would not have enjoyed watching that from us today...".

Taking a well folded leaf out of his Lordship's Book of Brilliant Things (To Say To The Press), Rooney managed to ignore the fact that, in order to make a stirring comeback, they first had to ship three goals to a less than spectacular Chelsea side. I wonder what the watching Manchester City players thought of that? Or maybe they forgot that bit or only tuned in when they heard United's fightback had begun with a couple of shrill parps of Howard Webb's infamous whistle. Just for maximum negative effect, you understand.

The trouble with cod psychology in football is that, whether it be from the mouths of managers such as Ferguson (more often than not a plain lie), Redknapp (smoke-filled media friendly nonsense) or Mark Hughes (with an axe to grind the size of a small Joorabchian owned farmhouse) or from those of footballers such as Joey Barton (mildly entertaining, frequently flawed) or indeed Rooney (nascent joined up thoughts), it really would be better off going unsaid. It is tired, clichéd and counter-productive, tells us precious little and wastes the earth's precious oxygen.

Manchester City's players, gathered together from all corners of the globe, it has often been said, have winners' mentalities. They are not affected greatly by what Rooney or Ferguson might say. Indeed some of these bons mots may rebound and have the opposite, unwanted effect. On the contrary, it is us weathered and beaten folk on the sidelines, who are more likely to upset the applecart. We have been to Valley Parade and seen our heroes fail miserably in the frost and peat with our own disbelieving eyes. We have watched with anguish as cake and champagne turned to stale crumbs and empty burps. We know only too well that Lee Briscoe does not just exist in the dark corridors of our minds.

"Think. Straight"

We also know what United have done to us in the past (horrible, desperate things, let me tell you). We know that they know how anxious we are to finish in front of them. Just for once, ahead of the steaming Republic of Self-Assuredness. Vincent Kompany knows nothing of the 0-5 when Kanchelskis made poor David Brightwell look like a bag of cement. Nigel de Jong didn't twitch the day Cantona and Keane inspired a 3-2 comeback win at Maine Road. David Silva was probably fast asleep on a velvet cushion when Paul Ince ploughed one into the City net in the driving rain at Old Trafford. When the Legend of Giggs began with that "debut goal" (it was a sliding tackle from Colin Hendry, but never mind that) in 1991, Adam Johnson was chewing on a florescent wad of playdough.

It is reasonably safe to say, then, that it is us Night-time Footballers, who must beware. For our psychoses, our bad dreams and phobias will make the whole town jittery. They will turn the Etihad into a cave of ghosts and phantoms. And that will transmit to those players, who have never heard of Buster Phillips, Jamie Pollock and the various Laws of the Scuffed Shot and, ahem, Slightly Miscued Headed Clearance.

We know only too well where we come from. I can still hear the howling laughter in my sleep. Thankfully, Yaya Touré, Sergio Aguero and Edin Dzeko cannot hear such things. For that we must be grateful..

A BAD MONTH AT THE OFFICE

2012-02-01T03:35:00.000-08:00

That losing mentality.

Cod opinion sharers suggest a losing run can take hold just as firmly, just as certainly, as a winning one. With a grip like a vice, it freezes the limbs and jellifies the brain. Football is a game played, after all, on grass and in the mind. The bit on grass is difficult enough, but the other part is where the complications really begin to tuck in and make themselves at home.

This is the dull shade of grey that represents City's recent form. The month is January, only January. Those, who get queasy, look away now:

Sunderland 1 City 0
City 3 Liverpool 0
City 2 Man Utd 3 FAC
City 0 Liverpool 1 (CC)
Wigan 0 City 1
City 3 Tottenham 2
Liverpool 2 City 2 (CC)
Everton 1 City 0

It is our unendearing role to analyse this little lot without throwing ourselves out of the window. Don't forget that City had not been beaten until a December loss at Stamford Bridge. Since that slightly unlucky (a phrase that may well crop up again a little later) defeat, we have ushered in four more of its kind, at the same time engineering an exit from both domestic cup competitions. It was most certainly time that January accepted our invitation to bugger off and never come back.

City supporters are nothing if not resilient, however, and once the tears have dried and the anguish has settled, we may feel safe to sit down and brood for a bit. The concomitant problem with brooding is that question marks start appearing before your eyes. As I lay on the sofa late last night, fizzing and spitting, like a chicken just removed from the oven, a cold flannel over my brow to bring the temperature down, a scattering of cushions decorating the floor where they had landed during an increasingly difficult second half against a willing but extremely limited Everton side, these fevered thoughts passed through my mind:

Is David Silva beginning to wilt a little? The little maestro, well below his best at Goodison, has not played at full tilt since the game at QPR. He has not been found out. Good players like him are not found out. They are understood, admired and chased around in a frenzy of ever-decreasing circles, but they are never found out. It is all very well understanding what he does and how he does it (approximately), but just try stopping it happening. This is form loss, only slight, admittedly, but nevertheless enough to have an effect on the machinations of the City midfield. When Silva's little diagonal balls are going into touch or hitting Kolarov's shins and spooning up into the ball boy's face, you can assume the whole team will catch the same cold, starting with Big Edin.

So, Yaya Touré really is that good? I have said it many times before, as long ago as early last season., when the press thought we had availed ourselves of an overinflated defensive midfielder, this boy is class. He gets up and down, tiptoes through the midfield minefield, scores elegant goals, thrusts forward to aid attacks and is always at hand to help out the defence too. His absence has been arguably a more prominent factor than Silva's loss of form. This is the man who makes City's engine, and therefore everything else, tick. I warned of impending troubles in December when he announced his departure to the heated plains of Equatorial Guinea here and I have seen nothing in the month of January to make me change my mind. Yaya Touré is absolutely essential to this team's well-being

Has the Tevez Soap Opera had an effect? A truer indictment of the modern game you could not wish to discover. Here is a footballer, a man, with so little respect for his employers and the supporters of the club he is supposedly paid handsomely to serve, that he might as well have been born an albatross. He just doesn't seem to get it. Aside from the fact that City have lost a talismanic striker, one of those rare beasts who can lift up a side and pull it by the scruff of the neck to the most unlikely of victories, despite the annoying drain (however piffling it may seem to them) on the owners' coffers, despite all of this and more, the most salient point must be that a drifting saga like this must eventually also have a negative effect on the staff. Yes, he has been dealt with. Yes, it is costing him and his odious adviser a hill of cash, but it has gone on too long by half. City played in the Allianz Arena on the night of Tuesday 27th September, a night made infamous by a player refusing to warm up in preparation to play. This hideously bubbling stew has had four whole months to permeate through the fabric of the club.To what effect?

Mind games can't hurt us, can they? The drip drip effect of Messrs Ferguson and Redknapp and their daily bleatings about this that and the other, can gradually but forcibly lead to premature madness to those exposed to it over a long period. Ferguson is 70 years old for Christ's sake. He has been doing this since a dim point in time before we were all born. It creeps from every pour. You know what to expect, you know very well it's coming and indeed what's coming, but it still digs out a reaction. Last night he called it "a very significant moment in the title race". Fluff and ash, as we all know, but still. United, with an inferior squad to City's, with a difficult month ahead and with a playing staff that is a weak slither of past championship-winning sides, are batting strong with relatively shoddy goods. Like a hyena who spots a limping gazelle, Ferguson will be slathering all over us, teeth bared, if this poor run carries on into February.

Can Mancini do it for us? Here is a man clearly struggling with the culture (witness the furore over his Italianesque card-waving), with the climate (look at the press delight at his smart coats and fluffy scarves. Now there are gloves. What next for the daily Star to giggle at?), with the very pumping heart of British football (watch his disgust at unpunished tackles, his tight lipped swearing as his workmanlike players fail to execute a simple piece of acrobatics executed a million times for the swathes at Sampdoria). This is a man, we know, who cultivates an aura of excellence. Even his somewhat embarrassingly glamorous personal website (see here for the shimmering looks of Mantovani and the touching claim that he loves "Pasta al' Forno di Mama") claims a "champion of class". How does a man, who sees himself in this classico elegante persona deal with a screaming Scouser who has just thrown the remnants of a meat and potato pie at him? Or a Geordie, red faced and damp, whacking the old hand gesture feverishly up and down as he leaves the pitch? He is ill at ease. His English betrays him. He reveals his impatience with his players more and more often. His frustrated arm movements, hair flicks and facial ticks reveal inner torments, bubbling ever closer to the surface. This can work in two ways. Players can be motivated to try harder, as the ever willing Barrys and Milners surely do, or they can retreat into a shell of dismay and feel hard done to, like Adam Johnson, like Samir Nasri and, most sadly of all, like Carlos Tevez.

Do we have the bottle? We are reminded constantly that these players are winners. They have come from far and wide to bring glory to the blue legions of Manchester after the biblical drought of the last thirty-five long years. Big game performances thus far underline this point, but never forget the power of Manchester City. This is not a club that emerged from the ashes when Robinho stepped onto the tarmac at Ringway blinking and blushing. City -as some of us are painfully aware- is just as much Neil Heaney as it is Neil Young. It is just as much Bradford as it is Bayern. A few short years of swishing thobes and bishts, a string of Robinhos and Adebayors, does not remove a dna stamped deep with Shrewsbury Town and the cuban heels and combover of Peter Swales. Francis Lee's cup for cock-ups is still on the mantlepiece, gathering dust alongside the 1999 Second Division Play off Final Trophy. My mental mantlepiece is also heaving with pots and gongs. Maybe we all need a bit of a clear-out.

Is this paranoia or does everyone have it in for us? I addressed the slightly comical point of paranoia (comical at least for everyone else) here and I was immediately and impressively ticked off by all and sundry that the list of ignominious ill work against our good club that I had lovingly assembled through my one good eye was too short, incomplete and a job barely half done. The list in said article grew again last night, for those of us who saw a foul on the trundling figure of Dzeko in the immediate build-up to the only goal of the game, for those who saw a red card offence by Drenthe on Micah Richards and again for those who saw a clear handball in the box by Phil Neville. These things even themselves out, of course, so sit back and relax in the sure knowledge that the critical months of February, March, April and May will be liberally sprinkled with gloriously fortuitous penalty decisions, the most ridiculously inept and comical own goals and goalkeeping mistakes, weird fixture pile-ups for our nearest rivals, a rash of unexplained and inexplicable refereeing decisions in our favour, red cards to our opponents in five consecutive matches (some as early as the 10th minute!!) and a broad church of press opinion that the sun shines indefatigably from the back of Mr Mancini's expensively pleated Armani slacks.

So, it's going to be alright then? Of course it is! See you at the party at the end of the season. Bring a bottle and a pillow to cry in.

Just in case.

EVERTON v CITY: A RICH HISTORY OF RIVALRY

2012-01-30T14:41:00.000-08:00

It's Everton Time again, that twice-a-season knee shaker where eyes are trained on City's quivering stars to see if they can match the Toffees for grit, thunder, bluster, drive and sheer never-say-die lung-busting effort. Will David Silva be trampled under foot? Will Tim Cahill take yet another swing at our corner flag? Will Hibbert and Heitinga suddenly become world beaters? We have fallen foul of Everton's spirit on numerous occasions in recent years, but this season's 2-0 win -struggle though it was- may at last have put a dent in the hoodoo...

Here's a selection of memories from games between the two sides:

SATURDAY 27th AUGUST 1994 With the Kippax in tatters, City opened the season under Bryan Horton in a blur of attacking football. This game, watched by only 19,876 owing to extensive works on the ground, featured a blistering performance from City front men Rosler, Walsh and Beagrie. "We were a shambles," insisted the urbane Mike Walker and, thanks to his tactics, they were. Crowd complaints about Niall Quinn not getting into the side soon disappeared into the Rusholme night, as City went 6th in the early season table in a flurry of wing play not seen since Peter Barnes in his heyday.

WEDNESDAY 8th DECEMBER 1993 A year earlier, Everton had turned up wearing salmon coloured shirts to a Maine Road wearing black. The Francis Lee campaign to oust Peter Swales was in full flow, as Swales's hired gun (more of a pop gun admittedly) John Maddock left his post in the run-up to this game. With the pitch waterlogged and both sides deep in trouble, an early header from Carl Griffiths sealed the win for City.

SUNDAY 8th APRIL 2001 The desperate descent under Joe Royle was well under way by the time he took City to his old Goodison stamping ground. With City sliding towards relegation, Nicky Weaver had started to show his nerves. A clanger in the home game with Villa was followed by a similar mistake in this game, which gave Everton their third goal. It was a shame for Weaver, who had already saved a Michael Ball penalty and made a string of brilliant saves, after Jeff Whitley had bounced City into an unlikely lead. By the time Weaver spooned Unsworth's header into his own net, the game was up and City were heading down the pipes.

SATURDAY 21st AUGUST 2002 Long before Nicolas Anelka decided it was time to learn Mandarin Chinese, he landed in the north west for a little while with goals on his mind. Nurtured by Kevin Keegan, he settled well and managed a hat-trick in this early season game, ably supplied by the mercurial skills of Eyal Berkovic, Ali Benarbia and Shaun Wright-Philips. The win would take City to the heady heights of 8th place, as Keegan tackled his first City Premiership season with all-out attack.

SATURDAY 9th DECEMBER 2000 This result was so out of place in a dismal season full of own goals and drubbings that, at first, it seems like a mistake. The day the Andromada Vortex swivelled across the Maine Road turf. In fact, this was a performance of poise and power amidst a season of poison and powder. Five different scorers (Wanchope, Goater, Howey, Dickov and Gary Naismith) made it one of the few days to remember in the 2000-01 relegation season.

SATURDAY 20th MARCH 1982 With John Bond fast losing interest in his City tenure, this Easter game was livened by a 30 yard pile driver from Kevin Bond and the single instance of Trevor Francis losing his temper in 22 years of top flight football, when he planted his forehead into the face of Billy Wright after an altercation between the two and Mark Higgins. The game ended level at 1-1 and City fans rued the diminishing returns from their star striker, who would leave for the Spain World Cup a City player and return only to collect his kitbag en route for Sampdoria.

FRIDAY 26th DECEMBER 1980 A Boxing Day cracker which saw City continue to climb the table at the turn of the year under John Bond's (at that time) enthusiastic leadership. Curiously, Gerry Gow and Paul Power scored the goals in this match. The same two players would also secure City a 2-2 draw at Goodison two months later in a never-to-be-forgotten FA Cup 6th round tie in the days when the FA Cup throbbed with passion, you could stand in the Park End and the atmosphere created by 52,000 was spellbinding.

SATURDAY 25th FEBRUARY 1978 With City charging hard for the title, this was a game full of emotion, as Everton, backed by sizeable travelling support, played their part in a thrilling clash in the wet, finally ending up on the losing side, thanks to Brian Kidd's clincher. 12 months later Kidd would be turning out in the dark blue of the Toffees and City's star-studded side (here represented by Channon and Watson) would soon be a thing of the past.

PARANOID PETE

2012-01-26T03:09:00.000-08:00

So, here's the list, growing by the minute!

Chelsea away. Loose ball in the box, rears up and hits Joleon Lescott on the arm. Clear ball to hand incident. Penalty!!! Chelsea score, win 2-1 and City's unbeaten run is over. Tough cheese, what comes round goes around.
Man Utd in the cup. Big Vinny slides in with a brilliant clean tackle, swishing the ball from Nani's feet and returns to the perpendicular all in one motion. Nani, a fragile beast at the best of times, jumps the tackle and lands on his feet, ready to chase back for possession. But wait a minute, ref blows. Red card. Oh yes. Play the next 80 minutes with a man less. Don't pass Go and don't get out of jail. Not for a long time, sonny.
Big Vinny banned for four games for brilliant clean tackle.
Man Utd: Incredibly, still going strong and fighting for late equaliser. Phil Jones handles in the box. No penalty. Out of the cup you go! Shhh.
Liverpool. Johnson flies in from great distance with a leg breaker on Lescott, who just about clears the lunge. Play on, no foul, no cards, no retrospective punishment. There you go, Joe.
Mates telling me to calm down, it's not a conspiracy.
Wigan. Ball cleared to halfway, Aguero is clear to run through one on one if it doesn't touch last defender. He jumps, makes sizeable arse of himself and pats the ball away like Michael Jordan doing the Big Loopy. Yellow card, free kick, stop whining.
Sunderland. After a day camping in the opposition half, home side break out of ten man defence for first time in 93rd minute. Sadly, disoriented South Korean sub strays a metre and a half offside, but runs on and nets winner. No offside, go away, you've lost the game! Toot toot.
Tottenham. Balotelli banned for 4 games after Retrospective Trial by Daily Mail (new law introduced whilst you were asleep last night).
Mates start laughing at my "dyspeptic rage" and outrageous sense of Contrived Bully Syndrome.
Hospital appointment to remove Malteezer from ear.
Day off work to replaster wall where fridge landed after last night's game.
Liverpool. Dzeko's leg taken away by Adam for clear penalty. No penalty go away. Shut up and stop muttering like that, you're only making yourself look silly.
Dark clouds forming around my temples.
Liverpool. Ball zooms off Micah's outstretched foot and rears up to glance onto his arms. Waist high arms. Penalty!!! No, I said penalty. Ball to hand? no, penalty and don't ask again.
Phil Dowd leaves the field at half time doing a routine not unlike the Tampa Bay Rowdies Cheerleaders. "Arms were up here, arms were up here, arms were up here".
Aleksander Kolarov
Shoe flies out of window, followed by tortoise. Whoops. Expect FA Retrospective Action. Thought it was Lego.
Peter Walton is announced as ref for Everton v City.
Immigration papers arrive.

FA Council Disciplinary Hearing: "Ban him!"

FORM & SHAPE

2012-01-25T02:12:00.000-08:00

The Balotelli Incident now means that Roberto Mancini enters yet another critical phase of this season of critical phases with diminishing prospects upfront. Whilst many are gnashing their teeth and rubbing their armpits in anguish (some perhaps even reduced to Roy Hodgsonesque temple-agitation) I believe this is an opportunity for City to put down a serious marker. Clubs at the top are obviously being forced to take the Blues seriously, but a positive outcome at Anfield would really underline the fact that, despite all the water seeming to flow in the opposite direction at the moment, we can canoe with the best of them.

Shorn of our captain, the best central defender in Europe at the moment, without our most influential midfielder bar one in Yaya Touré and with a mounting press campaign to get the likes of Balotelli and Lescott removed from the playing fields of England, City have come through a period of form loss and massive disruption with a three point lead at the top of the Premier League.That's some slump.

The gap to 3rd placed Tottenham now stands at eight points. Chelsea in fourth, are thirteen points adrift and 5th-placed Arsenal eighteen points behind. We are eighteen points ahead of Arsenal. With a goal difference of +42, you might as well add a point to each of those figures. We can clearly see that, whilst the marauding goal form of September has settled a little, there is still oil in the tank.

City now face two critical games on Merseyside, needing at least a one nil win in the first to survive to penalties in the Carling Cup semi and something similar to prove that the Everton bogey is dead and buried. Does Mancini err on the side of caution or go for broke? The papers love to nail Italians for their adherence to the old Catenaccio thesis and its modern offshoots, but it is many months since Mancini brought City out of her cocoon and let her spread her wings.

The result of this has been breath-taking one touch football, played incessantly to feet, at pace, into spaces that only the eye of a surgeon could spot. David Silva takes this to another plain, producing passes that other players do not even see. Manchester City have been playing like this since August and, despite current travails, should persevere with the system that has reaped so many plaudits up to now. The beauty of it is that Balotelli, frequently a substitute anyway, need not be missed at all. The fluidity of interchange on the Silva-Aguero-Nasri-Milner axis has sucked opposition defenders all over the place for the last four months. If Dzeko plays too, another major headache is introduced. How to mark him, who to mark him. For a big man, he has impressive acceleration and, despite currently possessing a first touch more iron filings than cushioned, he presents a clear goal threat. Without him City fall into a sort of 4-2-4-0 which makes it nigh impossible for a defence to pick anyone up without first tying themselves in knots. There is often no discernible centre forward, just an arcing conveyor belt of little troubleshooters, revolving through 360 degrees to find, make and exploit space wherever it occurs.

