Friday, December 10, 2021

A BRIEF HISTORY OF LAXATIVES

Phil Neal looks pensive as he watches City stumble to defeat in his tenth and last game in charge at Oakwell, Barnsley, a disastrous 0-2 loss. 28th December 1996. 

25 years ago, Philip George Neal was temporarily in sole charge of Manchester City. If you had been asleep, or perhaps more aptly for the times, irrevocably hungover, you might have missed his stewardship of the club altogether. In historical terms, however, it is worth holding onto, as an example, a small, foul-smelling segment, of the very worst of Manchester City.

It came between the truncated disaster of Steve Coppell's tenure (just the 33 days sufficing for Steve) and the gentle, guitar-strumming disintegration under Frank Clark. To say it was the best of times, the worst of times was to do bad times a great disservice. Manchester City were slipping inexorably towards a first-ever assignment in the third tier of English pro football and some of the most horribly iconic fixtures in the club's long history.

Neal had been a rampaging fullback in the all-conquering Liverpool side of the 70s, brought in as a budget defender from Northampton Town, in the days when even the top dogs shopped at Oxfam. As a postscript to a fabulously decorated playing career that had included 50 full caps for England, most of which fell in the country's grim avoid-qualifying-for-all-finals spree of 1974-1979, his managerial stints at Bolton then Coventry then Cardiff had progressed from promising to dull to defensive leeks

Making 650 appearances for Liverpool juxtaposed nicely with presiding over precisely 10 City games and a collection of results that make him quite possibly the worst-ever manager of Manchester City.

Neal was in the dugout and calling the shots for a home calamity v Oxford United (lost 2-3), a dreadful, icy 0-0 night draw with Huddersfield at Maine Road that had not a single redeeming feature, stultifying home defeats to Tranmere (1-2) and Port Vale (0-1) that you had to see to believe and no-nonsense (full of nonsense) defeats at Portsmouth (1-2), Wolves (0-3), Oldham (1-2) and Barnsley, Neal's spectacular last game in charge (0-2). 

If you have been counting, that makes eight.

The other two games, although both victories, summed up City almost as succinctly as the big top collapses at home to Port Vale and Oxford. This was pure cabaret, sheer unadulterated slapstick for the frozen masses huddled in disbelieving knots on the Kippax. The home game with West Brom, Neal's second in charge, was clutched from the jaws of defeat by an unknown deity floating around the ground that bitter Wednesday night. The now-you-see-it, now-you-don't 3-2 win lifted City to 17th in the old League Division One. That's "up to seventeenth".

Paul Dickov prepares to welcome the ball back from orbit.


By the time the Bradford match came around, City had slipped back to 21st. There were 24 teams in the division. The 3rd division was smiling coquettishly and lifting its hem at us. We winked back and proceeded to fall into an open manhole. 

The Bradford game fell on Saturday 7th December 1996. The day of days dawned damp and cold and proceeded along similar lines for those hardy souls still focussed enough to be going. Bus, pub, wet walk of (no) hope. Neal's programme notes talked of "roller coasters", a sure description of everything City in the 90s. It basically meant the good man was sat on a bucking train the destination, speed and safety of which he knew not a jot about.

With Richard Edghill, Scott Hiley and Peter Beagrie all sidelined with long-term injuries, City's starting eleven on this day looks threadbare when put alongside the team Pep Guardiola fielded in this season's December fixture against Wolves, the very side that had humbled Neal's City 3-0 the weekend before in 1996.

In goal Martin Margetson, a name who always struck fear into the home fans rather than those backing the away team. The back four made up of skinny midfielder Ian Brightwell, accident-prone skipper Kit Self-inflicted black-eye Symons, nominally aided by the razor fast, skillful, double-dagger threat of Eddie McGoldrick and Graham Rodger. In midfield new acquisition Neil Heaney from Southampton joined the Ferrari twins Nicky Summerbee and Georgi Kinkladze and the indomitable lion himself Steve Lomas. Up front the strangely subdued partnership of Uwe Rosler and Paul Dickov, with all number of continental talent waiting for the call from the bench.


Like two Lamborghinis in a stock car race, Waddle and Kinkladze
battle it out in an over-staffed midfield.


Sadly, it was goodbye to Darren Wassall, the lumpen replacement for the ineffable Michael Frontzeck. His loan finished, Wassall was returning as quickly as his legs would carry him to the relative peace of Derby County. Imagine for a moment, if you will, Derby County being a safe escape route from Manchester City. Bradford arrived with Gordon Cowans and Chris Waddle starring, although Brightwell's brother David did not make the cut. Laugh-a-minute manager Chris Kamara no doubt kept the team talk light on tactical insight.

In fact, it was soon painfully apparent that both managers probably had more insight into tictacs than tactics, as a match that could only be desribed as "hurly burly" got underway. There was, as Peter Fitton described in his report for the Sun, "no tracking back, hardly a tackle". That he was referring to the twin Rolls Royce models of Kinkladze and Waddle, might have legitimately been aimed at both sides as a whole. What today would pass for rudimentary game management at City might as well have been densely packed scientific code on the day. The ball shot about like an electron in search of a nucleus. As far as repulsive force was concerned, City were it.  

Despite being rather worryingly two ahead after 12 minutes, it was already 2-2 by the 54th, the giant Swede Robert Steiner, as Fitton put it "built like a true Viking, big and powerful with pillaging instincts" bringing the Yorkshire side level as darkness fell on a bewildered Maine Road.

With tempers fraying on and off the field and the crowd noise morphing from frantic passion to doom-laden frustration up stepped 17-year old sub Whitley, "Steve" according to Fitton, Jeff to the rest of us. Whacking the winner within a minute of coming on, he brought the house down and 25,000 present to their feet.

With Waddle's legs failing and the dual Christmas offering of Mikail Kavelashvilli and Lee Crooks on the pitch, City somehow held out. It had been a thrashing, flailing show of limbs and guts, without coherence, direction or plan. So far, indeed, from what we witness these days to be unrecognisable as the same sport.

Neal, flushed with the warmth of success and the bravado of victory, headed for the press room. "Watching this team is the best laxative in the land," he confided generously, a hot tea in his hand, perhaps to wash the cursed orange pill down with. Just around the u-bend were defeats at Oldham and what we stupidly thought at the time to be a one-off dive into the absolute realms of the pathetic, a lumpen, ashen, abandon-all-hope loss at home to Port Vale. Neal's time was done. The smoke and the dust were choking us all. The laughter of others a death knell in our ringing ears. It had to be brought under control, this whooping, veering monster that appeared only to know how to descend. 

No worries, we were told, an end to laxatives was nigh. Frank Clark was coming and soon constipation would be the very last of our problems.    










   


     

Wednesday, December 1, 2021

VILLAINS AND NICE GUYS

Season 1992-93, 18th April 1993, Vila Park, Birmingham. 

Aston Villa away, a different way.

After recent events between the two sides, when City's on-off purchase of Fabian Delph ended in the "on" position, a League Cup final brought unnecessary edge to the rivalry from some quarters and the record-breaking transfer of club icon Jack Grealish appeared to bring a communal breakdown upon the Aston Villa faithful, it is perhaps apt to cast our minds back almost exactly 30 years to the inaugural Premier League title race.

With just 4 games to go, challengers Blackburn and Norwich (yes, I know) had fallen by the wayside and only Villa stood between Manchester United and their first title in 26 years. The laughing had long stopped and Manchester was gripped with anxiety that the whole thing might end in tears and United might actually make it over the finishing line first.

As luck would have it 9th-placed City were set to travel to Villa Park for a match that would be essential if the home side wanted to keep pushing United for the title.

Some of the travelling City fans left the locals in no doubt where their loyalties lay.



It is not clear whether the banner made it through the match or whether the notorious West Midlands constabulary had it removed for inciting a riot (they had some strange ideas about policing the football in the 80s and 90s. You could be arrested there for pointing at Tony Daley's hair), but the message was clear: go out and do it for us all.

Villa duly won this game 3-1, despite Niall Quinn not reading the script and putting City ahead, but the title was United's, in the end by an unnecessarily wide margin of 10 points as Villa fell away.

When the Villa fans roll out their expletives for Grealish and their inevitably irony-free songs of "where were you when you were shit", cast your minds back to the beautiful détente of 1993.
 
Niall Quinn makes things unnecessarily complicated, putting City ahead before half-time.
















Thursday, November 4, 2021

AND HERE COME THE BELGIANS


In a performance that started well, turned rocky for a short while but eventually evened itself out, City manoeuvred ahead of PSG to the top of Group A and onto the verge of a ninth consecutive group stage qualification. A far cry from the Groups of Death under Roberto Mancini when Madrids followed Bayerns like limousines pulling away from an environment conference.    

There were more titbits to take away from the game, however, than a simple wrapping up of the Belgian champions on a 9-2 aggregate score from the two ties. These days, watching Guardiola's men approach the challenge of group stage football in this cup of all cups is a nerveless affair. You sit safe in the knowledge that this is a club, with players, an attitude and a proven track record, which allows for hiccups along the way but lets little else derail them.

This new feel really kicked forward under the likes of Yaya Toure, David Silva and Sergio Aguero, proven performers at the very highest levels, utterly unphased by the sorts of opponents the City of old would have dissolved in front of like an Angel Delight left out in a heavy downpour of acid rain. 

Back in the days of the groups of Death, certain players began to work on City's deathly mentality.

Here, a slapstick Bruges equaliser off John Stones' nose threatened briefly to make City look a little daft, after their undressing by Palace at the weekend. Where are the strikers, where are the goals coming from, we prepared to shriek at anyone who would listen. But goals did come, many of them assisted by the twinkling toes of Joao Cancelo, busy having another of his rollercoaster seasons that encompass the good, the bad and the perky. The Portuguese can be an infuriating watch, with his uncontrolled charges into the hinterland and flicks and tricks that would go nicely in the opposition box but look a little risky in our own. Nevertheless, he is a unique weapon in City's armoury, another Pep invention, an all-purpose right back playing on the left but actually being used as a marauding wide midfielder and false pivot. Here his three assists were bolstered by a shot onto the post to go with his goal in Belgium. The kid just doesn't know when to stop and that's probably a good thing.

Talking of falsity, people still ask the question. With every goalless shambles a la Palace there comes a new reckoning, a new wave of opprobrium for allowing a real live Champions League contender to come out of the new season blocks without a proper Number Nine.  

Sterling's faint whiff of a return to form against Palace was given more strength against Bruges, as the goalless striker finally popped one in, albeit from two yards out. Is his touch returning? Does he look slightly more ready for action? Can you notice slight changes in his control and confidence or is it just hope playing its feeble games with our eyesight?


Sterling finally finishes one off after going from February with just two goals (it's now November).

The question remains about this squad's ability to put more difficult games to bed. Against Chelsea at Stamford Bridge blanket control prevailed; at Anfield a similar hold only delivered a single point after Liverpool struggled free of the vice like grip they had been in; at the Parc des Princes similar control led to an albeit unlucky two-goal defeat. 

Eager eyes will watch City's efforts at the weekend to see if any patterns are actually emerging. While United have been mostly an uncoached shambles under Ole Gunnar Solskjaer, their record against City is fine and Guardiola will not want that to continue in 2021-22, a season where City have stronger challengers in both the Premier League and the Champions League. 

In the meantime, bask in the knowledge that, from Roger Palmer through to Phil Foden, City's grip on Belgium's finest remains almost total. The stats tell the story of a ride worth taking.