With a four of Silva-Milner-Nasri-Aguero floating and interchanging, the opposition defence is pulled into all sorts of interesting shapes, leaving gaps for any of these to exploit, plus space for the marauding Clichy and the unstoppable tank Micah Richards to charge into down both flanks. It must look like the Alamo out there. Plug one gap and you immediately spring a leak somewhere else. Whilst this was seen to work excellently with Yaya Touré in the early months of the season (see here for the shape that worked brilliantly v Spurs at The Lane http://www.zonalmarking.net/2011/08/28/tottenham-1-5-man-city-dzeko/, it had not been so fluid in recent weeks - possibly down to enforced personnel changes - but was making an evident and welcome comeback in the weekend crunch against Spurs, where City's habit of dragging the opposition upfield to fetch the ball was working well until a defensive aberration from the until-then solid Savic and a wonder goal from Bale restored parity. From then on it was anybody's game and City were fortunate to come out with the three points.

Despite the closeness of the encounter, the stats tell us that City beat the form side in the league and the press pack's darlings on practically ever count. see here Danny Pugsley's excellent piece covering the numbers: http://www.bitterandblue.com/section/manchester-city-stats

Also at United http://www.zonalmarking.net/2011/10/23/manchester-united-1-6-manchester-city-tactics/ these tactics worked a treat. The interesting thing is that Dzeko played at Tottenham and Balotelli was the striker at Old Trafford. Seemingly, it matters little who is the man at the pointy end, as long as the shuffling mini dynamos behind him are functioning well. Admittedly, Dzeko was also on the pitch for the final three goal burst at Old Trafford, but by then the damage had been done. The point is, then, Balotelli can be missed without it becoming critical. If Dzeko is played, which I think he will be, Mancini can fit a strong banner across the pitch to support him.

The giant Yaya is missed much more in my opinion. he works tirelessly for the defence, cleaning up and holding possession in midfield, as well as those unstoppable runs through into the attacking third, which cause such delicious panic. De Jong, clearly struggling for form after being injured, then surplus to requirements, might be the answer, but his usual crunching tackles and safe short passing routine has been offset by the latter going awry in recent weeks. Giving away possession is contrary to the City mantra this season. We have seen time and time again that whilst we have the ball, no damage can be done. The patient accurate passing game across defence and through midfield and- if necessary back again - has become a feature. It is fascinating to watch and thrilling to know that at any moment we are but a sudden dart from Aguero or a slide rule chicken tikka taka pass from Silva away from creating a scoring opportunity.

With Yaya sitting alongside Barry, behind the four, you could watch without clenched buttocks. Tonight, it will not be so comfortable, despite Liverpool's evident form slump and a far from happy house after the Suarez affair, the malfunctioning Carroll, the assist-less Downing and the Bolton / Stoke performances. With Gerard still looking for old form, Liverpool are ripe to be picked off. City need to be brave, control possession and go for the jugular. This is a cup, after all, where some of us came in as City fans. In the 70s we featured in three finals. For the sake of Mike Doyle, the last City man to hold that famous pot aloft at Wembley stadium, let's hope we are very close to the next occasion.

GREY MATTER

2012-01-11T00:43:00.000-08:00

Alfred Grey.

Amongst Liverpool supporters, the name probably deserves a flicker of attention before getting back to studying Uruguayan Spanish dictionaries for nuance and politesse. For certain members of the blue half of this semi final square-up, however, it is a name that resonates as forcefully and clearly as if someone had just hit us over the head with a bin lid. If little Alan Wilkie is the refuse bin in the corner of the kitchen, Alf Grey is the municipal skip on the edge of the industrial estate.

(Comparisons of Chris Foy to a Soviet Era Chemical Compost Dump are of course utterly out of place here)

For Mr Grey was the upright, quasi-military-looking fellow, who managed single-handedly to whistle our beloved City out of a hard-fought, mud and feathers League Cup semi final in 1981, curiously enough our last league Cup semi, and even more curiously against the very same opponents. If some of us don’t remember, it is likely to be better that you don't. Three decades later some of us are still smarting about his role in what was to turn out to be a truly epic two encounters with the team of the 70s, which would also become the team of the decade ahead.

Liverpool were a well-oiled goal-scoring machine in those days, with a spine of clever international players, who could look after themselves in a fight and turn on the tricks when the sun came out. Clemence, Hughes, Thompson, Alan Kennedy, McDermott, Ray Kennedy, Souness, Dalglish, the names rolled off the lolling tongues of the devoted press. This was a team that carried all before it, winning trophies galore and setting standards that teams today are still chasing.

Note the marvellous irony of the cartoon

Before City's recent glut of big games, an appearance this close to Wembley usually meant we were off down Bond Street Christmas shopping. But, suddenly, the glee of a day out in old London town can be contemplated quietly on a regular basis. Here we are but two games away. In 1981, memories of Wembley were not too distant either. City had won the League Cup in 1976 in the "Dennis Tueart Final" v Newcastle and lost it in 1974 in the Gary Pearce Final v Wolves. Added to the 1970 final win v West Brom ("The Horse of the Year Final"), the League Cup in those days was a favourite hunting ground for the Blues.

Let me take you back to the winter of 1980, however, and we see that the City side ambling about the playing fields of England was a far cry from those Wembley vintages. Big Mal was in the grip of his mad clearout, levering the likes of Gary Owen, Peter Barnes and Asa Hartford out of the Maine Road doors, after Watson and Brian Kidd had been dismissed before them. A whole generation of hopes had skidded on the cobbles of Claremont Road as they bounced off into the distance.

By November Allison was gone too, replaced by the bouffant boaster, John Bond. Brash and saddled with a Norfolk burr that made him sound like a farmhand, Bond had taken a depleted, bedraggled squad by the scruff of the neck and dragged it kicking and screaming from the foot of the table, where Big Mal's haphazard tactics had dropped us.

With little cash to spend, he had brought in three old-timers, who few on the Kippax held out much hope for: Tommy Hutchison, a leggy winger from Coventry, Bobby McDonald, a heavy-thighed left back colleague at Highfield Road and, perhaps most surprisingly of all, Gerry Gow, a gnarled old ball winner from Bristol City. Gow's fuzzy hair was greying, his legs were thin, he appeared knock-kneed when he ran, none of which helped raise the air of resignation inside Maine Road when Bond's first game in charge ended with home defeat to a sterile, docile Birmingham City. In fairness, the three new recruits arrived after this game and all were to fit in astonishingly quickly.

On a cold wintry night in Moss Side some thirty short years ago, more than 48,000 pressed into the old ground to witness the remarkable continuation of John Bond’s sky blue miracle, having hauled us off the bottom of the table post Big Mal and embarked on not one but two cup runs. Stoke, Luton, Notts County and a nail-biter against West brom had all been successfully negotiated, the first two whilst still under Allison’s managership. The Stoke game had involved brisk performances from Dave Bennet and Tony Henry, two bit part players, who were set to write their names in caster sugar and hundreds and thousands as the League Cup run ran on.

By the time Notts County hove into view, Bond had really taken charge and City’s lifeless corpse was once again twitching vigorously. This game would convince one or two of us that the early surge of positive results under the new bouncy-haired chief were not to be short-lived. As Bond’s reign took off, we had seen the following happen before our increasingly disbelieving eyes:

City 0 Birmingham 1 (had hardly had time to wipe the crumbs and cigar ash off his seat)
City 3 Spurs 1 (whirlwind win with Mackenzie, Reeves and Daley suddenly looking like Baggio, Neeskens and Butragueño)
Brighton 1 City 2 (stunning debut for Catweasel look-a-like Tommy Hutchison, as Daley is red carded)

So to Notts County, 2nd division leaders, to be promoted at the end of that season, but a team with no answer to City that particular night and, especially, no answer to Dennis Tueart. This was one of my favourite memories of Tueart, a player who provided us all with a tank full of special moments to remember him by. He was by this time reaching the final stages of what had been an utterly exemplary City career, which would see him play his last game for the Blues in the shocking relegation cliffhanger with Luton two years hence, followed by a brief spell at Stoke, then retirement, but here was the Tueart of old, darting, scampering, sniffing and, above all, dispatching that greasy spheroid into the old onion bag. Not once, not twice, not thrice, but four times, he slid in and beat the County keeper. Final score 5-1 and City on a real roll. In the light of recent happenings in the FA Cup, it is interesting to see what Don Hardisty’s report in the next days Daily Mirror had to say: “Yet Tueart was lucky to still be on the pitch. Booked in the 2nd minute for a trip on County defender Pedro Richards, he handled a centre from Kevin Reeves into the net in the 15th minute. In the present disciplinary climate he was lucky to avoid a red...”. One wonders what Chris Foy might have made of that. City would have the tables turned in this respect come semi-final day.

But first it was back to the bread and butter of climbing the league table away from the deadbeats at the bottom. The impressive home run continued with the following results:

City 1 Norwich 0 (Gladwys Power netting the winner)
City 3 Southampton 0 (Gow, Bennett, Reeves on target)
City 3 Coventry 0 (Reeves, Power, Bennett again the scorers)

City’s away form was patchy, though, and in between this run of home wins, the Blues drew at Filbert Street and lost at Roker Park. The game before the quarter final with West Brom saw a fine 3-2 win at Selhurst park, masterminded by Gerry Gow’s combative, two-goal display. Gow, like Hutchison and McDonald, was proving the doubters completely wrong. City were now ready for the arrival of the West Midlanders.

This was to be Tony Henry’s night . A bit part player under Allison, he had been seen in the infamous City! Documentary as the one, who Allison always landed on when haranguing the team for their failings. Even the episode where the film crew witness Allison’s farewell’s to the squad on a grey morning at Platt Lane, his comment to Henry was “Don’t forget what I told you”, whilst patting and hugging the others with a trail of “good boys” and “keep it goings”. Henry took centre stage this night with the winning goal, a towering header in a crowded West Brom area, after the visitors had been given the lead by Tommy Booth’s early own goal.Luck and Lady Fortune herself, so long with their back to us, were now smiling at us and beckoning in the most beguiling way.

The win led to an outpouring of joy amongst City fans. We had reached a semi final after such a wretched league campaign and the others left in the draw were Coventry, West Ham and Liverpool, enjoying a stranglehold on both this tournament and the League Championship. Obviously, if we could avoid the favourites, Wembley would be a realistic target for Bond’s revitalised side.

The little balls rolled out and Liverpool it was.

The heaving Kippax welcomed bobby-tailed City onto the green beize. Within seconds of the start, Kevin Reeves leapt like a salmon on the last waterfall before egg-deposit-Sunday to skim the ball past a flailing Grobelaar and into the North Stand net. Cue cup semi final knees-up-mother-brown pandemonium. Then, like now, I had no idea how to celebrate taking the lead in such an important game, so my imminent embarrassment was mercifully cut short by a shrill sergeant major phweeeep on Mr Grey’s old tin musical instrument. Apparently, in leaping to head the ball majestically past the Liverpool ‘keeper, a gust of wind from somewhere deep inside Reeves’s 80s style loose fit Umbro shorts had affected Grobelaar’s ear-to-eye balance ratio. It was nothing a mere human eye would have been able to pick up, but fortunately, Mr Grey was made of far sterner stuff and, his sensitive antenae having twitched a message through to his frothing Grey Matter, he pointed his parade ground arm firmly for a free kick. The mood on the Kippax sank.

I can well remember the look on the faces of Souness and McDermott, as their Tom Selleck moustaches twitched knowingly. Phil Neal's chin quivered in the floodlights. Joey Jones's tatoos danced in an early impersonation of Modern Day Footballer. I swear one of them winked, whilst Alf Grey moonwalked back upfield, vast amounts of static zapping between his back pocket and his earpiece.

The match thereafter represented a classic Liverpool ambush. Peter Johnson, writing in the pre-sensationalist Daily Mail said: "Manchester City entered that deep valley of death that is Liverpool's defence....". For 81 minutes City's brave troops battered at the Liverpool rearguard, holding their own elsewhere on the park against their formidable opponents, despite the fact that they were shorn of their new heroes, the fully cup-tied Hutchison, McDonald and Gow. In their place, Henry, Bennett and Paul Power had worked their socks off. But then came the breakthrough.

City, visibly tiring, allowed McDermott's freekick to drift through further than was sensible. the Kippax's chant of "Liverpool are boring" froze in our throats, as Ray Kennedy ghosted in at the back post, as he often did, and side footed home with ease. It was a smack in the chops for the young duo of Caton and Reid at the back, who had shackled the dangerous Dalglish all game. Sammy Lee then came within inches of making the Anfield return a no-go area, but it finished 1-0 and City still harboured some form of hope.

If anything the second leg was even more painful. A trip to Anfield did not encourage the sort of hunger for success that it might do today. This place in 1981 was an absolute fortress. I only remember City winning there once in the two decades from 1970 to 1990. Again the Blues took to the field without the cup-ties trio, with untried youth team player Gary Buckley making up the numbers. It was to be a heroic performance. With Liverpool ahead after just 22 minutes, it looked very like curtains, but in a 2nd half so full of grit they might have needed a bulldozer to clear a path, Reeves shocked the Kop with a 55th minute equaliser and City piled forward for the goal that would level things overall.

I was too young and fragile to attend a night cup tie of this magnitude at a place like Anfield (there was huge rivalry and thus plenty of trouble between the Manchester and Liverpool supporters at this stage) so listened intently to the radio commentary as the drama exploded across the airwaves. That night, City tore down the flanks at Anfield in wave after wave of pressure, a pincer movement that culminated in young Bennett heading solidly against the bar with the chance which would have flattened the whole tie at 2-2. Liverpool, European champions and cup masters, hung on by the skin of their teeth, but the feeling of pride in Bond's rag-tag battlers had never been higher.

Today's City go into tonight's tie with a score to settle and with a better chance of doing so than for many years. May the luck that deserted them in these two gripping ties with Liverpool and last weekend against Manchester United come back in spade-loads this evening.

NUTS AND BOLTS

2012-01-01T15:22:00.000-08:00

It is common to write "five thoughts" about football matches these days, but I have had six, so here goes and two hoots to protocol. This is 2012 and I'll do what I want:

Firstly then, my second thought (as my first one is unprintable, libellous and might get me either put away or hunted down: it is not really a thought, in fact, more a question. How. Did. That. Happen? (following protocol this time, I have put a full stop after each word of a normally straightforward four-word sentence to emphasise the incredul. Ity.

Thirdly and most emphatically: where does imperious form go so suddenly, so swiftly, so completely? Does it melt or evaporate? Does it slide down the plughole like a well aimed shot of mucus? Why and where, why and where? Or is the form still with us, just the angles are different? Silva's tikka taka suddenly looking like barely warm meringue. Dzeko's foot a leather-clad spade. Yaya, already looking for the dusty train to Mongombo. Six hundred and sixty five passes were attempted, of which many found their man. twenty seven shots towards goal (not "on goal", you understand). The wording here is crucial, as Dzeko's mum muight be tuning in and we don't want to hurt her feelings too much. (Note to Mrs Dzeko. your son had a stinker today). Possession means chances and points mean prizes but shots at the roof mean nothing to most of us. (still, there were a heck of a lot of them)

Number 4: how does this all affect the others in this "red hot title race"? (this is what they call them apparently. Never been near one before, so will have to take Mike Parry's word for it). They will have been down then up. We were down then up and then down again. All that this proves is that there are a lot of ups and downs and some of them belong to us. Those intelligent fellows at the Daily Mail and Talksport will be thrashing themselves and each other with a bull whip taking it in turns to chant "It's United's title. Ouch", "Chelsea are out of it. Ayeeee", "It must be City. Ooof", "No this is the end of City. Owah", "Maybe it looks like Spurs. awoooo". Mentally, we must be strong. The others too. It's all played in the mind, except those tricky bits out there on the green. Psychologically, the manager's quiff-tossing, Italian expletive laden performance on the bench will be a big boon for...all of the others, whilst the poor individuals closest to the manager's wildly waving forearm (sadly, it has to be Johnson, forlornly running the line with that little ginger-haired defender on his back) will continue to get the full Italian-English dictionary thrown at them.

5. If Mancini's touchline histrionics are of little help, they cannot be compared to Stuart Pearce's. Any management guru or body language expert would tell you what he did on the touchline in the name of Manchester City should never be repeated. Still, one or two eyes-to-the-sky-looks of disdain less would be just dandy.

Six: we are all quite enjoying this, aren't we? Today's game reminded me of a classic in 1997, when we managed through the power of negative thought and jelly legs, to lose a one goal lead to Birmingham City in the 94th minute and lose the game altogether in the 97th. We had only taken the lead in the 88th ourselves. Boy were we in a mess in those days. Through these scattered crumbs of comfort, we dust ourselves down and prepare for the next outing. These days, not such a mess, no such worry. No Murtaz Shelia with a look on his face that spells "murder" in Georgian.

Look forward to a reaction on Tuesday. If it doesn't come, look out for Dzeko's Mum before you let rip.

TOURÉ DE FORCE

2011-12-28T14:55:00.000-08:00

December confirmed to me what I have been thinking for a long time. I'm not a fan of the African Nations Cup.

Yaya will of course, be off in January, departing the fair shores of Albion to take part in the afore-mentioned tournament, a competition blissfully oblivious to the needs of Manchester City and its followers. Who can do the job that Yaya Touré performs week in week out? the answer to that is simple.

What will City's midfield look like without Yaya Touré? A veritable road block in the centre of midfield, it is about time somebody put in a good word for this man-mountain amongst the landslide of poetry written in the name of Señor Silva, the press pack attached to Mario Balotelli and the seething mass of hysteria that follows Kun Aguero's every broad-thighed shimmy. Yaya bestrides the midfield like a mammoth. The giant frame belies a graceful, almost twinkle-toed mastery of his art. Not the cleaver-in-hand butcher, nor the scavenging assistant. Yaya is the Delivery Man. He quite clearly does exactly what it says on the oversized packet. He delivers. All over the pitch. All night long. In all directions. In all weather and all competitions. he is always there, passing, moving, receiving, going again.

Dean Whitehead's view

These last few days, admittedly, he has been faced by a Stoke side so timid, they might have been carrying pepper spray in their inside pockets. That there was little change to their ultra-functional approach, despite a succession of goals going in, speaks volumes about the philosophy rugged Tony Pulis had imbued in his storm-troopers: right lads, go in, sneak the medium-sized defeat and retreat immediately. No harm done. The glory of ninth place will be ours, oh yes.

The came West Brom, a team happy to get nought on their own patch. A team, according to manager Roy Hodgson, who don't often defend well, but did so on this occasion. In fairness they had a couple of attacks too. City's possession in both these games was extremely high at various points, touching an incredible 95% at one point against Stoke and 82% in the first half against West Brom. What must Stoke supporters have thought when watching later on television, as the little top of the screen caption bellowed "Stoke City 5% possession"? Time to go behind the sofa.

As Yaya could have told you, it was just like Barcelona, only better. That this overpowering delivery of ball to feet to feet to feet only brought three goals against the Potters and one point against the Baggies might be cause for concern to some. That horrendous stampeding noise behind us is being made by United and Tottenham re-enacting the Charge of the Light Brigade, but let's ease up on the nerves a little. It is the Christmas break we have reached, not Easter, not Spring Bank Holiday and we are top for the first time in 82 years. Eighty-two years! That is something to roll around in and rub yourself all over with, not shred and discard.

For those out there with fire licking at their backsides and a raging torment tickling their brains, take a look at these statistics, pour yourself a big glass of cognac and raise it in the name of Yaya.

versus Stoke. Players over 100 passes: Barry: 92 successful /of 102 attempted, Kompany: 100/107 | Nasri: 132/138 | Toure: 158/169

Yaya passing: overall 158/169 (93%), own half 51/54 (94%), attacking half 107/115 (93%), final third 42/50 (98%)

City's total of 924 passes v Stoke is the highest recorded by any team in any PL game since 2003-04.

City's pass total v Stoke was higher than all but one of Barcelona's league games this season

CITY only the 2nd team EVER to remain UNBEATEN at home in any competition throughout a whole calendar year. Last time this happened was in 1920s

City's home results 2011: WWWWWWDWWWWWWWWWWDWWWWWWWWWW

City -"The League Leaders" - have now scored three or more times in 12 of their 17 fixtures. Sadly, for the first time this season, nil was the score last time out.

City have already won more games this season, than they did in the entirety of 8 of their last 14 Premier League seasons.

I will miss the big man's nimble progress in midfield, his pirouettes, his beguiling bursts of speed, his tank-like posterior casting a shadow the size of a Hummer over the ball, the languid shake of the head, a wistful flap of the arm as some less tuned in team-mate completes a savage burst of acceleration into the wrong channel, at the wrong moment.

Hurry back, Big Man, we're going to miss you.

FROTH AND BLUSTER ON THE BIG DIPPER

2011-12-19T01:48:00.000-08:00

And so it came to pass, the Big test arrived (the latest Big Test), another moment for everyone to cry "they've got no balls!", a giant thermometre ritually inserted where there is little light but much air, to see if the volcanic temperatures prove that Manchester City are boiling over. They just can't hack it, you see, those mercenaries that play for themselves instead of the team, break curfews and shoot fireworks through their shower curtains.

Barry: critics running for cover

That incredible unbeaten league run, which lasted until Stamford Bridge last Monday (12th December. Does anybody remember the last time City went unbeaten until ten days before Christmas? I can't even remember City being unbeaten during the ten days before Christmas....) had come to an end in a hail of flashing legs and a shower of biblical rain. Having run the dark blues ragged for twenty minutes, the Weather Gods had teamed up with the Football Gods and decreed that enough was enough. And quite right too. This sudden imperiousness will bring on a coronary otherwise amongst those of us more used to wiping the shame and embarrassment from our brows.

For people with large football brains (LFB) this meant a juicy moment of truth against Arsenal, the form team, carrying with them in to a cold barren Manchester afternoon the form player in Robin van Persie. The obituaries were already being written. Ian Wright fizzed electrically about balls and asses, mental strength and baby orangutan. The Nevilles prepared themselves for lift-off. Piers Morgan called City fans "oil-suckers". It was all going to go off big time. The nation held its breath long and hard, daring that harrumphing sound to come out right on time.

Millwall, Cardiff, Bury. Jamie Pollock´s greasy forehead.

And when the game of football started, what did the people with LFB witness? A rip-roaring match in which Arsenal did indeed bring their crisp confident form to town. And were beaten. Beaten by a powerful, willful, committed and elegant Manchester City side playing the open, one-touch slide rule football that has had many sky blue devotees rubbing their eyes in disbelief for most of the season so far. Chicken tikka-taka writ large, served with raita and popadoms, chappatis and chutney. Let us not forget (how the hell could we) that if this season's lights went out now, immediately, irredeemably, 2011 would be remembered for the rest of our lives as the year that contained not a single home defeat, an FA Cup win, entry into the Champions League, a 5-1 win at Spurs, a 6-1 win at Old Trafford and a cup win at Arsenal. If they carted us all off to the Maine Road in the sky now, there would be no kicking and screaming. If they put me back on the Brian Horton Elephant Pills tomorrow, I wouldn't squeal for a single second.

Macclesfield, Stockport, Northampton, Lincoln. Walking aggressively at Walsall. Feeling ill at York. Etcetera.

Telegraph readers stunned by marks out of ten

Arsenal at least did themselves justice, playing with a verve and vigour that many visitors to the Etihad these days seem too feeble or frightened to attempt. Hats and beret's off to them for that, despite the wall of bleating and neighing from the ranks of their supporters. "Cash v Class" being one of the more oft-repeated ineptitudes. They contributed fully to a vibrant, swashbuckling spectacle, which will have had many more than just the committed watching agog for the entire pulsating ninety-four minutes. The match hardly stopped for breath, yet, within this typical British breathlessness, were alarmingly few of the skewed passes, hurried clearances into Row J, Keystone cops defending, rugby stadium finishing. Only when the lumbering Mertesacker hove into view (curiously, he is a German) did the ball hit buttocks and head for the cameras. This was a high tempo match full of neat intricate passing, razor sharp through balls, excellent goalkeeping and high endeavour. Silva, Nasri, Arteta and even big Yaya stood out for their ability to thread, prod and link. Gareth Barry, that poor man's implement, did yet again what he has done all season: plugging gaps, linking team-mates, spreading play, carving routes through to Aguero and Balotelli further forward. Pace of a tugboat maybe, but just feel the quality of the work he puts in in that unnoticed zone: the clear-up patch.

It will no doubt have disappointed a few to witness certain solid pillars of truth and reason that are handy to grab onto in a pub argument had just vanished into thin air: Here are the things that will not have made it within 40 miles of Mark Ogden's Telegraph piece today:

Balotelli can be relied upon. He can contribute a hard shift of running and chasing without tangible reward; he doesn't always rush down the tunnel in a huff because he has been subbed against his will;
Zabaleta is more than capable of putting an international speed merchant like Theo Walcott in a small box marked "done and dusted" and clasping it shut with masking tape;
Gareth Barry can bestride a midfield containing Silva; Nasri and Yaya and still show up as peerless;
Superstars like Aguero can put in a blood and thunder performance despite squandering their side's best two chances and still have his head clear enough to place it (his head) alongside Vermaelen's swinging boot and set up the winning goal with bravery and elan;
Joe Hart and Vincent Kompany can stand up and accept the loud applause for being best of breed in their positions this season;
Kolo Touré can still hack it with the best when he diverts his thoughts from "does my bum look big in this home kit?".

Nevertheless and these wonderful discoveries notwithstanding, we can still find in a national daily newspaper of all places the following:

Vincent Kompany: 6 - Not the usual assured performance from the City captain, perhaps a side-effect of the unexpected change of defensive partner, with Joleon Lescott making way for Kolo Toure.

Pablo Zabaleta: 6 - Not a natural left-back, but the Argentine rarely lets City down and he did well in place of the suspended Gael Clichy and injured Aleksandar Kolarov. Hit the post with a second-half strike.

Yaya Toure: 6 - Never as effective in a defensive midfield role as he is when playing in a more advanced position, but the Ivorian anchored well in tandem with Gareth Barry, despite his inclination to break forward.

Gareth Barry: 6 - Rightfully booked for a dangerous first-half challenge on Mikel Arteta, but the England midfielder otherwise did his usual steady job in front of the back four for City.

Per Mertesacker: 7 - When the German’s lack of pace is not exposed, he marshals the Arsenal defence well. Commanding in the air and his presence appears to be calming one for Szczesny.

Andrei Arshavin: On for Walcott, 69, 6/10, Marouane Chamakh: On for Mertesacker, 82, 6/10

Crack journalist begins another City match report

It is a particularly fruitless experience reading any match report involving Manchester City that is written by the Telegraph's Northern football correspondent, but this effort surely deserves highlighting. Whilst Touré and Barry conducted a spirited and eye-catching midfield battle against Arteta and Song, plugging gaps, delivering passes, squeezing and tackling like there was no tomorrow, Kompany and Zabaleta not only employed the powers of a titan to keep Gervinho, Walcott and Van Persie out, but also found the time and energy to take full part in various forays upfield, one of which culminated in the excellent Zabaleta rattling a post from way outside the box. For this 90-minute long display of guts and guile, they are awarded the same mark as Arsenal's two subs, Abbott and Costello, who provided the best display of ineptitude since the piano on the stairs gig back in 1947. Quite what has gone into Arshavin's tea since Euro 2008 is unclear, but, whatever it was, it would have put a shire horse to sleep for an entire winter.

To top the lot off, Mertesacker, a stumbling flour-sack of a defender, is awarded a higher score than any of them. The mind truly tingles with the expert opinions of the great and good. Maybe it was a Christmas joke, sent by the well-meaning to warm us all up on these cold pre-festive days. If so, it certainly got my blood circulating speedily, but not nearly as quickly and fluently as the sight of six-out-of-ten Vincent Kompany, the best central defender in the Premier League, striding out from the City area and charging past opponent after opponent on his way upfield. What a grand sight that was. What a grand old game it was too. What a shame some people cannot see the quality for wool before their eyes.

DESERT DISPATCH - DECEMBER

2011-12-09T02:58:00.000-08:00

Those avoiding the new wave of modernism will have had the opportunity to read this in the latest star-spangled issue of King of the Kippax, the best read this side of heaven

"Riding the warm winds of change"

NICE HOUSES GOES UP IN SMOKE

The Chelsea manager, Andrew Nice Houses, suddenly exploded last night in a large shower of ashes and dust. It is not thought anybody was hurt during the incident but a large part of the press room was shrouded in thick purple smoke for twenty minutes or so. It is believed that the fire may have been started inside a deep complex about Smouldering Buggery Manchester City, as is quite usual in these circumstances. “We have been severely victimised,” he squeaked in a wretched tiny voice, which sounded like it was coming from the end of a very long dusty corridor late at night.

Mr. LEWIS HARRIS: A STUDY IN SPORTSMANSHIP

Harris appeals politely

Liverpool’s Corinthian attacker Lewis Feltham Harris, the son of an aristocratic Uruguayan horse breeder and an elegant polo playing countess from Abyssinia, has been in sparkling form so far this season. For a man of such slight frame and delicate disposition to stay so steadfastly on his feet throughout the terrible thumpings aimed at him on the fields of Albion is a testament to his brick-solid thoroughbred attitude to sports and games. Brought up to take a good bashing and turn the other cheek, young Lewis soon learned that skulduggery and foul play, bleating and arm-waving were not the only ways to win at soccer. One didn’t have to cheat to prevail. In his cosy, well-looked after upbringing Lewis learned that Corinthian spirit and a love of one’s fellow man brings the kind of deep respect that everybody is now showing towards him. “To all those snivelling, arm-waving, little jerkers that perennially fall over then bleat to the referee,” he said last week, “I laugh and say, Do it the Lewis Way. Stay on your feet, play to the whistle and never look at the referee with big baby eyes”.

THEY LEFT TOO SOON

One is inclined in these days of spit and feather, bluster and blunder to forget that – amongst all the terrific nonsensical hyperbole – footballers are just flesh and bones, very much like the rest of us in fact. This era, let us not forget, where we worship the likes of Kevin Prince Boating–Accident with his 550 leather jackets and his toe to cranium body art, and Steven Daddy Dick Ireland with his pink furnished Humdinger Chevrolet Space Buggy, plus any number of vacuous television accidents, who judge themselves personalities on the grounds that they have broken wind on camera. Amongst the many others, who left the football fraternity way before we were ready for them to depart. Socrates Brasileiro Sampaio de Souza Vieira de Oliveira and Gary Speed, we salute your efforts and feel deeply glum that you have gone to join the likes of Neil Young, Mike Doyle, Emlyn Hughes, Alan Ball, Jimmy Neighbour, Bobby Stokes, Alan Davies, George Armstrong, Brian Clough, George Heslop, Derek Dougan, Peter Osgood, Brian Labone in God’s celestial five-a-side tournament. You will both. at least, shore up the midfield very nicely indeed.

FA CUP: THE MANCHESTER DERBY IS BACK

By Shaun Custard still in the Fox and Firkin

With a blink of an eye and a quick exhalation of stale air, it was done. The Dirty Deed. The Revenge Derby is on. Sir Fergus will bring his vengeful but nevertheless world-beating troops to the Elaborately-Sponsored Etihad Stadium to face up to Moneybags Bastard Manchester City for the third time this season and the world can only hope that the old maestro can cook up a more appealing broth than the toad soup and evans dumplings that we were force fed at Old Trafford last month. For Fergus’s side still has merit, oh yes. The thunderous thighs of goal man Rooney and the delicate agility of Donny Wellbred do not suddenly count for nothing, you know. The two little hobbits, Pippy and Prawny, do not suddenly become bad players overnight. Johnny SixesandEvans cannot surely be any worse than last time? Berbatov can still recite poetry like no other Vulgarian I know. These are all reasons for the massive red majority in Manchester to be positive. The Men In Black can sleep easily alongside their teddies tonight. Silly City, as many people like to call them, are foolish in the extreme to underestimate them. Their fans, full of cockiness and Boddingtons, delivered a clear message to the roving Sky cameras yesterday, brimming with froth and frothing with brim, little snot-nosed kiddies trying to get six fingers counted for the cameras. It is this bravado and self-centred behaviour that makes these people so ugly to look at, so painful to listen to, with their prawn kebabs and their Balotelli hats shaped like a waving hand. For, sure enough, class still counts and history is not counted on the fingers of one hand. It takes time to tip a tea pot and class doesn’t just pop out of the other end. With the derby scores absolutely level so far this season, one win each, by the narrowest of margins, City and their unwashed hordes are about to find this out the hard way come derby day in the Cup.

Mark Organ is on holiday in Salford all this week. Brian Granville was unavailable to comment owing to his putty pen melting and Bob Rodent of The Star was too busy looking up womens’ dresses.

THAT EURO 2012 DRAW IN FULL

Group of Absynthe: Poland (host nation, go easy on them), Chicken Republic, Guatemala and Crete

Grupo da Morte: Germans, Danes, Dutch, Portuguese all at it, all at the same time. Furious, eye-scratchingly horrendous, cards flying, people getting the full hump with each other, wide starey eyes and finger pointing and and and that’s just the Portuguese).

Group of Meth: Pope, Gaudi, Archbishop of Cork and Monseignor Dubrovnik

Group of Meh: Ukraine (home nation, go easy), Svennis, Ingles, The other Ones

NOMINATIONS CLOSE TODAY

By Jamie Redknapp (no relation honest) Best buy of the season: Scot(tie) Parker, hands down. Id the lad Silva could do half the things our Scot(tie) can do, he’d be half the player Sco(tie) is today. A full on Lionel Messi of the Tottenham High Road. Manager of the season so far: Harry Redcap. Don’t Write Him Off yet Award: Frank Lampard (go, cuz!). League Champions come May? Difficult one with all the talent around, but I’m going for…erm… Tottenham.

VESUVIUS ERUPTS, SPEWING PHLEGM AND SPITTLE IN ALL DIRECTIONS

Side profile, high profile

Aurelio de Laurentiis: here is a man with very attractive slick hair, a way with melancholic drama and very definitely something of the night, it has to be said. The great man of the people, orator profundo, shake-a-leg-Sandy and Billy Big Noise hath spoken: “The kind Sheik will tire of his toy. He will see football is not only about money, but also glory and oil, funny faces and wolf masks. It is about the sunrise over Vesuvius, the leopard print panties that my girlfriends wear. It is smoke and laughter, laughter and smoke, painting your name on fountains and reducing the toilet block to rubble. All of these things are the football that the Sheik does not get. It is Polly Pocket and Thomas the Tank engine, Brian Deane and Emily Heskey. It is flares, rockets and guns, it is giant heaps of refuse in all directions, steaming grouplets of hooligans on scooters, knife wielding charlatans and pickpockets. It is the glory of Naples, a city drowning in its own detritus. This all is football, this all is what we are, what makes us, what defines us. Tell that to your little Sheik with big pockets.” Afterwards he needed to lie down.

COLIN GETS AN EIFFEL

Ivorian powerhouse and Bastard Manchester City dietician Colin Tory has complained BITTERLY about his lack of opportunities in the first team. Team Manager Bob Mancini has also explained the reasons behind his frequent exclusion: “Eeer, these ees becoz ee eez not so very good” explained the erudite and confused-looking manager, sweeping an errant lock of grey hair back behind his well-sculpted ear. “Eee theenks ee eez good but in fact, Kompany ees better, Lescott ee eez better, even Steve Savage ee eez better. How can I tell eem these, he will keel over.”

Tory meanwhile has stated that Savage is, in fact, not better, but quite a lot worse than himself. He said: “In fact the new fellow is rubbish isn’t he? I mean look at him! I watch him in training and think to myself “big bugger, he’s so useless this is a deathly insult to Colin Tory.”

PINGPONG

Look at me

Emmanuel Frimpong. Even the name itself shouts “look at me!”. The hair bellows “I am a peacock”. The demeanour says, “look at all I am become, swanky and so sure”. Here is a young footballer just making his way, learning his trade, picking up juicy titbits here and there to make him a better player, perhaps even a better person. It appears, however, that some lessons have already arrived bang on time at Platform One of Mr Frimpong’s well organised Central Cortex: a) take off your shirt whilst still leaving the pitch to allow full air time for the company slogan (your company slogan!) to your adoring public. b) act the big wedge with other professionals such as Samir Nasri, to show them, even though you are still only thirteen years old, “you don’t take grief from no one”. Here, quite literally, quite splendidly, is a footballer of our times, for our times. I am sure we all deserve him.

MONSIEUR PLATINI: A PROPER GENTILLEHOMME

Michel Platini was a graceful artist in his playing days for Nancy (stop that), St Etienne and Juventus, where he is still treated as a deity to this day. It is fascinating to see that he has brought all of this grace and balance, pomp and circumstance to his current role as Prince of Football, High Chancellor of UEFA, Cadillac Cruiser and The Knowledge of Switzerland. Having quite rightly LAMBASTED Big Bugger Manchester City for their THOUGHTLESS DESTRUCTION OF OUR BELOVED WORLD GAME, he rightly praised Paris St Germain for bringing some colour, verve, competition and MONEY to the dowdy and down-at-heel French league scene. This, you see, is where PROPER SIZED BRAINS make the difference between a Platini and a mere mortal, who perhaps is concerning himself with the whereabouts of his car keys or whether it might just be Miniature Chicken Kievs again for tea. Platini is not concerned with Chicken Kiev, miniature or otherwise. He is rebuilding the CITY OF KIEV, although there might not be too many hotels, or in fact trains or planes. “It will be a complicated success” he regaled. How jolly marvelous. How complicated exactly will it be to be a football follower in these places, Monsieur Platini? Very complicated, extremely complicated, really bloody complicated, or sod it I’m off to Marbella complicated? We love a challenge, so we must thank you for this one. Merci!

But that is to digress and to deflect attention away from this GREAT MAN’S grand oeuvres and manoeuvres. Just this week, he asked the oh-so-pertinent question “How shall we play a world cup in Qatar?” These truly are questions on every poor man’s wet and quivering LIPS. Lips that will be so dry and parched in the 50 degree heat of Doha, they might just as well be removed and used as espadrilles. Luckily there is a font of information, a source of wisdom that will help us garner the correct answer to this latest conundrum: MICHEL PLATINI himself, for it is he who voted for the wretched place in the first place.

TEVEZ MOVE CLOSER TO HOME AT LAST GETTING CLOSER

Charles Tevez’s burning wish to leave Buggery Battery Brutally Manchester City to be closer to his beloved family, half family, inlaws, outlaws, inbreds, invertebrates and assorted ex’s has moved a tiny little bit closer with the news that he may, might, could, should, would if he could, is set to sign for Milan in the window. This knocks an INCREDIBLE one mile off the journey home and should make just about everybody weep tears of joy, including Kia Joorabchian, who lives next door to wherever Tevez is. Those figures in greater detail: Manchester-Buenos Aires - 6935 miles. Milan-Buenos Aires - 6934 miles.

DESERT DISPATCH - OCTOBER

2011-11-14T14:38:00.000-08:00

If you are in any way a traditional paper and newsprint sort of person, you probably read this first in the latest stunning edition of King of the Kippax

Mortgages & Honey Waffles Section

Christmas Carrol explains heading to Mr Henderson

UEFA FFP – The Big Question: Are Liverpool money grabbing opportunists or The Grand Rich History Club of our times? Liverpool bosses are feverishly looking into Thieving Bastard Manchester City finances whilst cleverly attempting to slam the TV money door in everyone’s faces before anybody notices. “This is essentially a very clever move by Liverpool,” Aleksander Whopper of Deloittes, says. “They have come to the conclusion that, despite flinging absolutely millions at Christmas Carroll and Herman Henderson from Sunderland, they will not have a proverbial sniff of Big Time Football trophies for the ever-so-foreseeable future. This is their way of evening up a sloping playing field, that they helped to invert in the first place. They know that all those football tourists who think football was invented by Richard Keys will happily ignore the fact that, like Manchester United, Liverpool stretched the transfer record every summer throughout the 70s and 80s. It’s quite brilliant and it might just work, if everyone closes their eyes for a bit.”