 

Sunday, October 31, 2021

MIRROR IMAGE: CARNAGE AT HOME TO PALACE

MANCHESTER CITY 0-2 CRYSTAL PALACE  |  MANCHESTER CITY 1-3 CRYSTAL PALACE

Saturday 30th October 2021  |  Saturday 5th December 1987



✅💣 EXPLOSIVE RED CARD SINKS CITY'S CHANCES | In 1987, chasing a promotion place back to the elite, City's 12-match unbeaten run came to an end as goalkeeper Eric Nixon exploded into action with a double booking in separate incidents with Palace striker Mark Bright. Taking the law into his own hands, Nixon punched the Palace raider on the nose after a "collision" going for a through ball. Fast forward to 2021 and Aymeric Laporte also decided to police pacey Palace strikers according to his own personal rule book, disregarding the regulations of the game. In wrestling the slippery Wilfried Zaha to the ground, he too fell foul of a picky referee, this time the ineffable Andre Marriner, and was sent for the much-heralded early bath.

2-GOAL DEFICIT PROVES TOO MUCH TO CLAW BACK |  Nixon's 1987 theatrics completely torpedoed City's chances, as his red card also coincided with the award of a penalty that brought Palace level. From there, with a man extra and a bemused Steve Redmond deputising in goal, the visitors ran riot. Laporte also chose exactly the wrong moment to leave his team mates to it, as City were beginning to mount a concerted effort to get back on level terms after an early Palace breakthrough. Once he had departed, however, right on half time, when City could conceivably have had a chance to regroup and reorganise, City's chances were reduced to next-to-nothing.


✅🚨 PACEY PALACE ATTACKERS TIE CITY IN KNOTS |  For Mark Bright and Ian Wright, substitute modern day nemeses Wilfried Zaha and Odsonne Edouarde. On both occasions Palace arrived in Manchester with a pair of jet-heeled attackers that proceeded to make hay in the open spaces left by an opposing team trying to cover for having a man less. On both occasions the striker, who was embroiled in the red card scene was the one to wreak the goal havoc too, Zaha netting early on and Bright bagging two late goals in 1987.

✅😠 UPROAR IN THE STANDS  |  On both occasions the referee's actions brought lively scenes to the stands, with the 1987 match marked by referee John Deakin being hit on the head by a coin as he left the Maine Road pitch. In the modern reworking of A Palace Coup, Andre Marriner had to put up with a simple everyday barrage of abuse, questioning everything from his judgment to his parentage. With the home support in a state of advanced ferment in both matches, the players could not fail to be caught up in the lively atmosphere, leading to the inevitable...


✅🥊 ...MASS BRAWL AND PRETEND FISTICUFFS!!!  |  Ah, the wonderfully cathartic effect of a "seemingly unjust" red card. Seen through the rounded prism of the infamous home beer goggles, any of Andre Marriner's works can be viewed as skewed at the best of times, but there is nothing quite like a dubious, VAR-induced frenzy to get the juices flowing. With Zaha widening his eyes to a degree that would chasten a bull terrier, the home players saw fit to wade in. Similarly in '87, with Bright clearly aware of Nixon's earlier yellow card (he had been involved in the incident, after all), his calculated actions also brought the house down, on and off the pitch, with City's most combustible firebrands, Neil McNab and John Gidman, quick to whisper sweet nothings in the Palace man's ear hole. Both men were booked for their troubles, while the crowd got so worked up that one individual divested himself of his loose change in the direction of John Deakin's upright bonce.


The more things change, the more they stay the same....










Friday, October 22, 2021

86 GAMES


As
it states in Tim Rich’s excellent collaboration with Brian Horton, the ex-City manager and Brighton midfield terrier clocked up over 2,000 games in the English professional game, bettered only by Alex Ferguson and Graham Turner. It is quite a feat.

It is a true testament to the staying power of a player who was tenacious, skilled and perceptive for Port Vale, Luton and Brighton and a manager, who was imbued with all the best qualities of the British game.

Tasked with the unenviable job of picking up the pieces at City (a repetitive theme in the 80s and 90s), Horton was also saddled with expectation levels that would have flattened an ox.

The infamous Brian Who headline that met his eyes on Day One at Maine Road would have squashed lesser men, but Horton threw himself into the job with enthusiasm and passion, his performances in front of the press matching his team's energetic efforts out on the pitch.


Against the odds, he produced a swashbuckling side that, for a while at least, produced some of the best attacking football City fans can remember.

Often unafraid to play what looked like a front four, occasionally five when they got carried away, it brought unforgettable away days at QPR in the League Cup (4-3), title-chasing Blackburn Rovers (3-2) and a home game with Spurs (5-2), which the BBC’s John Motson christened “one of the best matches I have ever commentated on”.

That Ballet in the Rain will forever be remembered as the quintessential Brian Horton City match. The flow was non-stop, with both sides enjoying periods of flamboyant dominance. Spurs, led for the last time by Ozzie Ardiles, played their part, by attempting to take on City at their own expansive game. The result was a veritable feast of attacking football in an absolute downpour, which, thanks to the redevelopment of the Kippax, cost many people their clothing. 


The loss of a sodden pullover or a wrecked pair of trainers was small beer for the entertainment that was delivered in shovel-loads. It was a game where City's promise shone brightly and continued to flicker at Loftus Road the following midweek, when a League Cup tie refused to go quietly. It was all such heart-warming stuff and, to give it the compliment it is due, sits comfortably alongside some of the better efforts of Kevin Keegan, Manuel Pellegrini and even Pep Guardiola.

Horton's team lacked consistency, however, and when trouble arrived, City took off in the wrong direction. Within two games of the Spurs and QPR rollickings, City went down, unforgivably 0-5 at Old Trafford. The season drifted badly and was only saved from disaster by two more Hortonesque displays of cavalier football, a 2-1 Easter win over Liverpool at Maine Road, when Maurizio Gaudino skipped the light fantastic and the afore-mentioned win at Ewood, seemingly handing the title to United. 