Bath Plugs & Camping Stoves Section

ROONEY APOLOGISES TO UEFA

Full text here: www.soz.like.co.uk

ROONEY COULD LEAD OLYMPIC TEAM

Lord Coe looking for someone who looks like a potato to embody the Olympic spirit

Zeus, just after his successful hair trasnplant

Wayne Rooney may be the figurehead Britain’s national team sport has been looking for to embody the true charm and mystique of the Olympic Spirit. “What we really need,” said Lord Coe, sipping on a mug of tea and chewing on a carrot, “is someone with the chizzeled features of a Greek God, an attitude to life that can be realted to by all youngsters in the UK, who watches reality tv and is fascinated by it, who comes into close contact with people who have embraced Britain’s Rich History of Shopping and who, above all, when dressed in jeans and sensible jacket, looks like a giant gherkin with a cherry tomato on top.”

GUEST PIECE by Mark Church Organ of the Daily Telegraph

MAN U WILL RETURN, CITY ARE DEMENTED, DELUDED AND SMELL OF CHEESE

DON’T EVEN BOTHER – Ed)

GUEST PIECE by BRIAN “PUTTY PEN” GLANVILLE

And so on and so forth. As Toad of Toad Hall may well have said to the Lilliputians.

When I was just a small boy, just knee high to Luciano Troglio, the great Torino coach of the 20s, he sat me on his gnarled old thighs and began to recite Proust whilst fiddling with my pyjama turn-ups. This had an efforvescent and humbling effect on my undernourished brain. All those long and twisted years later, I am moved to suggest that this Manchester City side is a tea stain on the very ironed apron of association football. They besmirch the good name of soccer and I would wish this malodorous guest far from my table if I had the choice.

Clean Living Section

BLATTER SPLATTER – FOOTBALL PREPARES FOR CLEAN BROOM WITH DIRTY BRISTLES

One + Only: Micky Horswill

WORLD football chief and tireless charity worker Sepp Blatter is being congratulated after it emerged he oversaw the award of a €350 million World Cup contract to a company part-owned by the firm his nephew runs. Blatter, president of football’s governing body FIFA, heads the 24-man executive committee which awarded South Africa 2010’s 380,000-ticket hospitality contract exclusively to MATCH Hospitality in October 2007.

The firm, based in FIFA’s home city Zurich, was picked by the executive committee after a public tender. MATCH is part-owned by Swiss sports marketing company Infront Sports & Media, whose president and CEO is Philippe “pro-Zone” Blatter, nephew of FIFA president Sepp. FIFA has confirmed president Blatter was partially involved in the decision to appoint MATCH, prompting criticism from politicians. “We said we wanted to keep everything tight and nice in the FIFA Family and that is what we are doing,”said Blatter later. “Now bugger off the lot of you and let me count my nephew’s money.”

Heroes and helicopters, horses and ponies
MICK HORSWILL – AN APPRECIATION

Ah yes. Well, no. Actually, I’d rather not. Not just now.

Tritonia Humdinger 4x4 & Battenburg Cake Section

ENGLAND SQUAD LATEST: CONFUSION REIGNS AS RICHARDS IN OBSCENE TWEET DRAMA

Micah tries on an England leisure top

The fine early season form of Glen Johnson, the really quite good early season form of Kyle Walker of Tottenham and the nearly outstanding form of Where’s Wally have seen them chosen ahead of Micah Richards of Manchester Death of Football City for the up-coming games with Spain and Sweden. Asked why Richards had not made his experimental squad, Capello said “I say before, I no like players who are in low level teams and who no play well. Ba. Go away now” Richards immediately took to twitter and AMAZED everybody with his foul-mouthed rant against the England manager “Don’t know what more I could do” he tweeted in a terrible temper. “To say I’m surprised is an understatement”. It is thought that his BOILING hot tempered BROADSIDE may well be considered as (all together now) bringing the game into disrepute. A ban for the mealy-mouthed England outsider could follow and he may never play for England again.

STEWARDING TODAY SECTION

Bringing you the latest in stewarding techniques for modern crowd management by Brett Fist of Showrespec

As we saw in the Manchester Ruining the Game City match with Aston Villa it is important at all times to be on the alert for 50 year old men with dicky hearts who wilfully refuse to sit down when a goal is scored, or an exciting event is unfolding.
Amy Wally, regional manager for Showrespec, says stewards were acting on the initiative of the God Theramiptides, who appears in visions to people on a higher intellectual plain than the rest of us, when they tried to remove a troublesome man with a heart condition for persistent heavy breathing and leaning on one of the concourse railings for support. “This was exemplary steward behaviour. If Ronald Hubbard, steward 236, who attempted the manouevre, were a footballer, he’d be John Terry. Commanding, willing, energetic, with a 6th sense for where the trouble is and leading by example."

BALLON DE PLOMB LATEST

Steaming Argentina and Cheating Manchester City ace Sergio “Kun” Agüero has AWOKEN A HORNETS NEST by suggesting “it’s a shame” that Carlos Tevez is mouldering in City’s youth team. Aguero’s TOTALLY UNNECESSARY outburst has come as a shock to players and managers alike. “This is what we don’t want to see,” said Stain Cauliflower in his radio show, "Cauliflower at One". “It is akin to (parp parp) bringing the game into disrepute. This is a club that is clearly out of control and lacking in class.”
(Ballon d’Or latest: Wayne Rooney and Wengerboys Arsene have been named in the shortlist for the big awards this year. “No I don’t know either,” said a man in a street.)

Architecture Section

After the recent unveiling of the Sir Alex Ferguson Stand, it is rumoured that the Stretford End will also be changing name to the Sixes and Evans Stand and the opposite end will be known as The Last Stand in memory of the club’s heroic attempt not to become second class members of the city of Manchester.

Keegan turned to face The Bell End 2nd half

LINGUA FRANCA

2011-11-11T00:57:00.000-08:00

Gordon Taylor will be "zu Tode betruebt" or at the very least "tres decu".

In other, more homely words, he could also be a tad disappointed.

So that was a tricky start. Foreign languages, a barbed wire no-go zone for many, a place of catastrophic Pythonesque misunderstandings for others. "Did you say "toast"?. Oh I'm terribly sorry, I thought you said "toads". No toads on the menu today, no, no! Ha ha. Ah what an oaf I am!... No, I said "oaf..." And so on and so on.

Few are they who walk the nomadic fields and trip the linguistic fantastic without stopping to catch breath and straighten their dipthongs. We cannot expect everybody, even in these enlightened times, to speak a rich variety of languages and be comfortable listening to conversations in Hungarian and Dutch, Greek and Danish. It is a big wide world but we have brains which have been frazzled by too much cinema vérité and Stella Artois, too many late nights pounding the computer console with our stubby fingers. The coup de grace, as ever, came from that tank of Duvel that we drank the other week. The brain has not been the same since. Bloody Belgians, present Kompany excepted, naturally enough.

Somewhere within this morasse of cliché and inuendo, however, lies a salient point. You, my single loyal reader, probably clicked on the link that transported you here so painlessly because you fully expected to be reading something (some tripe) in English. And this what you got. Already, some two hundred words in, you have had to feast your eyes on at least eleven words or phrases that are not in fact English at all.

But what if your name were Carlos Alberto Martinez? You would of course already have mentally turned off and would be busy excavating your nose.

But, what if.

Would it be possible to assume that, when he was informed by his hard working entourage that the next leg of the magical mystery tour that is his career would see him heading for "West Ham United" all those years ago, that the very basic thoughts that he so specialises in might have featured one of the following rhetorical questions:

West Ham's in Inglaterra, isn't it? London, if I'm not mistaken. East End.
The people in England speak English, don't they?
You have to speak English in England, don't you, if you want to survive, prosper even?
English is a popular means of communication between all sorts of people in all sorts of places around the globe. Isn't it?

I wonder quietly to myself at night, when all I can here outside is the braying of the neighbour's dog and a distant row between homeward bound drunks in the hissing night mist, what exactly Tevez's highly specialised, well-oiled and classily expensive entourage of healers and helpers thought might be a good idea at that particular juncture in his interesting and meandering professional career. Did they immediately sign him up for a crash course, knowing that their client had some difficulty ordering a side portion of picadas in his own husky Spanish on a bad day, or did they resolve to let him flounder and see what transpired? Did they discuss in quiet lucid gatherings how they could best enable their clients a soft and agreeable landing in this land of Balti Pies and Benny Hill, Bullseye and Scotch Eggs (God love us, what must people think?), and what they might have to do to allow their clients to concentrate on the next game, Barry?

Correct.

All that money rolling in. All those flashlights popping in his face. Little Mascherano alongside him at the press conference blinking and spluttering. Not a word of English between them. But that was a decidedly long time ago. 2006, it says here. You, dear reader, could learn Farsi, Hebrew and Mandarin Chinese in the time that has since elapsed, and even more quickly if someone waved a salary slip in front of you with more noughts on it than the Greek National Audit. Even if they didn't, you could do it. We are capable of these things, given time and patience, half a memory and a bit of the rub of the green.

Even me.

I am living proof of this fact. For my sins, I have worked at various times in Holland, Germany, Switzerland, France, Belgium and Portugal. At no time did it cross my mind that I could simply get away with English in any of those places. I spent nearly ten years in Holland. This is a country that possesses a language which, when spoken with vivacity and enthusiasm, say, in a crowded meeting of management consultants or (my own preferred territory) a stuffed bar at half-past one in the morning, sounds a little like somebody repeatedly standing on an adult squirrel. I persevered with this Language of the Throat and, by the end of my time there, was working exclusively in the native tongue, much to the probable mirth of my company's clients. I, a class A dunce, wastrel and purveyor of linguistic shipwrecks, had made it and made it in Dutch of all languages on this sceptered planet.

THE INDEFATIGABLY OBSCENE SEPP BLATTER

If the mantra in Holland (a country where even the cows moo decent English) is "When in Holland, speak the language the locals do", what can we say about dear old Blighty? I have been addressed in English by supermarket check-out girls in Amsterdam, by shop assistants in Vienna and by floor cleaners in Porto (yes, I get around, yes I talk to absolutely anybody), but England is different. this is because of English. Not Polish, not Turkish. English.Coming to England as a foreigner is different. English, the global language of media, sport, politics and more or less anything else you care to think of, is everywhere. You cannot go to the cinema without it, nor enter a congress. In short you cannot behave like we have all behaved when abroad and wander casually into a place and proceed, without even asking if it is possible, to have a conversation with a complete stranger at speed in your own language.

All of which makes Carlos Tevez ever so slightly odd.

Translate that!

In the intricate world of professional football, communication is key. Teams fill up with foreign imports, managers and coaches come from far afield, fitness trainers, cooks, bottlewashers, cone experts, veruka advisers, nail polishers and boot lickers. They are all there at your top clubs these days and half of them are foreigners.Football is cash. Football is time and space, It is energy. It consumes everything before it. It is Mammon. It is Terry. It is Cole. It is Capello. It is Gordon Taylor. It is the indefatigably obscene Sepp Blatter. The football family speaks English. It churns out publicity, magazines, tickets, jingles, sponsor straplines and a complete wasteland of press coverage and all of it in English. Just Do It. Impossible Is Nothing. For The Good of the Game. You just cannot escape it. Unless your name is Carlos Tevez.

THE GLAZED EYES OF JARI LITMANEN

The modern day footballer has to pick up on an infinite array of tactical suggestions, dossiers on opponents, travel itineries and catwalk invitations. He has to sit at press conferences looking meaningful, answer questions about this that and the tedious other, all the time playing the straight bat, keeping the poker face and following the company line. "We do not test on small fluffy animals." "We do not commit affluent chemical liquids to the North Sea." "We were not in the book depository when the top of his head came off.". Etcetera. To do all of this without falling over takes a working knowledge of the local lingo. How could it be otherwise? I once had the undiluted pleasure of working with Ajax and Benfica, two European football institutions of the highest repute. Dish of the Day? Organising language training for foreign players. Now Dutch and Portuguese are not the easiest of things to get your teeth into. I was there when poor Jari Litmanen's eyes glazed over. I was there when Marcio Santos suddenly needed to go home for a pee (any excuse) and I was most certainly there when Michel Preud'homme tried to distract me from my onerous task by inviting me for a round of golf in Cascais instead. Almost to a man, the players thought it was a big joke. A bloke in a suit trying to sign them up for sessions in front of a whiteboard making fools of themselves. I have seen it many times before. This is like going naked. Suddenly, the senior partner of a huge multinational is laid bare as a mumbling imbecile in English. Top footballers do not like this much.John terry looks tough and confident in "Cockney", but ask him to sit down and order a fruit loop in French and he will look like one of the biggest Jessies since Jessie James.

The counter argument is: where does one start with a language like English, with its silent b's and it's intrusive th's? Put yourself, for a moment, in Carlos's comfortable ultra expensive silk carpet slippers and try to form a Carlos-inspired opinion on the following....English is the language that brings you:

six different ways to pronounce "ough" (thought, tough, through, cough, bough, although)
verbs that change so radically they might be from Venus (seek > sought)
rules that have more exceptions than examples
pronunciation from the bowels of hell itself (innovate > innovative; famous > infamous. Try asking a foreigner to say "Neville Southall" and watch as they bite their tongues and keel over)
structure as user-friendly as the Mountain Path to Mordor: "I wanted to see what it was like" "I wanted to see how it was"
100s of words that aren't remotely English anyway: creche, kindergarten, shampoo, breeze, laissez-faire, brio, bankrupt, gateau, ketchup.....

It's a tough ask, as modern users of the lingo are prone to say. In real English, it is a demanding challenge. Let Carlos turn the telly on for half an hour and what might he come across for his entertainment , for his education? Ah look, it's Sir Alex Ferguson, speaking...what exactly? Sounds like Hindi from a man with a Mars bar stuck up his nose, but it could be Finnish with all the vowels removed. Let's zap. Ah, Peter Reid. No, can't understand a single word of that either.

Some of our most famous faces mangle the mother tongue until it sounds like a pig in a cement mixer. After a lot of grunting and bleating, all you are left with is bones and fur. How did Mirandinha, the little Brazilian arriving slightly ahead of his time in 80s Newcastle, deal with Gazza's verbal gymnastics, let alone his rubber breasted pranks? The poor man ran around with gloves on looking deeply puzzled for 3 months and promptly made his excuses and left. Deep fired Mars bars, barely dressed lasses ideologically wide at the hips and Barry Venison's highlights can all be tolerated, even enjoyed for what they are, but a gibbering maniac spouting Swahili through a loud-haler?

SWALES, THE LINGUISTIC JUGGERNAUT

Swales + Elton get started

City have had their own moments of linguistic gold too, of course. Which club hasn't? Mention Peter Reid and his special version of thick Scouse, a world of "he's arrived too late at the back sticks" and "he's done his hamstrings in", brings a managerial predecessor to mind: Mel Machin. Here was a man for whom a sentence was often over before it had started or, on other occasions, before he appeared ready for it to be. Quiet, unassuming and utterly monotone, Mel could give press interviews that would have put a bull walrus to sleep. Sure, he pronounced every syllable like the Queen Mother, he used his prepositions accurately and sparingly, but boy did he meander. Peter Swales, another linguistic juggernaut, having famously accused our Mel of having "no repartee" with us proles, went on his merry way too. Many was the interview that would halt mid flow for Peter to put the question "What's the word I'm looking for here, Elton?". When he was hooked up to the mic with Jimmy Greaves in the studio, it was like trying to pull a hippopotamus tooth with a pair of your Nan's tweezers. "Ees the gaffer like Peter aint ee?" - "He is Greavsie, yeah, what's the word I want? Puffa jacket? is it?".

And don't ever get me started on the brilliantly inept Dragoslav Stepanovic, another of Big Mal's experiments: A Serb made captain of City in 1979 despite not speaking more than four words ("Come on you Blues" to be precise) of English...

I digress. Carlos is waiting for us by the eternal whiteboard, marker pen and dictaphone at the ready. So, look at this:

Characteristics of Good Language Learners -Good language learners are born and not made’ - consider the “Good language learner” model proposed by Naiman, Frohlich, Todesco and Stern (1978) as part of the good language learner study. The model consists of five boxes which represent classes of variables in language learning. These are teaching, the learner and the context (the three independent causative variables.) and the learning and the outcome boxes (the caused variables).

Basically, there are four basic strategies which good language learners employ:

• active planning strategy

• ‘academic’ learning strategy

• social learning strategy

• affective learning strategy (Stern, 1983)

THE NIHILISTIC ARROGANCE OF THE LONG DISTANCE LANGUAGE LEARNER

Laissez ton cheval et allez boire ton lait

All of this will be news to Kia Joorabchian, I'm sure, but is it asking too much to expect somebody in a situation like this (feted, celebrated, in the media spotlight, paid amounts of money which demand some slight act of loyalty and effort in response) to become competent in the lingua franca of your employers, your peers and the people all around you? After 5 years?! Jan Molby, after a similar period, was so comfortable with the native tongue, he became completely assimilated in the local culture, sending messages in fluent English from his bench inside Bootle Jail. So, it can be done and it doesn't take a brain the size of the Planetarium to carry it off either. Arsene Wenger sounds like a History don from Cambridge when he gets going. Bergkamp, Kompany, Martin Jol, Gullit, Gudjohnsen, Larssen, Mourinho and many others have all impressed with their easy fluency. And herein, perhaps, lies another moot point. Take a Dutchman, a Swede, a Portuguese and they will rise to the linguistic challenge almost immediately. We have marveled down the years at how the Dutch adapt to our game so quickly, how the Scandinavians are onto it in short time, but there is a hidden factor. These are all nations small in size and whose languages don't get you far. Try speaking Portuguese or Danish in your local Waitrose and see what happens. These are countries with a spirit of adaptability and flexibility imbued in the souls of its people. The same cannot be said for your average Spaniard or Italian, where local t.v. dubs John Wayne into a ridiculous falsetto or France where James Bond may sound like Daffy Duck with a Parisien accent. Watch television or go to the cinema in Copenhagen, Lisbon or Amsterdam and you will hear the voices and the words of the people you are watching, not an army of behind-the-scenes mime artistes. There are praiseworthy exceptions (the afore-mentioned Wenger is one, Zola and Roberto Martinez others) but they are few and far between. Despite the clanging mistakes and the frolicking mispronunciations of Benitez, Capello and, it must be said, Mancini, at least they appear to be trying. In the case of Carlos Alberto Martinez, it appears to be more an example of nihilistic arrogance. Plus ça change.

BANANAS ARE NOT THE ONLY FRUIT

2011-10-28T03:43:00.000-07:00

I gave my inflatable banana away to a Dutch girl called Saskia, who seemed to be both passionately in love with AC Milan (Gullit, Rijkaard and The Other Fellow were there at the time) and on the point of perhaps considering shedding some of the flimsier items she was wearing at the time. In a fit of true stupidity and (possibly) overcome by a bubbling tsunami of hormones, I handed it over to her, fully inflated. It was late at night. We were in her flat. I had delivered all the lines about literature and philosophy, about the environment and adventure. I had dropped the names of Johnny Rep and Johan Neeskens into the conversation and said politely positive things about Queen Beatrix and her concrete hair. I had bought dinner and not hogged the wine too much, but still she was completely, utterly, fully dressed.

A Symphony in yellow: the author is 16th on the left, back row

A fully inflated banana.I know what made me do it and all I can say is, all these years later, I feel dirty, shallow and ever so slightly feeble. I want my banana back.

I will never see it again. I bought it somewhere down the side of the Arndale Centre, as you do. Or at least, as you did. I took it out of its package, feeling like a prize plum, and self-consciously gave a tug on its nipple (yes, I know). I had never tried to blow a banana up in central Manchester before. Even the Jacket Potato Man gave me a funny look and I had become quite used to our relationship being completely the other way round. Me: striding past confidently, humming New Order, fairly snazzy shoes, hair dancing and prancing. Jacket Potato Man: listless slightly slimy hair, joke jacket, Thompson Twins on his radio, stuck in a flourescent 4be4 caravan in the middle of the pedestrian zone with his baked beans filling going crispy because the heat on his calor gas burner wasn't properly regulated. Health + Safety would have taken one look at him and towed him away to Runcorn, where Jacket Potato Caravans go to rest.

On a good day he would have a trail of fat lasses on their healthy option day out, slapping their tats with mustard, mayo and ketchup. He'd be active then, parping out the sauce for those flabby armed girls who needed assistance, jumping forward with those pathetic little wooden forklets that you couldn't stab an ant with. "Here girl, grab this in your sausage-shaped fingers and try eating my scolding hot tat, dripping with colourless gravy and scorched beans whilst tottering down to M+S in a howling gale." I used to think the whole things was hilarious. The lasses would have volcanic hot flavourless brown gunk down their boobtubes before they'd even got as far as HMV.

But now he was smirking at me, with his bean stained pinny and his sweaty armpits. I gave it a yank and blew. Up it came like a flower in spring. You have to understand that Manchester in the 80s allowed this sort of thing to happen without a full scale riot and scorching of King Street's shirt shops. Morrissey was busy with his gladioli, there were jerks in jumpers everywhere, New Romantics with ruffs and puffed trousers looked like effete pirates who had pooed their pants. All in all, the scene was ready for bananas. And swimming pools. And fried eggs. And T-Rexes. It was about to get right out of hand.

From Gary James seminal Maine Road Men to Banana Citizens

And how we gave them bananas. My God. I may have felt like a prize Jeremy Clarkson in front of the Arndale with my yellow accomplice that day, but the nearer you got to the ground, the more obvious it got that you were in fact part of a vanguard of hipsters bringing something fresh and new to 80s football, a thing - don't forget - so shop soiled, it was ripe for the tip. Football hooligans had moved on from biff and bosh to rip and shred, casuals were all around, the glint of cold steel, the snide question "where you from, mate?", the little feral packs of spotty aces breathing down your neck on the way to the game.

I remember the rainswept scene down Claremont Road before the second division game with Chelsea, a big top of the table clash, with 40,000 expected and a heap of trouble to boot. Mad packs of scavenging hyenas everywhere you looked. Rain sleeting down, that slate grey vista all the way down Lloyd Street, with the coppers on horseback and the Pink Final man shouting his dues. An atmosphere of malevolent calm hanging over the place, as Maine Road cranked itself up for another of those steaming dripping bad-tempered second divison afternoons out. The distant clipped roar of the Chelsea mob floated over the top of the square riggged North Stand architecture, a set of plastic and corrugated iron struts that must have been chic at one point or another.

Once inside the ground, the threat of violence evaporated and the quality of football on show allowed you all the time in the world to wallow in the stunning visual effect of thousands of inflatables waging war on each other across the ground. It started at Oldham, took off at the Hawthorns with an unseemly scrap between a dinosaur and a giant cigarette, soon attracted paddling pools and six foot snakes and had its finest moment at the Victoria Ground where 12,000 City fans turned up in fancy dress clutching every kind of inflatable known to man. Naturally, City lost 3-1. There was also a home game (Leicester in the cup?) where the players emerged from the tunnel with a banana each, which were hurled into the Kippax. I well remember Ian Brightwell had chosen to carry a five foot banana instead of the "normal" ones and he looked like it was carrying him. Halcyon Days, indeed. Here are a couple of sharp memories from the era: http://www.mancityfans.net

I also had rhino which the filth took off me at Watford, a game I seem to remember we lost 2-0."

Frank Newton: his fault

I remember the Banana being at the Plymouth Game, first of the season in 1987/8. We won 2-1 with Stewart and Varadi scoring I think in a late comeback and the "Big Banana" - the 5 foot type - was in the old Windy Corner between the Kippax and North Stands, later to become one of the Gene Kelly's. I am assuming this must have been Frank Newton.

At a time when the whole country is sitting up and taking notice and the football family is at last taking dear daft old Manchester City seriously, it might be worth remembering how we got this far without going completely nuts: what drove us to carry these things under our arms at a time when the rest of the country were chasing each other with carpet knives, where Blue Moon comes from, and the Invisible Man.

You have to laugh, and if at all possible, the best place to start is with yourself.

Were you there? Did you do something embarrassing? Have you been waiting 25 years to unburden yourself? Is it still lying in the bottom of a cupboard somewhere? Frightened to tell the wife? Did the police take a five foot inflatable rhino off you at Watford? Get in touch. You are not alone.

DERBY DAY PLAYER RATINGS

2011-10-25T10:59:00.000-07:00

DAVID DE GEA: 8
Looked agile and alert and cannot be faulted for any of the six goals that rocketed past his jumpy, shell-shocked form to nestle in the back of his forlorn, bedraggled, windswept net. Hair stood up to the test, maintaining its stiffness throughout what was an absolute shellacking of the first order. Good communication with his defenders, including the slightly high-pitched "What are you doeeeng?!" after an hour or so and a lively star jump in front of Very Smalling after the 6th (or 5th, there were so many, they merge into each other after a while)
VERY SMALLING:7
Very very long legs, exceedingly long legs which he stuck out to the best of his ability but could not seem to catch Small and Spanish where he needed to be caught, right in the Brussels sprouts. Forged forward, legged it back, turned around and pop, the ball was in the back of the net again.
rio fortygrand: 6
The man for the big occasion. England's Mr Occasion. An occasion just waiting to happen. Would have got a much higher score but for his below average impression of a quayside bollard. Until he threw that risky impersonation around the 4th minute, he was doing so well alongside the ever-dependable Jonny Evans.
SIXES AND EVANS: 9

Scene in the Utd penalty area after Balotelli goal

Talk of the devil, here he is. Game hinged on his unfortunate red card when the two-faced arsonist Balotelli tricked him into thinking Saturn was revolving around his Uranus. If he had stayed on, it was clear United were heading for a cricket score. Came very close with a sizzling swashbuckling miss-kick from Rooney's knock-back. Unlucky with that one. Ball, leg, swing, ah bugga. Will now have to wait for his hair to grow back after being talked to by The Manager after the game.
CAPRICE EVRA: 5
But was he playing? I don't think so. There's a mistake here. Hang on, just check the programme. Yep, he was out there. Five it is then! Very good. Just like the Invisible Man.
NINNY NANI NONNY: 8
Was asked to cause havoc down the wings and carried out his instructions to the letter. On both the left, when he was there and the right, when he switched, there was absolute and utter chaos. Very nice indeed. Made a beautiful egg custard at half time with some of the eggs that the manager had laid. Delicious.
DARREN FLETCHER: 9
Goal of the game from "Fletch", a player who is so much more than just a water-carrier and so much less than a proper effective professional footballer in the crunch of the really big occasion.
ANDERSON: -
Cannot be given a mark as he was put in a small perspex box after 22 minutes of the game and shot off towards the Moon with one of sly, skullduggery-man Balotelli's "Ultra Catherine Wheels" attached to it. Will almost certainly fall back to Earth eventually and, when he does, there will still be plenty of people hanging about ready to laugh at him.
LAURA ASHLEY: 8
Beautiful frocks, just enough frills, just enough embroidery, just enough latticework in the bodice, if you know what I mean. Could have made a nice cushion cover out of some of those crosses. Really quite fetching. When in full flight, it all sort of flew up around his thighs, which was less nice.
WAYNE ROONEY: 10
Tonking. Not put off by the glare from his wife's party make-up, pasted on by a fleet of McAlpine dumper trucks as the match progressed. Kept running, but mainly in the wrong direction to fetch Anderson's passes. Still can't fault his energy, attitude or indeed his lovely full bonce of auburn hair. Reminded me of Ginger Rogers with a Digestive Biscuit Eating Disorder.
DANNY WELBECK: 8
Showed distinct signs that he really is the real deal. Really. Really real deal. Ploughing a lone furrow upfront cannot be easy, but that is what you have to do when you are away to Inter Milan. Oh hang on...

Some others:
JOE HART: 6
Didn't see him make one good save all game. Will have to up his performances if he wants to one day play for England.
MICHAEL RICHARDS: 6
Forgot all about his defensive duties and pushed way up the pitch like a runaway tractor. No 2nd gear, does everything at an enormous gallop. Felt very sorry for Ninny Nani Nonny, who must have been perplexed by the full back's odd positioning way up the right wing. At one point appeared to be trying to rip his way through entire defence. Absolutely reckless attitude to such a big game.
VICTOR KOMPANY: 6

Got far too close to Rooney almost every time, meaning that Rooney had to drop unfeasibly deep far too often and ended up having the ball nicked from his toes just as he was going to produce something artistic and sumptuous for the Asian viewing public to coo at. This spoilt the game for a significant number of viewers in Thailand almost completely. kompany must learn to back off and let Rooney shoot a bit more.
JOE LESCOTT: 6
Played almost completely spoiling role, which was a shame for a central defender. Relies almost completely on his left foot, with a little bit of right and a tiny bit of head. This meant that he was often seen turning in little tight circles which made it difficult for the impressive Welbeck to get the ball back, which spoilt what was supposed to be an evenly matched fight.

GALE CLICHY: 5
Seems to have lost all of his Arsenal prowess, where he would run away from the ball constantly and let giant inviting spaces open up between himself and any number of dreamy creamy central defenders with names like Cushion, Poem and Pamphlet. Like Richards, he often looked like a winger, which is ridiculous in a tight match where he was expected to defend resolutely. Poor.
JAMES MILNER: 6

Expected much more from Milner. Here is a player who could, with his height, play the Crouch role, and with his bulk, also do what Yakubu does so well at Whipsnade Zoo, but he persists in running around until his lungs burst, playing fidgety little one-twos with that little Spanish guy and steaming into open spaces with only one thing on his mind: crossing to someone else! He has to wise up, slow down and be more greedy, or he will be on the way out.
GARETH BARRY: 5
Here's another one. Did anybody see him out there? Me neither. Neither here nor there, given the run around by Anderson, until he was mysteriously shipped off in his little skypod to the Moon. Disappointing afternoon counting sheep for Gareth. Also wore terrible trousers to Rooney's birthday party.
YAYA TOURÉ: 5
What does he do exactly? What is his role in the team? Is he a bulky bastion of defence or a bulky invading Viking? Too often he just appears for the big matches and stamps his authority on things without the least permission. He is also far too fast for a big lad. Where was he today, when the little men were threatening to take over? More questions than answers here, I'm afraid, and questions that will have to be answered by someone wiser than me in the weeks to come.
SMALL AND SPANISH: 6
This little man could eventually be a good player, if he would just indulge himself a bit more. We saw from Ninny Nani Nonny how to do interminable stepovers then get clouted into touch, how to do the wibble-wobble then fall over yourself, how to track back without getting your hair wet, but Small and Spanish didn't pick up on any of these little tricks and was the worse for wear as a consequence. No shimmies, no ineffectual waving of the right leg, no poncy poker straight legs before hitting a freekick towards the flagpoles on the roof. All in all, very Spanish and thus deeply disappointing.
MARIO BALOTELLI: 4
He burnt his house down on the eve of the match. What can I say? Should not really have been on the pitch, as his mind was obviously elsewhere. Sixes and Evans clearly affected by the Italian's antics, which were bordering on gamesmanship in my books. At one point was seen to take a small box of matches from his back pocket, making Evans veer away wildly with his arms in the air. This led to the space which led to the other thing going wrong, which ended up in poor distracted United conceding the 4th goal (or was it the sixth, I've lost count)
SERGIO AGUERO: 6

Mesmerised by his thighs. Sadly, he did not do much with them. Pumped up and down a bit, but only managed one goal, which is a poor return.
sub
EDIN DZEKO: 5
Another ineffectual display. Came on and missed two gilt-edged sitters with his first two touches. By the time he had warmed up, the game was almost over and he could only get himself the two goals, one of which came off his knee, the other off his foot.

Referee MARK CLOVED FOOT: 5
Extremely poor performance from this usually one-eyed, one-sided, hey-look-at-me ref. Usually so sure in his early pointing, his manly gesticulating and his gentlemanly leaning towards the home side. Today, nothing went right for the Gateshead Grimace, from the rash of wrongly produced cards to missing five crucial offsides for City's goals.

PINT OF ANAESTHETIC, PLEASE

2011-10-15T15:12:00.000-07:00

Now would be a good time to take in a sharp breath or two, before any bubbles that might be clouding the vision fade and pop in front of the eyes, making us blink like a March hare. Taking a swift glance at this will not help much, mind you:

Premier League table

Saturday, 15 October 2011

Position	Team	P	GD	PTS

1	Man City	8	21	22
2	Man Utd	8	19	20
3	Chelsea	8	11	19
4	Newcastle	7	5	15
5	Liverpool	8	2	14
6	Tottenham	6	1	12
7	Stoke	8	-2	12
8	Aston Villa	8	1	11
9	Norwich	8	-1	11
10	QPR	8	-8	9
11	Swansea	8	-5	8
12	Fulham	8	1	7
13	Everton	7	-4	7
14	Wolves	7	-4	7
15	Arsenal	7	-6	7
16	Sunderland	7	1	6
17	Bolton	8	-10	6
18	West Brom	7	-5	5
19	Wigan	8	-8	5
20	Blackburn	8	-9	5

Quite something, I think you'll agree.I'm not sure any of us quite believed in even our giddiest moments on the magic juice that it might come to this. On the brink of a Manchester derby (that's a proper derby, Mr Ferguson, where you play your proper first team and make proper excuses afterwards) on enemy territory, we prepare to enter the field top of the table, two points clear of our hosts with a better goal difference. Forget not that the United juggernaut put eight past Arsene's stunned crew earlier last month, but still live in our shadow by two goals. And two points. After eight games. Seven wins and an unseemly scramble at Craven Cottage, which should also have garnered three points.

Suddenly, what might have been the crowning glory of a Champions League game at home to a decent Spanish outfit, can't be swept aside quickly enough. That's all very well, your Rossi and your Yellow Submarines but looming on our horizon is one of those epoch-defining games that make your trousers stand up even when they are not being worn by anyone.

They're just names

As is customary at these times, our opponents-to-be have outdone themselves in lethargic one-liners to the press and wacky team formations in "their most important game of the season". How long, one wonders, can Ferguson perpetuate this nonsense before someone (hopefully wearing an Elizabethan cape, tortoise-shell shoes and a stethoscope) runs up and blows an enormous whistle right in his face? Liverpool -Man United, that age-old squabble, took place in bright sunlight, but with little or no illumination.

In his unparalleled, impartial way, gary neville's column - naturally backing up all Glaswegian ethical codes regarding Liverpool (toughest game), team tinkering (right to rotate) and Wayne Rooney (got to go to Poland/Ukraine) - confirms what we know already. United are inhabiting a world of increasingly ill-formed and ridiculous denial.

Liverpool v United was a study in the Incapable versus the Unwilling, nothing more. If United want to try and convince themselves that a Liverpool so timid, so cautiously structured, so reluctant to push more than two men forward into attack, is the acid test, then they've badly mixed up their "sulphuric" with their "hydrochloric".

In a moment of weakness, I sought comfort in this cutting from 1998 (above). Only 13 years ago. Click on it and treat yourself to the names in the immediate environs of Manchester City. They make pretty hilarious reading. We are in the third column right over to the edge of the page...it's a little blurred in order to protect those still with a weak heart after all these years.

Far be it from me to wander the corridors of the past, slamming doors, opening windows, fanning fresh air into murky, queer-smelling corners, but 1998 was not so long ago. A year of Pollock, of walking aggressively, of Bristol Rovers and Chesterfield, of tears, stale bread and the loudest wake up call since they attached an alarm clock to the side of Pluto's head and let him walk clean off the end of the pier.

Instead of Michael Branch winging it past some nutjob assassin from Gillingham, we now have the sumptuously impudent Mario Balotelli larging it in front of the Villa fans. He skids to a halt, they jeer, he tells them to watch it, they tell him to go screw himself, he nearly scores immediately, then performs an overhead kick in front of them to put City one up. If this sequence had been enacted in 1998, or 1997, or 1996, the script would have been so different, as Jamie Pollock will tell you: fall over your own feet, crowd laughs (that's your own crowd laughing), stand up and rub yourself down, realise half of your arse crack is showing, go up for heroic clearance, flounce ball comically from twenty yards into your own net, crowd disintegrates, giant clap of thunder resonates, stadium folds like little cardboard animation, feeble pre-pubescent voice shrieks "Fail" in the background....

The tide that went out such an unfathomably long way on that sunny day versus Queen's Park Rangers, is now flooding back in. It has been on its way in for a good while now, but the surge is beginning to become a wide wall, a long liquid barrier of tossing spray, a fully-fledged sky-blue curler. The question is, will that mountain of perfect, symmetrical turquoise water come crashing down next weekend and obliterate all in front of it or not? The time feels right. Surf's up.

DESERT DISPATCH - SEPTEMBER

2011-10-10T05:26:00.000-07:00

Joseph Barton yesterday

AN APOLOGY The Desert Dispatch regrets that the actions of a few misguided louts during the summer made it impossible to publish as usual during June and was it July and perhaps even August. Owing to the rank misbehaviour of one such behooded youth, our office window was smashed and the Mother Computer stolen, resulting in the loss of vital data and my interesting photograph collection (mainly of rare butterflies but nevertheless...). Police are looking for a young man with a stacked, gelled and obscurely constructed quiff and what might loosely be called "a Liverpool accent" last seen using his computer (our computer more like) to communicate through Twitter “like an over-excited ten year old might”. The texts of various love poems, some deeply incoherent book reviews, The World Compendium of Quotes for Quoting and an old Scrapbook of Nietzsche and Simone de Beauvoire cuttings were stolen.

TEVEZ FLIES OUT

Did he wipe away a tear as the Giant Fokker GF33 took to the grey-laden sky this evening or was it a spec of dust? Did he wave a little St George’s flag or was it just a hanky with a splatter of nose-bleed in the middle? Did he write “love you” in the condensated window or did it say something else less fragrant back to front? Was that a smile playing across his lower jaw or was he having his usual problems with the airline lasagne? Did he leave each supporter who made the trip to Munich a little envelope containing a few pennies as a gesture of contrition or was it just the key to his Bismark Humdinger 4x4? We will possibly never know, but he sure did leave a nasty smell behind in Terminal 3.

ENGLAND CALLING by Excited Dicky O’Donnald of The Mirror

After their scintillating league cup win over downtrodden and humdrum Leeds, it came as quite a SHOCK that Michael Owen didn’t get a long overdue and well deserved call up to play for England again. He has shown time and again that there is not a better and more clinically adept footballer who plays three times a season anywhere in Britain and probably the world. A call-up would almost certainly have put him in the running for Player of the Year too, but CRUSHINGLY this will all be put on ice until he POPS UP AGAIN sometime in March to notch the third goal in a 5-0 win at Fulham. In the meantime all votes should be diverted to Ryan Giggs as usual.

TEVEZ LATEST:

Carlos Tevez has been feted on arrival in Katakunga National Park, where thousands of local children people have made the 30 - 55 kilometre...22 - 34 mile trek, stagger, arid walk across barren wasted yet strangely peaceful scrubland with 50 degree heat, hot, hoover, no water and the ever-present threat of attack by lion, cheetah or scurrilous bugs, bugles and candyfloss salespeople. Carlos said on arrival/departure: "I am happy/sad to be here and it makes me want to believe/chuck up in this fucking heat. If it wasn't for Colonel Gadaafi and Nicolae Caeucesu and Phil Neal, this continent or quarry or very deep pit with water in it would be a nice and voluptuous place to have a weekend break/mushroom omelette in. Oooh, my kidneys/intestines/home made apple pie! Mancini you are a very unkind man" (this translation delivered by *Joorabchian2011TranslatorSystem*

GUEST PIECE by Mark Church Organ of the Daily Telegraph

SCHOLESY UNDERSTANDS DEMENTED TEVEZ It seems such a vast barren horribly empty space of time since Paul “Scholesy” Scholes, that archetypal footballers’ footballer hung up his boots and how we all deeply and dearly miss him... (Oh, Christ, get him off, pull this piece please, tell him the cheque’s in the post – Ed)

When you turn Rooney upside down, the effect is stunning

HAIRY ALLOVER After Wayne Rooney’s hugely successful hair transplant, the results of which prove that it is after all possible to waste more money than Victoria Beckham on vacuous vanity projects that make you look even more stupid than when you FIRST STARTED, it is being reported by some sources that ex-Manchester Utd footballer turned impartial Sky football pundit Gary Neville will be next to prostrate himself under the surgeon’s trembling TWEEZERS. Rooney, meanwhile, has been FORCED to have his hair DYED after the £30,000 transplant caused the bare scrub that was left to go GREY. We asked Forbes Phillipson Carcrash of Hair for Men to run his man eye over the new Rooney. “Why bother touching up your hair for thirty grand when your head’s like a giant potato?" he asked us. "The poor dear’s face looks like three-day-old snow after someone’s had a dump in it”.