  

Patience draws thin, however.

Horton’s time was soon up, with Alan Ball seen as a safer pair of hands for the Premier League struggles ahead. Within three years City were in the third division. 

Brian Horton had long gone by then, but the memories of some of the brightest matches of a truly dark decade in City’s history would stay with us until better times arrived.


Future City star Trevor Sinclair is one of the celebrating players as QPR win 3-2 in the last
game of the 94-95 season, Brian Horton's final game as manager of City













Sunday, August 29, 2021

MIRROR IMAGE: CITY 5-0 ARSENAL

MANCHESTER CITY 5-0 ARSENAL |  MANCHESTER CITY 1-5 ARSENAL

Saturday 28th August 2021 | Saturday 22nd February 2003



✅🗽 STATUES | On the day that the club unveiled brand new statues in memory of two players who were amongst those most responsible for dragging Manchester City kicking and screaming into the bright light of success, Arsenal's rearguard decided to mimmick the metalic leviathons standing motionless on the club's forecourt. 

In 2003 it was also a day for statues, featuring Steve Howey, David Sommeil and the irrepressible Jihai Sun, all of whom did their best impressions of pillars of cement as the light-footed Dennis Bergkamp and Robert Pires waltzed through time and again.

✅👱 DUMBSTRUCK BLONDES | Arsenal keeper Bernd Leno could not really be faulted for any of the goals but instead stood slack-jawed as his defenders defied the laws of gravity by falling over things that didn't exist, running into each other when there seemed space not to and using their muscly limbs to no effect whatsoever. Carlo Nash had watched with similar distaste in 2003 as his colleagues had melted into the weak February sunshine at the prospect of trying to defend against Thierry Henry.


✅💥 SHREDS/TATTERS | Whichever happens to be your go to phrase for ripping stuff up, there were mirror images here too, with the Manchester Evening News' Simon Stones going for "shreds" to describe the 2003 imbalance, while the Observer's Richard Jolly opted for "tatters" to describe yesterday's mismatch.

Clearly in both cases, the defences were not only in need of counselling afterwards, but also a visit from someone with a needle and thread.

ALGERIAN INFLUENCE | In 2003, City's midfield was composed of the not inconsiderable bulk of the late Marc Vivien Foe, the not inconsiderable skills of Eyal Berkovic plus Djamel Belmadi. Although the latter has resurfaced to great effect in recent times as his country's national coach, in 2003 his influence on this game was something just short of minimal. Even the introduction of another Algerian as subtitute in the form of crowd favourite Ali Benarbia made only a slight difference to the flow of play. Fast forward 18 years and City also brought on an Algerian subtitute yesterday in Riyad Mahrez. 


✅👏 STANDING OVATION | Arsenal's first half efforts in 2003 had brought them a four-goal lead after 19 minutes and, by half time, the home fans were beginning to indulge themselves in a large slice of Schadenfreude. A standing ovation awaited the Arsenal team as it left the Maine Road pitch at half time. Although the Arsenal fans could not quite manage a similarly selfless effort this time around, they could be seen celebrating City's third goal. The standing ovation on this occasion was reserved for the slight figure of Bernardo Silva, leaving the pitch whilst wiping a tear from his eye, a sure sign that his time at the club is running into its finals minutes.


The more things change, the more they stay the same....

   

Saturday, August 21, 2021

MIRROR IMAGE: CITY 5-0 NORWICH

MANCHESTER CITY 5-0 NORWICH CITY

(Saturday 26th July 2020 - Saturday 21st August 2021)


✅⚽ 5-0 - Two consecutive home games in the Premier League versus Daniel Farke's open and pliable Norwich City have returned identical results. Add to this the fact that City have hit a seven, a six, another five and a four in the last 11 Premier League fixtures between the two sides and you can easily see why Norwich are, both in Premier League terms and historically speaking, one of City's most welcome guests.

✅ 👀 Same scorers - Riyad Mahrez and Raheem Sterling scored in both games, while Gabriel Jesus, scoring one two seasons ago, assisted two this time around.

2-0: In both games City went in at the break two goals up.

✅🎤: "I am a bit disapppointed with the scoreline." - Daniel Farke, Norwich manager, 26/7/20

             "I am a bit disappointed with the way we conceded our goals" - Daniel Farke, Norwich                             manager, 21/8/21



✅✈ - On both occasions the match, despite being the scene of an avalanche of goals, was dominated by thoughts of departures and arrivals. In the 2020 match v Norwich David Silva played his last-ever game at the Etihad and would become a Real Sociedad player later in the summer. Fast forward 14 months and the talk was of new signing Jack Grealish, making his first-ever Etihad appearance and scoring the second goal, to become the first City home debut scorer since Frank Lampard in 2014. 

The departure of perhaps City's greatest play-maker ever and the arrival of one who could eventually match his output.



✅🔑 - "Once Norwich go a goal down, they seem unable to respond - in the 27 games where they have fallen behind in the league this season, they have ended up losing all of them, and are the only team in Premier League history to fail to recover a single point from a losing position in an entire campaign...." stated the BBC website in 2020. Farke's men will do well to put an end to this tradition, if they want to avoid a similar fate (relegation) to that which met them after this ffixture in 2020.


✅👏 - On both occasions, spectators were in the news. With the Covid pandemic taking a hold, City's game in July 2020 had to be played behind closed doors. This time, a home crowd reappeared into the (half-) light to clap their heroes back onto the turf for the first time since March 2020. The emotions of playing in front of a crowd once again representing a welcome return to normal for players and fans alike.


 

5-PLUS - Since Pep Guardiola's arrival in the Premier League there have been 49 games won by 5-0 or above, 23 of these by City themselves (47%), including the last two against Norwich City via OptaJoe


✅⚽ - Raheem Sterling's goal in July 2020 meant that he was the first English player to net 20 goals for City in a season since Brian Kidd in 1976-77.