Neville Junior, meanwhile, whose heroes in 80s Bury included Ron Atkinson, Arthur Albiston and Remi Moses, all of whom carried massive bushy facial and cranial furniture around the grounds of England at one time or another (Atkinson’s famous roll-over the top hair do featured finely interwoven hairs from 85 MONGOLIAN RED PANDAS and his mocassins were constructed from the finest platypus bladder.) was beset with acne and whispy hair - known as bumfluff in the medical profession- as a teenager and, whilst the greasy SPOTS eventually cleared up, he has carried the Other Burden with him into his late 30s. "Some males just never get beyond producing the little daisy tufts that look like they have sprouted from a pre-pubescent girl's armpit," said Carcrash. The painful medical procedure he may well go through requires tough, dark hairs to be taken from another part of the donor’s body and transplanted one by one into the upper lip of the patient. “In this case I think it’s safe to say we’ll just delve into his underpants and see what we can find.” said eminent physician Padraig Crerand.

BLATTER SPLATTER – FIFA AS CLEAN AS A CAVEMAN’S JOCKSTRAP

Old rascal Sepp Blatter's newly arranged "council of wisdom" whose job it will be to advise the FIFA president on how to speak at the top of his voice when allegations of corruption are put to him, are to be joined by new members. Unsure as to whether the weighty intellect and hearty vocal chords of Henry Kissinger, Johan Cruyff and Placido Domingo would suffice, word on the street in Zurich is that they will be joined soon by Sacha Distell, Eddie the Eagle and the Archbishop of Galway, the very reverend Terry and June, to bolster the ranks with a touch of theatricality, yarn spinning and TOUGH REALISM. In another scintillating development, the FIFA executive appointed to head the Olympic football tournament in London is still under investigation by the International Olympic Committee's ethics commission over corruption allegations, a spokesman for the IOC has confirmed. Itsa Potato, the president of the Confederation of African Football, has been appointed by Fifa to head the organising committee for the tournament and as the new chairman of the Goal Bureau, which distributes Fifa money for development projects. That’s “distributes FIFA money for development projects”. Selection Board member Ronnie Corbett said, “It’s the way we tell them. Most people were laughing when they heard we are all comedians on the selection board. Well they’re not laughing now! Boo-boom”.

BUSTER PHILLIPS – AN APPRECIATION
Ah yes. Well, no. But, there again. No, definitely not. 'Kin thruppeny bit.

MODRIC: A MAN MADE OUT OF SHORTBREAD
Smallish Tottenham Hotspur midfielder Luka Modric has aimed SHARP criticism at Spurs Chairman Daniel Levy after he went back on a deal to allow Modric to break his own contract with the club. The tiny Croatian Mastermind contestant was BITTERLY CONFUSED and AWFULLY UPSET after having his earlier agreement with the chairman reneged upon. “If this is how chairpersons around the football world are going to behave, I fear for the sport,” he giggled seriously. “Showing a modicum of decency and understanding would have allowed me to leave this glorious club for one even more glorious. Where’s that upright British behaviour when you need it,” he sqeaked excitedly. “One broken agreement should not necessarily lead straight to another one. Otherwise we are all in a pickle of eggs and cauliflower,” he said before driving off in his Tritonia Humdinger 4x4, trailing many cans of pop and other fruit-flavoured light refreshments from the back bumper.

I’M OFF. OR I WILL BE. I BLOODY AM NOW.
Manchester City forward Carlos Tevez will not be here any longer than necessary after he fired off another BROADSIDE about living conditions in Manchester. “Nothing has changed,” said the little striker, fondling his beard. “Manchester is still as stinking awful as it was last year and the year before that.”. I was brought up in a slum in Buenos Aires and cannot adjust to this kind of place at all. Nothing could have prepared me for what I found here when I first arrived”. Speaking of Manchester’s two restaurants, Tevez explained: “I no like chicka tikka massala and I no like fishy chips”.

No like it

Tevez told the press that “my family is very important to me, or at least some of them. Those small ones in the tennis socks. They cannot live here. It is full of English and Manchestrians. It is not just the food. It is the weather, the luxury hotels, people bowing and scraping and shaking hands all the time. It’s the club falling over itself to accommodate even my most stupid whims. I am an Apache not an Afghan hound. I need open spaces not MUSHY PEAS on a big plate.” (through an interpreter)

POSTSCRIPT: After his interview, Tevez left with the squad to play in Munich. Or not play. It turned out to be the latter, although it was a close run thing, when Mancini pulled him to his feet and tried to unzip his tracksuit. Like any decent four year old, Tevez immediately put a plan into operation: SPAGHETTI LEGS and SLIPPERY ARMS. Unable to get him to his feet, Mancini took the only option open to him: Aleksander Kolarov.

Afterwards, Bill Buggermee of Ancoats said: “I can understand Carlos’s predicament. You have to put yourself in his shoes. I mean, us lot, we just turn up drink and shout a lot. We’ve just spent an entire month’s salary to be here tonight and personally, I’ll never forget the show Tevez put on for us. His spirit is just on another level, isn’t it?”

DE GEA IN A HOLE

The donuts: clearly the hole has been stolen

Manchester United goalkeeper David de Gea, allegedly caught stealing a donut or doughnut from an Altrincham supermarket, has been acquitted by local magistrates after it was found the case for the prosecution had a hole in it. An alleged assault on a fig roll was curtailed when De Gea realised just in time that it tasted of tar. The disappearance of a slice of Battenburg from Timperley High Street is also being treated as suspicious.

TITUS BRAMBLE – AN EXPLANASHUN

Titus Bramble would like to assure all fans, particularly of his current club Schlunderland, and his former club Newpinkrodents that the alleged drugs found on his person have had no effect on his playing style whatsoever. Dwooob dwooob.

TEVEZ LATEST

Carlos Tevez arrived unexpectedly in Kitakunga National Park late last night, where the locals turned out in force to dance around him and wave coloured sticks with crepe paper at him. Due to a mistranslation by one of his crack team of aides, they now believe he is The Rice God.

THE CORRECT ANSWER

2011-10-02T00:38:00.000-07:00

And that, lads and lasses, is how to put to bed the most troublesome of weeks.

It started with a low rumbling, white static, the sound of the tide crashing up the beach, water flowing into places it shouldn't really get to. Then the warm embrace of Lancashire sun, 7,000 hands clapping, gulls clamouring, the sound of raucous laughter coming through the paperthin walls. It's a Ferrari shifting gears, the gentle clunk clunk of a slice of Mendelsohn, a young woman fiddling with her skirt.

Then crash. It steps up a gear and thunders into sight, menace replacing beauty, thrust replacing grace.It's upon you with a thud. Yaya Touré with DirectionFinder turned off.

Roberto Mancini leaves Ewood Park with his ears glowing from the tributes rolling down off the packed away end of travelling Blues. This was just the tonic he and everyone else needed after the rocky road through Bavaria nearly brought the mast down from the good vessel Manchester City. Stormy waters and a strong foul-smelling wind from the South Atlantic notwithstanding, this was a broad reach all the way home.

Suddenly some of Silva's slide rules passes may be slightly skewed and Yaya's compass has taken a smack, but still they form a hub of short simple passes that simultaneously gets the team out of trouble, creates space and time to think and launches the next foray northwards. It is the essential middle cog of this well-oiled machine and, even when it is slightly below par, as it was in midweek and in places at Ewood, it does the business. With the addition here of a second half Nasri and a fully-alive Balotelli, we were treated to a waltz of growing beauty.

We will have to -slowly at first, perhaps - accept that this City squad is not for shifting from the top of the table, not about to descend into nerve-ridden bad form, not about to be shaken up by their anxious Champions League debut. This squad is strong in length, breadth and depth, stands up to be counted and comes back for more when the dice are loaded. And the dice were loaded today. Witness the throng of journalists waiting for a good news story from the Blues this weekend.

Today's showing at Ewood Park began with the by-now accustomed assured, possession-filled start and moved on to a second half of sumptuous attacking, counter-attacking, one-touch passing and unerring finishing. The sight of the ball pinging around from City shirt to City shirt with such speed and accuracy, devastating in its precision and beautiful in its accomplishment, still makes me want to rub my eyes and recheck the colour of the shirts. Brought up on Danny Granville, Niel Heaney and any number of other willing pros that were "less than comfortable in possession", this chicken tikka taka is pure nectar, a kind of salve to the eyes after watching Stuart Pearce's muscly favourites welly it into the zones and charge after it like a pack of underfed schoolkids.

If Bayern's crisp possession made City look pedestrian on Tuesday, this was the same trick reheated and served on the humble men of Blackburn. What Bayern might do to Blackburn doesn't bear thinking about, but it would surely end with a humane killing. The week then has taught us several lessons: 1) the Champions League is a different place 2) The Premier League is not 3) Savic will be a big star very soon and 4) a team performing for each other is a team going places.

TEST DRIVING THE CHAMPIONS LEAGUE

2011-09-30T15:11:00.000-07:00

Oktoberfest. Champions League. Manchester City.

There. I've done it. All three together in one line. And what, as they say in these enlightened times, is not to like about that? Well, as it transpired, after an event-filled trip, quite a large sack-full of things, but more, much more of that later.

Marienplatz gets a makeover

For many many years the prospect of a tilt at the assembled tents of the Munchener Oktoberfest has been on my list of things to do before I reach the age where half a shandy sets me off whistling uncontrollably and dribbling down my jacket, but never in my wildest dreams had I thought that I might get there on the grounds that City were playing in the very same town at the very same time in the Truly Awe-Inspiring UEFA All-Singing All-Dancing (and ever-so slightly Plastic Fantastic) Champions League. Truly the world is a mad and challenging place to live in.

Arriving in Munich without pre-booked accommodation during this yearly splurge on beer and pretzels is nothing short of junior school naivety, but various visits to the interweb had revealed a lot of places who didn't want to take anymore monies ("nicht verfugbar" I took to mean something like "this hotelier is so satiated with dollars and euros, he's not listening to your plaintive calls anymore") and those who did but rather liked the idea of charging the uninitiated (and likely unwashed at this rate) between €285 (the best I found, only of course using the word "best" in a kind of double-hit reverse euphemism) and the somewhat extravagant €2300 (Danke sehr, Kempinsky Palast, but absolutely nein danke). So, with the growing realisation that in this particular Champions League city, bed looked like being a bench at the Hauptbahnhof alongside Fritzie der Alkoholiker and the rest of the Madly Shouting Men, I trailed into the Pension Lindner with my champions league tail firmly between my legs. One last attempt.

Five minutes later I am listening to middle-distant chants of "Best team in the land and all the world" as I nuzzle my first glass of Paulaner, a reasonably priced bed secured against the odds at the last moment. Thank you, Frau Frerick, you fragrant and accommodating woman.

Bring on the sausage

Close enough to Marienplatz to smell the salty breath of Albion's finest as they pillaged their way through to the only bar selling Heineken. Far enough away for some exercise before the deluge of pretzels and sausage. German beer is curiously satisfactory stuff: it has passed the Rheinheitsgebot to be with us (the age-old purity law, which states anybody producing beer containing more than hops, barley, water and yeast will go to prison and think about their folly for a very long time), it looks the real deal in its wildly condensating vase-shaped glasses, tastes as you'd expect anything brewed in the Vaterland to taste (clean, functional and doing exactly what it says on the tin, or, in this case, the barrel). Pretzels on the other hand, are the Ed Milliband of tabletop snacks: crusty on top, tasteless and leave you with a damp, flat feeling of impending flatulence. So it was a quick dive into a bowl of the world reknowned Gulash-suppe (thick spicy beef and vegetable stew) and, naturally, a quick brattie. Bratwurst must be accompanied by senf (mustard) and a bun, nothing more. Excellent food, filling, tasty and quintessentially German. That is until the sneaky waitress, taking huge and swift advantage of my bus driver's German, supplied me with a small set of bratwurst delicately placed on a hill of sauerkraut. That is plainly bending the rules and would have dire consequences later in the evening.

Ready for take-off, captain

The thing with sauerkraut, essentially rotting vinegary cabbage kept under control only by way of lights and mirrors, is that - when accompanied by Paulaner Pils, sausages and spicy gulasch soup, wearers of pointy Oktoberfest hats are more than likely to blow them off the top of their heads every time they hiccup. There I was nicely set up for the football, just waiting to get a quick spell of blocked tubes on the U-bahn and half of Munich would be cordoned off.

Round the corner at the Andechser am Dom Cafe the Andechser Helle tasted like it had been sieved through the fairest Bavarian barmaid's dirndl and the packed terrace offered a view of the boisterous singing section gathered across the road in front of the obligatory Killians Irish Pub. I spied the waitresses as they watched our lot serenading Uwe Rosler's grandpa: one shook her head sighing "die Englander", another asked "is there a game on tonight?" whilst her colleague assured her that, sure enough "Manchester were in town to play FCBayern". Marvellous stuff. To say the good folk of Munich are stiff would be grossly unfair but they do at times reveal the cosmopolitan cultural flexibility of a bed board. As the waitresses formed a huddle to argue about how the Champions League group format actually works (I kid you not), a heavily inebriated pair, one Mancunian, the other Bavarian, both shaven headed and in their late forties, swayed back to their seats. The Bavarian, arm around the shoulders of the City fan was saying "this is your first time in the Champions League isn't it?" like a concerned Mother preparing her son for the first day at school. All sights and sounds, and indeed smells, to make the heart leap. Trixie, the head waitress, wearing one of those delapidated faces that middle aged German women with a career of waiting on tables sometimes have, looked into my bloodshot eyes and asked "You are English.Why do you show your bottoms in public?". There are few handy answers at times like this. I muttered that it was one of our national past-times and dispatched her for more beer.

Like any afternoon in the sun drinking alcohol, however, at some point the mind turns to weightier matters. Where do I go now? How do the turnstiles in the underground work? Will the sauerkraut have its revenge? Will I well up thinking of Barney Daniels and Geoff Lomax when the Champions League music cranks into action and why does this drunk tramp think I'm his new besty mate? So many questions and very few answers. This was to be the case during the following two hours as well.

The Allianz Arena sits atop a hill by the Autobahn at Frotmanning, a faceless suburb near the ringroad. There is quite literally nothing there at all. It could be the moon and, just to ram home the metaphor, the stadium does a passable impersonation of Thunderbird Two, after making an emergency landing in a German meadow. Like many of us, the stadium was white when we arrived and red when we departed. I thought at first this was to mock our embarrassment, but apparently it also goes blue for 1860, who, I was told by Danny and Mona, a couple of enthusiastic Bayern supporters, Bayern are currently trying to evict. "Neighbours," they insisted, "who needs them?!" Quite so...

Is that Tevez down there

I know I should have, at this point, been awe-struck by the surroundings, but this is where Champions League morphs into World Cup, and morphs again into Barclays Premier League Plus and morphs again into any giant marketing exercise you care to mention. Besides the very familiar advertising, the stadium catering is dealt with by the main sponsors, leaving you with a non-selection of mainly tasteless, overpriced and garishly packaged drinks and food that anybody on the planet would recognise. The seats in this ground are uniform grey whilst Bayern continue their eviction-cum-strangulation of 1860, the tannoy plays upbeat Euro-trash-soft rock and Bayern's Stadium announcer, full of guttural bonhommie and fake tan smarmyness, is obviously a man enamoured of his own charms. As he addressed the City fans over the tannoy, you could feel something disagreeable was about to happen: "ja ent now a bit of English, ja, real cock-er-ney English ha ha!". Give the man a bone for that one. Cockney English? Cock-er-ney English?

The Bayern Ultras are a busy lot in a plastic sort of way too. The noise is undeniable, but I have never seen such well dressed, close-shaven, side parting ultras in all my life. They even have a chant from a Boney M song, a frightening enough thing in itself. Mental note to self: try to remember the "Rivers of Babylon" lyrics in case it kicks off in town later. "No wait, no fighting, listen to this. I remember Zion! mmmm mmmm mmmmm, mmmm, mmmmm". I can just see it all unfolding, a trail of immaculately groomed German ultras charging through the allies roaring "Show me your motion tra la la la la" and the rest of us, Manchester City's pride and glory, chanting back over our shoulders as we regroup for battle: "She looks like a sugar in a plum. Plum plum". It must be the Paulaner.

Thankfully there is palpable tension despite the unerring politeness and friendliness of all the locals and the slack, misplaced jokes of Tannoy Man. It is all incredibly civilised, sanitised and UCL prim and proper. This is already beginning to feel like heading into the Amazon for the first time and finding in a clearing in the dense forest that you have battled through for days to be confronted with the Big Burper Sunshine Motel. What, no pygmies with arrows through their noses and an I'm-going-to-eat-you look in their swollen eyes? Everyone's eating Whoppers here too? Whilst on the subject of burpers...that sauerkraut has now had time to ferment a little more. Acid redux meets Jonny Fartpants. I may have found a way to get the locals annoyed after all.

Look at me now, Mum

So to the match, if we must. A blast it would be to see the stars out there trying to cope with the occasion. For my own part, nerves were settling fine as the drinks boy took my mind off the troubles at hand, a spotty fellow of about 17, his was the job not even a spotty teenager should be subjected to: selling drinks was, some possessor of a larger brain than my own had decided, not his only purpose. There was to be an element of entertainment, one might be tempted to say comedy (if this weren't Germany of course), but that would be to demean the man's efforts. As well as an aluminium tray of tasty looking Champions League Drinks, the lad had a bright yellow balloon attached to his person. On it the single word "Thirsty?". His mam would have been so proud to know where he had got to. "Bit of studying to do tonight, ma! Back after the mat....er after the library shuts". Here he is anyway, in all his finery. A good man doing a complicated job.

City came out of the blocks as one would have expected a side set up so aggressively, with Silva prominent, first having his legs taken away by Boateng for what looked like a penalty, then playing in Dzeko for what looked like a goal. Sadly, neither materialised into anything more concrete than little bubbles of sauerkraut air. By the time Micah Richards was sent flying in the box, again the culprit was Boateng, doing his best to recapture his MCFC form, City's bright start was petering out and Bayern were beginning to get their game together. Only there was a problem: Bayern's quick passing was even quicker than City's. The ball flashed between Muller, Ribery, Schweinsteiger and Kroos like it was on a string with fire attached to it. Suddenly City were being swamped and the noise from The Tidy Boys grew to a howl. I noted that nobody, by this time, was singing, "hoorah, hoorah, it's a holi- holiday, a happy time for everyone, holi-holiday" and had cranked up the atmosphere to a howling gale of noise.

Two goals came quickly at the end of this barrage, both opportunist tap-ins from the reconstructed Gomez, after Hart had saved brilliantly and the defence had refused his requests to clear. Two nil at half time and 63,000 locals backslapping and high fiving all around me.

The second half was worse, much worse, but without the logical pay-off of several more Bayern goals. As City descended into a riot of strange substitutions (little did we know of the pantomime being acted out down on the touchline, despite some odd text messages from mates watching tv at home), Bayern seemed to content themselves with the two-goal lead. De Jong finally re-emerged to give the midfield a semblance of togetherness and City's patient passing game, which had unsettled the hosts for the opening 20 minutes, gradually returned to action. Kolarov, another of Mancini's willing subs, was put through and fired tamely wide when he should have scored his and City's second Champions League goal of the season. It was not to be and a two goal margin was the least a snappy, fast-moving Bayern side deserved. We were left with the sobering thought that David Silva had been shackled by Ribery, who had also managed to be the creative spark under the home side's explosive attacking. What a game the ugly little French gnome had had. I also wondered what or who had tampered with Yaya's compass, as his display of bewildered midfield shimmy-shammying and frustrated arm antics had become quite a spectacle by the end.