            - Raheem Sterling's goal in August 2021 meant that he became the 41st player to score for City in 7 different seasons.  


The more things change, the more they stay the same.... 








Thursday, August 19, 2021

LAUGHING AT ONESELF


In
1970 when decimilisation and Berni Inns were invented, for the good people of Britain, used as they were to dragging their tired bodies down to sooty pubs lying under dense banks of cigarette fog and paying for pints of mild with bits floating in them in shillings, the world probably seemed to be turning a little faster than they thought they could cope with. 

Things have changed a little since then, of course, and sports clothing firm Puma seem this week to be pedalling just that little bit harder than everyone else to recreate the feeling of dizzying speed our forbears must have been dazzled by in 1970.  

In time to come, historians will note that "City's astonishing 2021 third kit unveiling felt like one of those moments when society moved on and many people shouted hey, wait a sec, you're going too fast".

Puma are not going too fast. Their smartly trousered marketing executives will tell you they are going just fast enough to stay ahead of Bruder Adidas and the huge bad smell that is Nike. The immutable truth is that this is the next page of the adventure, whether old stick-in-the-muds like it or not. It was the same for everyone in 1970 when well-educated Mike Jagger (soon to rename himself Mick) started talking to tv hosts in a cockney accent that moved him quickly down the all-important social ladder. The world was moving fast, a little too fast and the rest of us were playing catch-up.

It has been quite a week at Manchester City, what with the announcement we will have edible coffee cups at the Etihad too, as well as transfer bids the size of banker's salaries being put in for any number of international-grade strikers, some of whom we have never heard of before and others who we wish we hadn't. It has been quite a wait for Harry Kane, but an even longer one for drinks recepticles that we can eat. Finally something is set to budge. 

In the 1985 close season, with City fans chomping at the tops of their Fanta tins after promotion the previous May in a match against Charlton Athletic that left many separated from friends and items of clothing by the end, the club's startling array of new recruits - including let it be said, nay shouted, Sammy McIlroy - appeared in frisky pre-season training mode wearing the previous season's away kit, plastered with a sticker announcing "Umbro Training". 

McIlroy's facial expression said it all. 

Sartorially inept in 1985 as well. 

This was how the late, great Peter Swales managed the budget. Fast forward four decades and still we are wearing strange clothes that others will see fit to laugh at. Feel free at this juncture to spare a kind thought too for our brothers and sisters at Fenerbahce, Valencia, Marseille, AC Milan and Monchengladbach, all of whom have also been left with their sartorial trousers around their ankles by the teenage design hotshots at PumaHouse.

Perhaps even more heart-warming than the club's evident willingness to hold on to their hard-won reputation for quirkiness is that, despite all the gales of propaganda about world class strikers, the opening day belly flop at Tottenham revealed the three-year wait for a proper left back to be an even more glaring hole in our pyjamas. With no striker to talk of and some other areas of the formation that hardly bore thinking about, it was a tear-inducing scene. The left side of defence in particular appeared to be laughing at us, rather than the more traditional other way around. There stood the by now indescribable Benjamin Mendy. To say the lad's display was erratic would have suggested there were also good things going on out there on his patch, but still, at least he was wearing a reasonably alright kit.

This led to some making an obvious link between the week's most eye-catching developments...

    

A bold move by Puma. Fair play. pic.twitter.com/IB02SnhRVI


With no space for, of all things, the club crest, it remains something of a masterstroke that Puma have managed to edge in their own logo top and centre, above everything else, a welcome reminder of what is important in these modern footballing times. Perhaps in times that come, we might mix the current thinking with some of City's previous Champions League change strips and create a kit that subscribes to none of the old rules at all and can be, at turns, a pyjama, an outfit for a night out in Morecambe or something to muck out the chickens in, if you are lucky enough to have any in these times of disease and instability. 

For a while, we were all beginning to take it, and by association, ourselves, a bit too seriously. So, thank you, City, and thank you, Puma, for reminding us what we are all really here for.  











 

Sunday, August 8, 2021

MIRROR IMAGE: CITY 0-1 LEICESTER -

MANCHESTER CITY 0-1 LEICESTER CITY

(Saturday 4th November 2000 - Saturday 7th August 2021)

 

✅⚽ 0-1 - Despite more possession and more chances, City were beaten by the only goal of the game, scored by a player who had previously been based in Manchester for his football upbringing. 

✅👱 - Matchwinner Robbie Savage scored Leicester's goal after 54 minutes of an attritional match at Maine Road. The flaxen-haired former Manchester United trainee would later feature widely as a pundit with "larger-than-life" as his badge of honour. 21 years later the curtain-raiser to the new season would feature a major kerfuffle around City's new £100m recruit from Aston Villa Jack Grealish, Both men wearing hair that could have been slightly better thought out.



✅$$$
- "Blues Vow To Spend" was a headline that brought sentiments of relief to City fans in 2000, watching a side containing Laurent Charvet and Danny Tiatto try to make its way in the top flight after promotion under Joe Royle. Vowing to spend in 2021 is still a very viable headline for City, although the news carries different emotions: the bursts of interest are now interspersed with anxiety that Nick and Tariq "might" take it badly. In 2000, the answer to City's problems was to sniff around at Ewood Park and entice unloved Egil Ostenstad south on a promise. "He's coming (on loan) with a view to signing permanently," the manager enthused, "but we haven't even discussed a fee yet."



  

✅💥 - "Don't Panic" screamed the headline from the Evening News in 2000, an emotion much more quickly attained in 2021, where the slightest flicker of weakness from any of the anointed Big Six brings shivers of excitement to headline writers everywhere.  

✅🎯 - "Flimsy finishing" was cited by The Observer as the major obstacle to City overcoming Leicester in 2000. A certain delicacy of finish also overtook the likes of Riyad Mahrez and the almost completely anonymous Ferran Torres in the 2021 Community Shield. Only 3 of 14 shots were on target. (This from 21 years ago, but could just as easily be about the latest encounter between the two sides)


✅% - For a Pep Guardiola side, finishing with 57% possession stats is the least the manager expects. Domination of the ball means you increase your chances of dominating the scoreline. It doesn't always work, however, witness the Community Shield. City went down to Leicester in 2000 with 53% ball possession, a figure in those days, under a manager like Joe Royle, committed as he was to rattling cages and keeping the ball airborne, that rang different kinds of bells. 

5/10 - With Leicester's stout defending being marshalled by ex-City youth product Ged Taggart, the game seemed to hinge greatly on the efforts of a player, who had started his career in the sky blue youth ranks. Sound familiar? 

With Taggart holding the home strikeforce easily at bay, the Manchester Evening News was forced to give the stumbling figure of Paulo Wanchope a measley 5/10. Fast forward 21 years and a fellow Spanish-speaker heading City's attack in vain easily qualified for a similarly low mark.  



...The more things change, the more they stay the same.







 



Thursday, July 15, 2021

NO HARRYING TOTTENHAM

There were several moments in the opening two games of England's Euro 2020 campaign where it looked as if Harry Kane's real transfer fee should be totted up in the realms of thousands, rather than the millions daily being touted in the press. 

Stodgy and slow, the Tottenham man was moving with the finesse of a desert camel loaded with chunks of masonry to repair the Sphinx's hooter. As England proceeded out of their group, however, King Harold found his rhythm, regained his touch and took flight. By the end of the journey the big striker was moving effortlessly through the gears and once again hitting all the right notes. Four goals were just the garnish on his growing influence on England's fortunes. Harry was back and so was the incessant transfer chatter.


But still. 150 million quid?

Daniel Levy is a notoriously hard-nosed businessman. City, and indeed a host of other clubs, have had real problems dislodging the Spurs chairman from his bargaining position before. He does not do "win-win", just "show me the money". Kyle Walker's eye-watering transfer was a case in point that almost caused The Mirror to combust. 

A number of factors might persuade him to do business this time, however. Firstly, Kane wants to go. Noises were first heard at the tale end of last season and those rumours have turned since then into concrete stories. How far a player, who will soon be 28, is prepared to push it, remains to be seen. Levy will not want a public fight with the darling of the terraces, despite sitting pretty with a contract that is nowhere near up. No one in their right mind, on the other hand, believes it a good idea to hang on to saleable assets when they don't want to play for you anymore. On these tricky foundations the relationship totters. 

Further to this is the cash. Tottenham need it badly to rebuild. The pandemic has seen off great swathes of the money mountain they might have expected to be sitting on this summer and they desperately need to offload in order to start the rebuild necessary after Jose Mourinho's clumsy pre-cup final departure. Whether City, a club notorious for not exceeding certain pre-ordained levels (around 60 million would appear to be the unwritten high water mark), will have to go way past that to net Kane, is unclear. Whatever the final fee is, they might well balk at sailing past the 100 million mark, even if the signs from London became promising.

City these days refuse to be taken for the ride that many selling clubs offered to take them on in the early days after the investment from Abu Dhabi, when it was commonly accepted that there was a "City surcharge", owing to their newly found wealth. Nowadays, the path is littered with players in whom serious interest was discontinued when the selling club got ideas above their station: Jorginho, Sanchez, Maguire, Koulibaly to name but four.

City have in recent years refused to be held to ransom by clubs intent on inflating fees. 


Although City have come a long way from the summers spent chasing the likes of Kevin Drinkell and Justin Fashanu, a strict spending policy has been in place for some time. After the years of splurging to gain a foothold amongst the elite, City have mostly run a "tight ship", relatively speaking. 

Mourinho's successor, fellow Portuguese Nuno Espirito Santo, will no doubt want to hang on to the club's greatest asset. He will desire a season start with a squad that is harmonious and kicking in the same direction. Will he want a star striker who has made it clear he sees his immediate future elsewhere?

Next is the likelihood that Kane can land any sort of silverware with Spurs, who came close last season (beaten by City, of all people, in the Carabao Cup final), but have not had much of a sniff for more than a decade and will kick off next season in the broad shade of the UEFA Conference League, a pretty, new toy even further way from the Champions League than the foul-smelling Europa League. (that's enough Leagues - Ed).

Looking at the possible deal from City's side, a couple of things strike you immediately. Although Guardiola is a confirmed fan of the striker, do City actually need anyone of his type to replace Sergio Aguero? Kane is a different kind of striker, who might not necessarily slot in to City's style of play. There are plenty of other options for that central role anyway, from the obvious (Sterling, Ferran, Jesus, Delap) to the less obvious (any slightly built midfield figure chosen as a floating false nine). Guardiola is not shy, after all, of tinkering with shape and tactics. 

From the earliest days when Pablo Zabaleta could be seen marauding from right back t a place on the left wing and Aleksander Kolarov attempted his best Franz Beckenbauer impersonation, the Catalan has shown a true spirit of tactical adventure.

If the desire is as great as it is supposed to be, now is surely the time for City to make their move. With the player approaching 29 in a year's time, the money Tottenham are asking will no longer make any sense at all, even if it doesn't exactly look normal right now. How much of a difference does Guardiola think Kane can make to City's assault on the Premier League and Champions League double that is the club's main aim? If, as seems to be the case, the Catalan is convinced that he is the missing piece in the puzzle, we can expect an offer to be made. After all, Kane's guarenteed goals haul, allied to City's new meanness in defence, is a tantalising proposition.    

Also, is, as is rumoured, Kane's signature desired above all others? With City supposedly interested in Jack Grealish and, incredibly, still short of a specialist left back, could there be other positions that are more important? Could they stretch to Kane and Grealish and, say Maehle, all in one heavy-handed summer? That would alert the FFP fans immediately and put a bee in the bonnet of every supporter from Carlisle to Chingford. Khaldoon Al-Mubarak has already stated that "Aguero's shoes will be particularly difficult ones to fill, but we will do it". The "Grealish money", in that case, would have to come from player sales, with Bernardo the most frequently named player in this respect. 