It was left to the bleary-eyed City support, stuffed into the u-bahn on line 6 back to town to sum the evening up. This was done nicely by Harry, so electrified by his evening's entertainment that both his voice and his balance were shot through. In a gruff voice much like the under-appreciated male member of Boney M, he attempted a chant of "we're here, we're there..." which quickly petered out, before refilling his plastic Budweiser cup with a steaming brew of his own. As he lifted the warm cup to make a toast, half the occupants of carriage 27 leapt to the side. "Who's yer best player?" he slurred at the nearest Bayern fans. "Who is it?". "Tonight Ribery. He took shitty City apart!" came the confident teutonic response. "Aye, right, chum. Not wrong there. Here's to Michel Ribery. He'll be playing for us come January!"

CHAMPIONS LEAGUE TEST DRIVE - THE RESULTS

Settling down for a beer in foreign climes: 10

         Sauerkraut under your wurst: 3
         Paulaner Pils and Andechser Helle: 9
         Frau Frerick at the Pension Lindner: 9
         Harry and the ubahn relief: 2
         Hospitality: 10
         Champions league hymn playing whilst Manchester City line up: ha, put a price on that!

German enthusiasm

TO WHOM IT MAY CONCERN

2011-09-29T05:55:00.000-07:00

Señor Tevez,

I have written to you before ("Dear Carlos...", back in the days where we were still trying to understand each other) but this time it is something entirely different. This time it is personal, it's gone too far and there's no room for first names anymore.

You see, whilst we have desperately being trying to understand each other (you have been trying to understand my position, haven't you, Señor?), our relationship seems to have taken what the medical experts call "a distinct turn for the worse". It may not quite be on life support but that big bag full of apple juice hanging there is a saline drip. You know what that means, don't you? Let me explain the situation a little. I hope you will excuse me using English, a widely spoken world language, and presume that you will get my drift, understand the gist. If not, my lawyers will be happy to attach a Spanish translation at a small extra cost to your good self.

File under "Expenses: beer, pretzels"

Speaking of lawyers, the main body of this letter is in fact a statement constructed by them on my behalf, as I don't want this to turn into a slanging match, which it almost surely would if I was left to my own simple devices. So, here is what they have to say:

Bell, Doyle, Pardoe & Book Associates at Law

CLAIM FOR COMPENSATION: €1500 Travel expenses, accommodation, food and

ahem- drink, plus emotional and / or psychological damage, stress, distress, time off work, ridicule from colleagues, barmy emails etc.

++++++++++++++++++++++

1) This is to notify you that our client wishes to issue a claim for compensation, owing to the fact that, having spent the heretofore mentioned sums, hereafter named "the almost total utter waste of money", on a long, arduous, complicated, time-consuming, harrowing and, last but not least, expensive trip to the city of Munich, Southern Germany, to see you and your colleagues play in the UEFA Champions League Football Tournament (C), and having watched his team, Manchester City lose to a well organised and superior opponent, discovered that the shambolic substitutions during aforementioned match were down partly or totally to your own refusal to take to the pitch when your employers deemed it necessary.This, in itself an act of flagrant and rumbustious non-alignment with team needs, was worsened by the unlawful drugging of Mr Samir Nasri's pre-match ice tea, causing him to believe he was Ged Brannan for long spells of the first half.

The breach of your own contract set down in 1) set a precedent, a chain reaction, if you please, involving my client and many thousands of others in the same or similar situations. That being that my client, hereinafter referred to as "Busted Flush", having spent time, monies, energy and spiritual and psychological resources to be present at said competitive event, was witness to a non-event, or at least an event lessened in its authenticity by the non-compliance of Señor Tevez to his work contract, and the mutually agreed obligations therein, with Manchester City football club, in effect rendering my client's own three day absence from his workplace an act of in flagrante fraud itself. Waving one's arms and grinding one's not in considerable lower jaw just made everything much worse, resulting in the normally peaceful Mr E. Dzeko to self-combust dangerously close to his colleagues.

3) Dereliction of duty. Breach of contract. Non-compliance. 2nd degree via via embezzlement (made this one up). Your acts have, for twelve months or so, proceeded to explore the very outer limits of what might be deemed contractually acceptable behaviour, by an individual or an employee in the light of the law, as it stands in the European Community vis-à-vis contractual obligation to perform duties to an employer. Your indefensible behaviour in Germany NOW JUSTIFIES A CLAIM FOR COMPENSATION OF SAID MONIES, SPENT IN THE KNOWLEDGE THAT ALL EMPLOYEES OF MANCHESTER CITY WOULD BE AVAILABLE FOR WORK DUTY, IF DEEMED NECESSARY BY THEIR DIRECT MANAGER OR SUPERVISOR AND THAT ALL EMPLOYEES WOULD TRY THEIR DARNDEST TO SMACK ONE IN THE OPPONENT'S ONION BAG. As Law 3111.08 of the 1958 amended contract law of the UK Government Constitution states, "all persons of able body shall be required to work time, shifts or small periods or phases... as of the contractually agreed points laid out for both employer and employee in said work contract, especially if Gareth Barry is being given the runaround, a chasing and/or made to look pedestrian by a small Frenchman with daft hair. In the event that Yaya Touré loses his compass bearings entirely at the same time as the above, we reserve the right to double compensation and a lot more beer...".

4) In light of above, compensation is sought to lighten the psychological and economic carnage inflicted upon my client by your actions or - in fact - non-actions in the aforementioned scenario. A lot of beer was spilled, Sauerkraut was eaten on the premise that it was the culturally correct thing to do - despite the obvious and various dangers to the consumer's well-being - and local barmaids were spoken to in a controversial and chummy manner. None of which would have happened if prior knowledge of your dicky fit had existed.

5) In light of possible complaints that the defendant was acting on either a) The Law of the Jungle, b) The Law of Fuerte Apache (it has a law? Any laws at all?) or c) The Law according to Kia Joorabchian, we the undersigned hereby revoke our spiritual attachment to The Football Club and any individuals understood to give The Same a bad name.

6) Gah, ok, in the obvious event the undersigned just cant seem to get The Football Club out of his system, thus rendering 5) wholly ineffective, it is stated that note has been taken of the defendant's behaviour and, in the event that his sticker appears in any of the plaintiff's sons' Panini Champions League Albums, said sticker will go directly and swiftly into the kitchen bin.

THE ALTERNATIVE TOP 10 CITY NOVELS

2011-09-20T04:21:00.000-07:00

We all remember reading our first Noddy book and thinking "what an alarming bullshitter and man of dubious morals Big Ears is" but here are some more classics which really should have pride of place on any self-respecting City fan's book shelf.

1. Zen and the Art of First Team Squad Maintenance: Surreal story following our unlikely comic hero, Peters Whale, who finds that his cheque book has a hole in it after a mysterious virus breaks out in his Cuban heels, works its way through his (sparse) body hair and into his jacket pocket, where it weaves itself into his imitation leather wallet melting it in seconds. Whale, noticing that his entire fortune of £27,15 has been eaten by the bug, manfully takes the decision to sell the unsellable Paul Stewart in order to fund his teams scuttling progress towards the second division.

2. The Lion, The Witch and The Scoreboard: Set in 1980s Manchester, the occupants of a damp yet homely corner of the inner city are treated to afternoons craning their necks to watch the antics of a piece of wildly malfunctioning electronic gadgetry, bought on the cheap from a television mogul with clapped-out hair in Altrincham. All is well until one night, midway through a sporting contest a strange message flashes up: Mnchhhhter Cyyy 1 Ox—ddd 3. Sco-e- Clenncy Clammentts.

Grrrrrrrr

3. Giorgios The Greek Here we have created for our delight one of the great characters of modern fiction. Giorgios, a strapping Greek God with the modern yet mythical powers of being able to seem smaller than he really is, more meek than a Greek and as terrifyingly thrusting as an Aegean bath sponge, arrives in Northern Europe with a brace on his teeth and a band in his hair and proceeds to lay waste to monks, play havoc with traffic wardens and make football supporters everywhere doubt their very ability to stand still and see life for what it is: a mirage.

4. For Whom The Bell Tolls: Nijinsky is a thoroughbred racehorse going about his classy business when he is cruelly attacked in his prime by a less than noble Scottish butcher, looking to sell illegal sausages to the people of Cowdenbeath. Heart-rending epic of this noble beast’s fight to regain his pride, his fitness and his running power. After a tremendous struggle against the odds, he makes a tentative comeback to the tracks in a Christmas run-out with Newcastle. How will the public react when they see him? What will the sausage butcher say in his defence? Where do we go from here? How many tissues can a grown man get through?

5. Our Man in the Parkside: Fascinating tale of the work of a humourless yet efficient man boldly doing a job that nobody appreciates. He is there for work every day, does as he’s told and earns only a pittance. he is on the door come rain come shine with only a Pint of Boddingtons as company. It is an existence of searing tedium and mind-altering monotony with a total lack of respect from those he comes into contact with, until finally he gets the chance one dark Wednesday evening to beat a lost Stoke City fan to a complete pulp.

6. Premiership Down: A group of young rabbits get caught in the forest with their rabbit pants down and, despite the best efforts of Bobtail Tiatto, everyone in the warren catches mixamatosis and dies a really excruciating death. An allegorical thriller for all the family stand to enjoy.

7. Existentialism and Human Absurdism by Jean Paul Alain Balle: The author tries to imagine what it would be like if one of his acquaintances, an average, red-headed Irishman with strangely unattractive ears and eyes that say "I've sat on a pin", tried to attach himself to a simple stick of wood with a little yellow flag waving from it. Would he still exist as a mere man with nothing between his sticky-out ears? Would he suddenly become a flagpole himself? Or would City simply be relegated as usual?

Dibs goes up for a corner

8. One Flew Over the Dibble’s Head: Intriguing tale based on a real story, where a hapless Welsh lothario is caught once too often with his pants down and arm up in the air with Gary Crosby heading back to the centre circle, leading to him gaining a reputation as a womaniser and enormous liability. One man’s lonely struggle to clear his name, score in Fridays and keep a clean sheet on Saturdays.

9. Willy Wonker and the Bog Roll Factory: Children’s story with a dark twist. The owner of the factory appears harmless and friendly at first, but children are taken in by his chuckle brother voice, his page-boy haircut and stripy shirts with white collars only to find that he has tricked them all into buying season tickets to watch a team, which contains a liquorish stick named Alan Kernaghan.

10. Mr Potato Head Has a Wonky Hip: 4^th in a series of pre-school learners, following on from Mr Potato Head Goes Up and Down, Mr Potato Head Takes City To Court and Mr Potato Head Makes Fatuous Excuses. Here, tiring of being a figure of fun in a children’s book, Potato gets serious and finally loses both his credibility and his balance, requiring him to lean heavily on Kevin Horlock, when his entire staff jump on him one afternoon in Blackburn. All proceeds to charity.
____________________________________________________________________________
Coming soon: "Paddy Crerand Ha Ha Ha"

PER FILO E PER SEGNO

2011-09-18T14:43:00.000-07:00

FOLLOWING EVERY THREAD IN THE TAILOR'S TRADE

9 Or So Questions Post Fulham

1. Why, dear Mr Mancini, did you replace City's best player - David Silva - with City's best journeyman - Pablo Zabaleta - with the score delicately set at 2-1, thus sending out a message to the worthy triers of Fulham to try a little harder and, in one fell swoop, replacing the hitherto fully functioning and delightfully fragrant Manchester chicken tikka-taka for a somewhat more stodgy and less than fluid Gorton goat biryani?

2. Why, caro Roberto, did a few of your "Napoli boys" not receive the invitation to take a little light rest, after running their honed legs off last Wednesday night? The nervousness that you told us about and the 90-odd minutes of debutant Champions League scurrying around surely left one or two of them a little heavy in the calves and thighs. And, why, by the way, Roberto, do you then tell the giggling press that we are struggling with a squad which is light in places?

"...and Brightwell was a little slow to move out there..."

3. Why, funny Mr Clattenburg, do you always seem to have your whistle stuck in your back pocket when a City player is molested but can make a whistling sound through your back end if necessary when a City player attempts a little bit of the old light fandango himself?

4. Why, Mr Dzeko, did our mutual friend Mr Clattenburg not give a foul for the assault on your person by Sidwell, instead choosing to view it as a piece of gentlemanly half of one half of the other argie-bargy, leading up to Fulham's cleanly struck straight-line oh deary-me how-did-that-go-in equaliser?

5. Why, in the name of Ronnie Corbett, even if the three points that were close to being "in the bag" eventually escaped and became desultory one, do so many people have to shoot off as if the side has lost to Barnet? Do they really not remember? Do they really not understand?

6. Why, dear God, if I look at Pablo Zabaleta and scrunch up my eyes very tight, does he begin to resemble Brian Horton after that cup tie at Newcastle when David Brightwell played like a bag and a half of quick drying (slow turning) cement?

7. Why is it possible, Mr Jol, that Fulham, after a tasty European outing of their own on Thursday and with a squad thinner than a cream cracker, could run like the clappers for 94 minutes, where some of our boys could not?

8. Why, Mr Hart, did you choose to wear Fernando Torres' old fashioned kicking-around-the-corner boots, which made your clearances head towards magnetic north?

9. Why, Mr De Jong, has it taken people this long to recognise the salient and crystal clear point that an MCFC midfield without your rapier thrusts and juggernaut slideys is a midfield heading towards its own goal chasing the opposition fella that "got away"?

and finally

9 and a half. Why is David Platt?

EUROPEAN COMMUNITY

2011-09-13T03:06:00.000-07:00

THOSE GLORY GLORY NIGHTS....

“Kevin Keegan, the English jewel in the crown of West German football is backing Manchester City to topple Borussia Monchengladbach in the UEFA Cup quarter final...”

So announced the Daily Express on Friday 19th January, the day of the draw for the last eight for what was then the third of UEFA’s yearly tournaments. This was January 1979, to be more precise, the last time the name of Manchester City was seen spinning around in UEFA’s little glass vases with any great regularity. In those days, City’s ex-manager was still the bubble-permed double European Footballer of the Year and City’s opponents were one of the strongest teams in (then West) Germany, rather than the rag-tag side that scraped through the relegation play-offs in the Bundesliga last season. Times move on and, more than 30 years later, City are once again edging into the limelight, helped this season by being drawn in the most evenly matched and interesting of all the Champions League groups. Napoli, Villareal and Bayern will present the Blues with a not inconsiderable barrier, but this is not the first time that the path to glory has been marked with Europe's finest.

Bell smashes in v. Twente

Back in 1979 City had already dealt admirably with Twente Enschede, Standard Liege and AC Milan, all big European hitters at the time, raising hopes that some glory could still be salvaged from a season which had flopped badly. Malcolm Allison’s second coming had proved to be a disaster and the Blues, tipped at the start of the campaign to be in the final shake-up for the title, were well adrift in lower mid-table. The Germans of Borussia Moenchengladbach were not without their problems either, slowly decreasing in power from the mighty outfit which had dominated the Bundesliga in the early 70s and jousted with Liverpool in UEFA and European Cup finals in recent years (many still remembered with awe Keegan’s last match in a Liverpool shirt as he gave the limpet marking of German stopper Bertie Vogts the test of its powers in Rome as Liverpool took the European crown on that famous night in 1977). This was a side steeped in experience and well used to the glory of winning titles and cups.

Gary Owen leaves his mark in Liege

Typical of Allison’s approach in this period, faced with the dilemma of who was to replace the suspended Gary Owen (Owen had kung-fu kicked his way into a red card in Liege in the second round the previous November), the maverick Allison opted to give the 18 year-old Nicky Reid a debut and ask him to man-mark the then-footballer of the year Alan Simonsen. Only Big Mal could have come to a well-thought-out conclusion like this when Colin Bell and Kaziu Deyna, European veterans both, were ready and willing to come in for Owen and shore up the middle of the park. Allison - as is commonly accepted - preferred the moves of the gambler, however, and the raw Reid was chosen to play.

Reid played well enough in the first leg, considering the almighty burden bestowed upon him (Allison would launch Tommy Caton with similar disregard for the youngster’s well-being at the start of the next season), but City struggled to get through a rugged German rearguard, backed by some great keeping from the giant Wolfgang Kneib. City, unable to build on the 25th minute lead given to them by Mike Channon, were pegged back mid-way through the second period, when Simonsen’s trickery on the wing opened up a chance for Ewald Lienen to equalise crisply. The Germans tested Corrigan towards the end and Bruns’ shot smacked off a post and with City losing their shape and composure (not for the first time in this European campaign).

Kidd heads in at a misty San Siro

For reasons known only to himself, Paul Power then started a multi-player punch-up after a robust challenge on the keeper left players squaring up to each other ominously. By the end, Borussia were not entirely alone being pleased with the 1-1 draw. Allison later commented that “I would not say they were defensive, let’s just say they got all eleven players behind the ball every time we came within 40 yards of their goal!”.

The second leg in front of the towering old cliff-edge terraces of a Bokelberg packed to its 35,000 capacity, saw a gutsy City performance undone by sheer bad luck just before the interval. With the game ebbing and flowing and little to choose between the sides, Tony Henry sent a screaming shot onto the Borussia post in the 44th minute. The ball cannoned free to some distance from the home goal. Picking up the loose ball, the Germans swept straight up-field and Kulik buried a shot to send his side in at the interval one-up. Allison would later say that “the goal just before half time broke our neck” but in truth City were to take quite a hammering in the second half, with the Danes Simonsen and Kalle Del’Haye attacking down either flank in mesmerising fashion. By the 72nd minute City were three goals down, Bruns and the menacing Del’Haye adding to the German total, and heading swiftly for the exit. It had been a titanic struggle but the Germans on this form held just too many aces for the Blues to deal with. Deyna’s belated introduction for the struggling Nicky Reid sparked a revival and his sweetly struck volley from Channon’s pass brought City back into the game. The tie was already won by then, however.

City had been steamrollered in the second half by the all-out attacking wing-play of Udo Lattek’s Borussia, who would go on to win the UEFA Cup that very season against Eintracht Frankfurt in the final. It had been a fantastic journey through to the quarter-finals, illuminating what might have been in an increasingly disappointing season. The 3-2 win over twente, a blistering 4-0 defeat of Standard and the never-to-be-forgotten games with AC Milan (2-2 in the San Siro, 3-0 at Maine Road on one of those truly unforgettable European nights when the noise cascading down off the Kippax would have woken the dead). This was to be the last season of European glory for the Blues, who went into steady decline from there.

Recent efforts in the rejigged Europa League have brought the amusing (Lokeren away), the bizarre (Faero Islands) and the occasional moment of big time tension (Hamburg home), but little sign of what was experienced in those heady days of 1979. Now, City stand on the threshold of something entirely different. The pot with the big ears beckons. The music, the banners, the stadium drapery, the wall-to-wall media coverage that comes with the Champions League will now engulf a wide-eyed Manchester City too.

No one present at either match against Borussia Monchengladbach all those years ago could possibly have realised at the time how many years of torment were to follow before the Blues once again graced the Big Fields of continental Europe. That most surely is about to be put right.

BOARD STIFF

2011-09-06T03:54:00.000-07:00

Cook, Swales and Maddock: A History of Bombastic Eloquence

Happily, Manchester City has always been a club capable of putting its foot, be it clad with the latest Predator football boot, or slightly scuffed brogue, firmly into its waiting mouth. Players and directors alike have always revealed a capacity to entertain, amaze and shock in almost equal measures down the years and followers of the great sky blue soap opera have been comfortable with a bit of self-deprecation to bounce away any derision from outside.