The question remains which clubs might have the money to do this kind of business (buy Bernardo) in a market that has become so ridiculously inflated at the same time clubs are shrinking financially thanks to Covid-19? The Portuguese has been quoted as saying it's time to go, and perhaps in this he is right, but few clubs could stump up the cash for him in this summer's unique market conditions. Certainly, Barcelona, most frequently mentioned in conjunction with Bernardo, were finding it difficult to even register their City acquisitions from last month (Aguero, Garcia) owing to their chronic lack of cash.

A chronic lack of cash might be the only thing that can unravel this deal. Tottenham's need is great. City will and can only go so far, despite their spending power and their avowed desires. An impasse of this magnitude can only be shifted if one of the three players in a game of high stakes poker breaks rank and changes position. City, Tottenham, or Kane himself. Who will be the first to blink?


150,000 for Justin Fashanu? Keep adding the noughts for Harry Kane. 









  




 


Wednesday, April 14, 2021

IN YER HEAD, SON


Manuel
Pellegrini’s legacy to Manchester City was to bequeath memories of three years of swashbuckling football that ended with a result and, more importantly, a performance, that has left such an indelible mark on the club’s psyche that the stain can still clearly be seen today.

City’s last win under the Chilean fell on 23rd April 2016, a 4-0 home beating of Mark Hughes’ Stoke City. The league campaign dribbled to an unsatisfactory halt with a chaotic and uninspired defeat at Southampton and two draws with Arsenal and Swansea. A colourless 4th place finish had thus been secured by a side, who had been leading the table in late November.

The only other games the club played after the Stoke stroll were in continental competition, the dreaded Champions League. Pellegrini remains the only manager to take City to the semi-finals. Sadly, he is also the man who took City there and then summarily failed to do the occasion justice.

In two games against Real Madrid, City looked first surprised by their grand surroundings, then cowed by the prospect of being so close to the booty. A psychological axe fell on the common psyche that has left such a deep cleft, all the wiles and ways of Pep Guardiola have so far failed to weld things back together again.

In 2016, the 0-0 first leg draw in Manchester left City with an uphill task in the Bernabeu, but it is the second leg performance in the home of the club that treats the competition as its own that has stayed in the mind all this time. City were insipid, bashful and, in the end, a little bit cowardly. The Chilean’s reign, a time characterised by the goal-drenched adventures of a side that often contained Sergio Aguero, Alvaro Negredo, Stevan Jovetic and Jesus Navas blazing in on goal from all angles, ended with the spectacle of a side set up to go sideways in a match where they needed to head forwards.

Beaten in the end by the slimmest of margins, a bizarrely constructed Fernando own goal the only difference between the two sides after 180 minutes of awful combat, we left the great theatre of the Bernabeu that night wondering why there had been such a lack of fighting spirit.

Where had all that gung-ho energy dissipated to?


Fernandinho tussles with Cristiano Ronaldo in the Bernabeu


The defeat in Madrid, sloppy and downbeat as it was, represented Pellegrini’s final steps in charge of the sky-blue cause. Two more drawn league games followed and the season was done. So too was the Chilean’s three-year passage through English football in charge of Manchester City.
 

The man who had thrust Villareal and Malaga into the final stretches of the Champions League, had hauled the unwilling old carcass of Manchester City there too, but his side had displayed none of the dramatic fireworks his previous teams had in going out of the competition. His Villareal had lost at the bitter end to Arsenal by dint of Riquelme's penalty miss and his fearless Malaga team had gone out to, wait for it, Borussia Dortmund, in one of the most incident-packed, eye-wobbling games the competition has thrown up in recent times.



The fallout of City's no-show in the Bernabeu has been lasting. 

Instead of heralding a new dawn of regular final four appearances, the club under the auspices of Pep Guardiola has developed a fabulous, all-devouring allergy to them. Liverpool, Tottenham and Lyon have all dealt City mortal blows in the quarter finals, while Monaco, feisty and underrated, even knocked the Blues out in the Round of 16. Every time success has looked primed to go off, it has exploded great sheets of custard into our faces instead.

Pellegrini’s 2016 semi-final remains the highwater mark in the Champions League for a club that has won four league titles, two FA Cups, five League Cups and three Community Shields since 2010. A feeling of underachievement has grown slowly but surely into a deep-rooted psychosis.

Which is why this evening’s game in Dortmund carries such heavy significance.

This is a tie and an opponent that City should be able to deal with. Paris St Germain, the team waiting in the semi-final, and ironically the side Pellegrini's City had knocked out in the quarter finals in 2016, are clearly a different kettle of fish. Their second leg with Bayern Munich showcased two sides with attacking potential far beyond anything John Stones and Ruben Dias have dealt with so competently this season in the Premier League (although it is an edifying thought to recall that City finished the Real Madrid semi-final with a *slightly less talented* back four of Sagna, Otamendi, Mangala and Clichy...). 

The Germans, however, despite sticking rigidly to a thorough, well considered game plan at the Etihad, showed in their casual giving away of possession in midfield that they can be picked off if the right level of clinical finishing can be found. City’s floundering mess of a performance against Leeds perhaps does not bode well on that front, but the stakes, and *half of the team, will be very different this evening in North Rhine Westphalia to the one that puttered 29 chances into the advertising hoardings on Saturday.

This match is as much to be won in the head as on the pitch for the Blues. Put in a marker here and a semi-final match-up with PSG can be treated as a surmountable challenge. What would then await in the final would not be of any higher caliber than the French champions. But, to do this, Guardiola must find a way to control his own tactical demons, banish the negative thoughts that descend on all associated with the club on such occasions and get his side playing the crisp, attacking football that has seen them sail past the pack to dominate this season’s Premier League campaign.