The latest brouhaha surrounding the club leaves only a sour taste in the mouth, however. Gary Cook, the club's self-styled larger than life business guru, the type of man who you will find glad-handing countless strangers in suits, holding forth about this that and the extremely tedious other at networking lunches in three star convention centres and playing the big shouldered noise clapping staff into position for the latest ill-judged bonding exercise. He is the hugely embarrassing boss that we've all had at one time or another. When he speaks it is at a volume used only by self-confident people who are used to being listened to by large audiences. When he laughs, it is with that air-filled exaggeration that makes normal people disappear to the toilets for a smoke. When he enthuses it is with such hyperbole that it makes the hairs stand up inside your underpants. David Brent meets Fats Waller meets Tony Blair. It takes a special kind of human being to parp loudly and lastingly in public about subject matter he or she holds only a tenuous grasp of. To stride around representing a megalith like Nike, or for that matter the new global-reach Manchester City, takes balls, guts, bravado and a handsome slice of bullshittery and the great trouble with this cosmically inflammable combination is that, every time you pull it off, you wing it, you are surrounded by rosy shining faces clapping their little hands off, it eases a little more helium into the tank. These people eventually float around thinking they are part-owners of Planet Earth and can act as its spokesperson.

City have been blessed with some earth-shatteringly multi-dimensional boardroom mavericks during the club's rich and varied history. The first to really make his mark in the modern era was Peter J Swales, a man made for the monochrome era of the early 70s with his rugged tie-died comb-over making him look like he was trundling around the breeze block precincts of Altrincham with a lightly ravaged raccoon atop his bonce. The hair we would come to accept in the way you accept a pet dog that always arches his back for a dump in the most preposterously public places, but Mr Swales was never content to simply look absurd; he wanted to sound absurd too.

Never was this more apparent than the classic moment when the quietly spoken Mel Machin's promising but forever-understated reign came to an abrupt Swalesian end. Machin was the sort of guy that, after watching his team put 10 past Huddersfield, would say in a voice that required the collected presspack to nuzzle in to within 10 centimetres of his mouth, "I think the boys did a good job today and we'll be back again on Monday to prepare for Swindon Town". Cue startled hacks, mouths open, pencils mid air, wondering what to say next. Swales noticed this and, as was his style, sacked Machin swiftly and with no mercy. When he faced the press pack himself, it was down to Machin's apparent "lack of repartee with the crowd". You see, like Cook, Swales was one of those clever men, who could be hilariously funny (and smile along with the joke) without completely realising how truly entertaining he was being.

(below) Swales, looking like a player in the Cuban Missile Crisis, gets his bushy-haired man. Ian Niven's lively hairpiece can clearly be seen enjoying itself in the background

In the startlingly bold Granada tv film "City" from 1980, which happened across a story whilst innocently documenting the backroom shuffling of a big time football club, we saw the machinations of Swales and his bald-headed tea drinking cavaliers as Big Mal was ushered out of office and replaced by John Bond. Bond's job interview, filmed in full, is a gem of televisual romance from that bygone era. Watching it now is like seeing a black and white episode of What Happened to the Likely Lads: you watch it and feel your jaw dropping open as you realise the 70s was as close to today's society as living on Mars. Bond, all stacked hair (much to Swales' evident jealousy) and Norfolk burr, runs through a short catalogue of comically inept phrases to describe how he motivates, propels and dresses up a team, a club, a whole population. Swales and his grey-suited sexagenarians nod and smoke, tut and hiccup. In closed quorum, they begin another round of tea drinking, tutting and nodding. Ian Niven, a small man with a lively hairpiece, refuses to budge from his Pro-Mal stance. "I'm not saying (whether I like him or not) but I'll back anything you say or do, Mr Chairman" he fizzles. "Right that's settled then," says Swales, "Get him back in". Bond enters and sits. Swales: "Very good, that, John. We've listened to what you said and we've been very impressed and we'd like to offer you the job on the proviso that we, er, (starts to look sheepish for the first time in 25 years) can sort out the er compensation side of things with Norwich". And so, on the basis of ten minutes of trite one-liners and the hollow 70s version of Gary Cook's clipped management-speak, Bond is in and, naturally enough, two years later, out again. This was very much how Peter Swales, Altrincham's most successful and most high-profile television set salesman, operated. Speak, sack, think, in that order. Rest. Breathe. Call press conference. Speak, sack, think. Repeat to fade.

Swales may not have had many attributes, but he was a survivor and, for all the out-takes and slip-ups, he was still hanging on grimly to office in 1993, when - true to form - he sacked Peter Reid after three games of the new season. It is not recorded exactly what his problem was, but Reid almost certainly lacked "repartee" with the board, which by now included the cake-faced journalist John Maddock, hired as a buffer between the by-now bedraggled looking Swales (the raccoon combover supplanted by a set of thin, wet eels lined up in asymmetric novelty across the famous bald expanse) and manager Reid. "I am not the mouthpiece for Peter Swales," Maddock blustered to nobody's belief, "Make no mistake about this I am the new supremo at Maine Road with a specific mandate from the board". Reid was gone the next day, replaced by the invisible Brian Horton. Maddock himself lasted a gaff-strewn couple of months before falling on his own quill pen. Swales too was soon gone, a giant career of verbal tomfoolery and savage firings behind him for good.

Which, by a rather circuitous route, brings us back to square one. Cook, the super-garrulous chief exec who thinks a Thai dictator who has "disappeared" thousands of the country's criminals and likes the idea of adorning the match programme with his nicely oval face, is a "good golf partner". Would he have swung a haphazard four iron wit Pol Pot, one wonders, or indulged in a quiet game of Pictionary with Richard Nixon. We will perhaps never know. What is certain, is that, once again, the good and sometimes comical reputation of Manchester City is once again in the spotlight.

"Charismatic" leader

Cook is no more evil than, say, Ken Bates, no more plotting than Peter Kenyon, no more lame than Bill Kenwright. Indeed he has brought about change on a scale that most supporters could not have dreamed about three short years ago. Yes, the funds available have made him look good and generous, but as a man charged with driving the club's off the field activities forward, most would say he has been a big success. As a human being entrusted with not making the club a laughing stock with his quips, quotes and grimaces, he has been significantly less successful. It is with a grandiloquence that marries pomposity with ridicule that such figures come unstuck. This latest episode now paints the picture not only of a man with decidedly poor taste in jokes, but also one with an ill-considered plan for what to some might appear to be an attempt at cover-up. That will no doubt come out with the wash when lawyers and I.T.experts get their call. In the meantime, the irascible PJ Swales would no doubt have considered it the opportune moment to stand slowly from his swivel chair and say "Well, Gary, lad, you've done great, we appreciate that, really do, but I'm going to have to ask you to get your stuff.. No hard feelings is there". Mr Cook will be pleased that the trigger finger of Chairman Khaldoon Al Mubarak is decidedly less fidgety.

SHAUN WRIGHT-PHILLIPS: LAST OF A KIND

2011-09-02T15:46:00.000-07:00

"He is about as far from the stereotypical young footballer as it is possible to get. There are no flash cars, no designer clothes and definitely no visits to night clubs..." Chris Bailey, MEN, after Shaun Wright-Phillips' derby debut at Maine Road, November 18th 2000

There's an unusual and slightly haunting image of Shaun Wright- Phillips that I have in the back of my mind and it will not go away. It is not of the little man climbing off the bench, raw and enthusiastic, for his debut in 1999. Not the vaguely ridiculous robot moves he threw after scorching the top of the net in the last minute of an epic 4-1 inaugural Eastlands derby win. Not the scintillating pace and drive of his goals coming in from the right wing against Bolton, Fulham, Bradford. Nor is it the delightful cameo he produced at the Stadium of Light on his second debut in August 2008. The picture in my mind is of a diminutive figure in jeans and obligatory gangsta tee-shirt, somewhere in London in the early hours of yet another Premier League Night Out. Shaun's eyes are blurred and he looks like he is about to stumble off the curb. Stuffed into the waistband of his bedraggled jeans is a half-full bottle of Jack Daniels.

Without doubt, Jack Daniels would not have been a name close to either his heart or his lips when he set out on the unlikely road to success at Nottingham Forest's academy in the late nineties. For a lad so diminutive, even the tenuous but slightly overworked link to ex-Arsenal legend Ian Wright would not have been of any great assistance, if this tiny man could not persuade Those That Know that being as tall as a leprechaun is not necessarily a deterrent to playing top flight football. There were certainly many who doubted in those early days. Kenny Dalglish and Alex Ferguson are living proof that the football gene pool does not always leap successfully from one generation to the next.

After a 6-0 demolition of Sheffield United at the beginning of 1999-00, it was decided that the time had come for the little reserve winger from London to dip his feet. Burnley away in the Worthington Cup. The first leg had already been won 5-0 and the bony kid came on in the 69th minute to replace Terry Cooke for his first taste of the big time. 3,647 people witnessed the act, hardly the big stage that he had dreamed of. That night he wore a pair of shorts that reached below his knees. His short-sleeved shirt came down over his elbows. there was hardly any shaun Wright-Philips to see at all.

As City hit the top of the table with a 1-0 win at Walsall, it was clear that Joe Royle's men had a good chance of cruising straight through from the old 3rd tier to the Premier league. A serious resurrection was well under way. As a result of this, Wright-Phillips was used sparingly in that glorious free-flowing season, which ended at Ewood Park with emotion, fans and goals overflowing in all directions.

He did not have long to wait to make his league bow during that same season. It came in the salubrious surroundings of Vale Park, on a gloomy Winter afternoon in the Potteries, where City won 2-1 with late goals from the foot of Vale defender Snijders and City left back Danny Granville. Chris Bailey wrote of the debut thus in the Manchester Evening news: "...teenage Wright-Phillips, living proof that you don't have to be a muscle-bound six footer to create havoc on a football field...". This ability to be small yet big would assist the new City winger in a career that would ultimately take him all the way up to the giddy heights of international football. At no point did any critic cite a lack of inches as something that might hold him back.

His first full start in the league came a week later in an exhilarating 4-2 win over alan ball's Portsmouth, kept his place for the trip to QPR a week later (1-1) and was an unused sub for the 1-0 win at table toppers Charlton Athletic on 20th November. With Joe Royle bringing in strikers in his own mould (the bruiser Lee Peacock and the bruised Bob "Binman" Taylor) plus Mark Kennedy's terrific form on the left wing, first team starts were sparse for the youngster as City's promotion rush began to take serious shape. With an increasingly immovable front two of Goater and Dickov (the latter looking collosal alongside Wright-Phillips), starts were at a premium.When he realised that Royle also fancied Lee Mills and Danny Allsopp ahead of him, Wright-Philips may have had his first doubts about City, but better was to come in the season that followed and an award of Young City Player of the Year made up for the lack of starts in the second half of the season.

Despite City's return to the Big League seeming a little premature, the young winger's chances of first team action seemed to be compromised from the start with the headline acquisitions of George Weah and Paolo Wanchope, but he came off the subs' bench in the opening day slaughter at Charlton and never looked back, making a total of 20 starts in a season that would ultimately end in disappointment and relegation back to whence we had come.

Although that first full season was fraught with crisis, surrounded from start to finish by the thick smoke of failure, there were cameos of gusto and verve from the little reserve, a jinking performance in the 1-4 reverse at West Ham enough in fact to persuade Royle to put the unpolished little gem into the starting line-up against United, which City duly lost 1-0 with SWP getting City's Man of the Match honours for the 2nd consecutive week. He had arrived in typically electric fashion in everybody's line of vision and there would be no ignoring him now.

With Royle banished at the end of a bitterly disappointing term, Kevin Keegan's arrival was seen as a promising move for Wright-Phillips' immediate prospects. Now seen as the standard bearer of an increasingly productive City academy,

the little man played an integral part in a swashbuckling promotion season, weighing in with his first goals (8 of them in all) as the Blues went storming back up at the first attempt. Playing wide on the right of a four man midfield with Huckerby and Goater up ahead, Wright-Phillips was part of a City side that scored a record-equalling 109 goals, amongst them a corker at Millwall in a fantastic 3-2 win against the odds at the New Den, an unorthodox corkscrew volley v Bradford City and both goals in a 2-0 almost-title-clinching win at rivals Wolves at Easter. The little man had not just arrived, he was now a matchwinner. In the Keegan years, he became something of a favourite, sometimes playing at right back (and getting sent off against Everton) but mostly in his customary wide right roving role where he could stretch opposing defences with his speed, guile and deceptive strength. He seemed to thrive around the likes of Anelka and Fowler, perhaps remembering having to learn his trade watching Lee Peacock and Lee Mills, and he never ever looked phased by the opposition. The Kippax took him to their hearts, the little dynamo with the heart of a lion and chants of Shauny Wright Wright Wright echoed around the old ground every week. These must have been heady times for the youngster.

He starred in the 6-2 win over Bolton, a 3-0 win at QPR (where ironically he will play this season and where, in this game, he was racially abused by some in the crowd, according to his watching father) and the other-worldly cup replay win at Spurs, before scoring a corker against United to give Eastlands its first taste of derby success, but things were beginning to go sour for the Keegan regime and he - along with Keegan himself- would soon be gone. The performance against United and growing stature of SWP in the top flight game led to an England call up for a late season friendly in Sweden. Injury curtailed his chances and scuppered his late bid for inclusion for Euro 2004 but a full international debut was not far away, coming eventually against Ukraine at the start of the following season. When that chance did arrive, Wright-Phillips delivered a debut at St James Park, which resembled perfectly all he had done for City up to that point. He topped off a sparkling display with a raking shot from the right to score as well. Wright Phillips was by now at the very top of his game and, as Keegan's empire wilted as quickly as his will to continue, the manager aired doubts about City's ability to compete if rumoured interest from Arsenal and Chelsea materialised at an eye-watering 24 million pounds. Keegan would not last to the end of the 2004-05 season. Wright-Phillips did, helping seal an ecstatic late run to within a point of UEFA Cup qualification under Stuart Pearce (including a swerving run and blockbuster shot at Villa Park) but said farewell soon after, joining the revolution at Chelsea. Foolishly, some said.

His stay in London featured much inactivity on the bench, a stalled career and sporadic international squad appearances. He was considered a regular and when a revamped and heavily monied MCFC returned to bid for him three and a half years later, the interest of Mark Hughes and Thaksin Shinawatra persuaded him to "come home". His price had fallen from 24 million to just 8 in the space of his Chelsea stint. This move back north could also be described as a mistake, for, once his stunning two goal debut at Sunderland was over, he gradually sank into a squad position almost identical to that which he had occupied in London. With City's riches building up and Eastland's grey precincts suddenly pulling in the most extravagant of world talent, the little man once again found himself on the outside looking in. There were still occasional signs of the deftness of foot and the lightning bursts of speed down the touchline, but they had become all too infrequent. A sign of a change in character came too, when his garrulous father insisted his son had been "mugged up" when the club turned down excessive wage demands. The writing was on the wall.

Now he returns to the big smoke, a player approaching the twilight years, rich beyond his dreams, but far from the sprightly little urchin, who first skipped onto the wet pitch for that cup tie at Burnley. The true standard bearer for City's fantastically productive academy system now bears the hallmark of the excesses of modern top flight football: his is a career that suffered for the pursuit of money when his talent could have taken him even further than it ultimately did.

Despite this and all the modern day trappings that he has gathered around him, the advisers and the bottles of American whisky, for good or for bad we are probably saying goodbye to the last player of this kind to grace the sky blue shirt of Manchester City in the modern era. An academy product that played more than 200 games for his club. His ilk are a near extinct breed in this era of greed is good and the fastbuck to heaven. For that at least, we offer you our thanks, Little Man, and wish you well at Loftus Road.

RAPTURE

2011-08-29T03:42:00.000-07:00

Three games in (four with Wembley's game of two halves) and we have a picture of incredulous beauty at the top of the table. Spoiled only by the fast-withering Arsenal's act of total down-tools at Old Trafford yesterday afternoon.

That's the way to do it

Often have been the times that City have sat atop the table after one or two games, less frequently after 3 and, beyond that into the meaty part of the football season, well, more like the frequency of the appearances of a laughing Colonel Gaddafi looking for a cool glass of lemonade and a goat sandwich at a late night Tripoli coffee bar.

It has quickly become apparent that this season's incarnation of the great shambling bulk known as Manchester City is nimble, wily, forceful and precise. No more stumbling. No more lofted balls into the highstreet. This is Chicken Tikka-Taka at its most effervescent. In all three league games to date Mancini's class of 2011-12 have played the type of controlled, fast intricate passing manouevres that gives defenders a headache merely trying to watch the ball, never mind keep up with it. The eyes slowly cross.

Nasri's immediate addition against Tottenham made for even more slick, laser-accurate passing. Little one-twos, feints, touches, turns, flicks and moves into space to receive and set off again. Spurs were quickly and irretrievably tied into little tidy knots, the cumbersome-looking pair of Kaboul and Dawson having no answers to the light-footed acceleration of City's mini dynamos. Even the gutsy but hardly Maradona-esque Zabaleta was moved to perform a little arabesque in passing Modric in the second half. The mood, it seems, can be catching.

If Swansea put up brave opening night resistance and Bolton never quite gave up the race, Tottenham had a torrid time even getting to the edge of the City box. In their own stadium. When was the last time City set foot on the green grass of one of the recognised elite teams and wiped the very floor with them? You will have to go back longer than my memory will carry me to find an answer. If this were the media's favourite phrase " a statement of intent", then it was written in bold capital letters and hung high from the biggest oak tree on the village green.

The irony of all this mesmerising one touch trickery by the midget maestros Aguero, Silva and Nasri is that the biggest benefactor up to now has been the beanpole Dzeko, now displaying the full towering range of his attributes, as seen week in week out in Wolfsburg down the years. For all those laughing at his efforts last season, there is only the sound of the wind whsitling in the bushes now. Discerning as ever, the City support has picked him out for special praise already and he is fast turning into the goal machine that we thought we had bought earlier. Dzeko offers so much more than goals, though. What a pleasure to see the big man shielding, trapping, taking part in the chicken tikka-taka and banging in such a rich variety of classily dispatched goals that nobody knows what is coming next. A tap in, a thunderous screamer, a twisted backwards header, a gently flighted lob?

And Aguero? Darting urgent powerful. His light-footed performance is an obvious foil for the big man next to him, but the twist and swift flight from dawson for City's 4th, culminating in a rasping shot whilst holding the heavy-breathing defender off, smacks of wonderful artistry mixed with significant force. That low centre of gravity and tree-like thighs are not unlike his father-in-law's after all. If there are more similarities, by all means feel free to display them, Little Man.

In any normal season, we would have been looking at City already comfortable in the driving seat after three games, but Arsene Wenger's odd behaviour down in Islington has assured us of a start to the season anything but normal. That, as ever, has allowed the old enemy to steal our thunder once again, but the feeling remains that this City side has wheeled out some pretty enormous drums to bang this season. That throbbing insistent beat calls a very different tune this time out and the message is more than clear: We're coming to get you.

Here are City's opening games from the last 40 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	CITY	3	Birmingham	1
74-75	17 Aug	CITY	4	West Ham	0
75-76	16 Aug	CITY	3	Norwich	0
76-77	12 Aug	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	Southampton	2	CITY	0
81-82	29 Aug	CITY	2	WBA	1
82-83	28 Aug	Norwich	1	CITY	2
83-84	27 Aug	C. Palace	0	CITY	2
84-85	24 Aug	Wimbledon	2	CITY	2
85-86	17 Aug	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	Liverpool	3	CITY	1
90-91	25 Aug	Spurs	3	CITY	1
91-92	17 Aug	Coventry	0	CITY	1
92-93	17 Aug	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	2	Portsmouth	2
98-99	8 Aug	CITY	3	Blackpool	0
99-00	8 Aug	CITY	0	Wolves	1
00-01	19 Aug	Charlton	4	CITY	0
2001-2	11 Aug	CITY	3	Watford	0
2002-3	17 Aug	Leeds	3	CITY	0
2003-4	17 Aug	Charlton	0	CITY	3
2004-5	14 Aug	CITY	1	Fulham	1
2005-6	13 Aug	CITY	0	WBA	0
2006-7	20 Aug	Chelsea	3	CITY	0
2007-8	11 Aug	West Ham	0	CITY	2
2008-9	17 Aug	Aston Villa	4	CITY	2
2009-10	15 Aug	Blackburn	1	CITY	2
2010-11		Spurs	0	CITY	0