As ever, the prize is tantalizingly close, the smell of the trophy polish is flaring the senses, but so too are the groans and the cackles of all those dark ghosts of the past.

*ironically, the aforementioned Stoke game, Manuel Pellegrini’s final victory as City manager, also included a first team shorn of its stars, as Guardiola chose to do last weekend against Leeds. Both Vincent Kompany and Kevin de Bruyne were rested from the league match in prospect of a tougher battle against Real Madrid.










Friday, February 26, 2021

MALCOLM ALLISON'S COACHING PANEL

Throughout 1969 and1970, Charles Buchan's Football Monthly Magazine decided to run a series of half page tactics and coaching tips from City head coach Malcolm Allison. He had, after all, been responsible for a City side that had climbed out of the second division in 1965-66, becoming serial winners just two years after.

Allison, schooled in the art of innovation and out of the box thinking thanks to a predilection for the Hungarian team of the 50s that knocked spots off England at Wembley, produced for the magazine in a long running series, tips for fitness, strength, diet, movement, technique and many other facets that your average 1970s trainer had not yet had the time to dream up.

Ahead of his time was a phrase often tied to Allison, as it was somewhat ironically to Arsene Wenger when he alighted in the Premier League in 1995. Wenger indeed was a deep thinker, but as far as bringing innovative change to the English game was concerned, many of his tricks had been pioneered by Allison some twenty years before.

While some of the articles appear endearingly outdated (everyone and his dog now encourage high-fibre diets and regular weight training), many are insightful and, taken in the context of England's then close adherence to a kick and rush, thud and blunder approach to the game, continue to show up Allison's blue sky sky blue thinking in a positive light.

Here he talks about a problem still prevalent in the game today, building up strength without overstraining the body. In the light of the rash of injuries at Anfield this season, where a regime of intense high pressure, high speed football has been advocated by Jurgen Klopp in recent seasons, the ex-City coach's thoughts seem prescient.







Friday, February 12, 2021

A RETURN TO BUDAPEST, BIG MAL'S SPIRITUAL HOME

Allison outside Monchengladbach's old Bökelbergstadion before the 1979 UEFA Cup tie

🏆UEFA's edict earlier this week that the Manchester City-Borussia
Monchengladbach Champions League round of 16 first leg tie should take place in Budapest raised interesting ghosts from the past.


That the tie will take place in the Puskas Arena is apt for a number of reasons and they all involve ex-City supremo Malcolm Allison.

For it was Hungary, and Budapest in particular, and Puskas even more particularly, that pointed the way for the young Allison as he set out to become one of the world game's most innovative thinkers. Having served in the army in Austria and seen the Hungarians train there whilst on tour, Allison was ultra keen to be at Wembley in November 1953 to see the Hungarian national side take on England. 

Allison made it to North London that day, along with 105,000 other souls, convinced as they were that England's place as world leaders of the game was not in doubt. Allison had other ideas, however. What the huge crowd witnessed will have surprised them, but not the old West Ham centre half Allison. Having watched Puskas and his team mates Nandor Hidegkuti, Sandor Kocsis and Zoltan Czibor train, he was well aware of what was to come and was certain the self-assured England players were about to come a cropper.

As they warmed up for the Wembley clash, one of Allison's companions (possibly future coach Jimmy Andrews) was moved to laugh at Puskas, whose rotund figure made him look an unlikely sportsman for the occasion. With his shorts pulled high on his belly, he looked for all the world like an overweight spectator who had slipped onto the pitch ahead of the police.

Minutes later Allison's companions had stopped laughing, as Puskas proceeded to trap balls pinged at him at all heights with the ease of a master and to zip them back across the turf with alarming accuracy, pace and spin. This he continued to do during a game since made famous as the moment English haughtiness was given the ice bucket treatment. Hungary won the game 6-3 and a new era of self doubt entered the English national team, a paralysis which, to some, has never properly left it.

It was not just the speed of movement and accuracy of shooting that Allison had noticed, but the ever-changing formation, the easy switching of positions, even the jauntily cut shorts that allowed more movement around the thighs. Everything, from pre match diet, to warm up routine to stylized kit had been adapted to give the visitors an advantage.

Allison would introduce these measures to his City squad as they grew from second division ignominy to a side capable of winning four trophies in three years. His interpretation of what these avant-garde football folk from the East of Europe were doing formed the basis of City’s invigorating passing game that sometimes seemed light years ahead of what other teams were attempting to come up with at the time in the prosaic surroundings of the English First Division.

When his City side was drawn to play the Hungarians of Honved in the 1970 edition of the Cup Winners' Cup at the end of this glorious period of trophy-hunting, there was a pleasant surprise waiting for the City coach in Budapest on the occasion of the first leg. 

City’s elegant, accomplished football won them the game easily, despite a close looking 1-0 scoreline. They had been a joy to watch and had vindicated their coach’s adherence, all those years ago, to the virtues of good passing and faultless technique that he had witnessed from Hungary’s national team players. After the match, a Honved official approached Allison to congratulate him for “the best football we have seen from an English side in our country”.

Allison was then escorted to a little restaurant where Puskas’s infamous paunch was said to have been fostered in the early days and to a little house on a back street of the capital with a red chimney pot where the master of Hungarian football had grown up. Despite his defection to Spain, the place had remained a shrine of Hungarian football, filled with trinkets and memorabilia from the great man's career.


Hidegkuti scores Hungary's sixth and final goal at Wembley in 1953.

Allison was enchanted by this treatment and was later moved to say  “I was entranced by the stories they told me. I could see elements of what they were telling me that were totally alien to English football and its coaching methods.” 

At the end of the same decade (1979), Allison's second spell as City manager was coming to a rather less auspicious close, when City were drawn against Borussia Monchengladbach in the UEFA Cup. It would be a tie thrown to the wind by the coach's by now obsessive tinkering. Having disposed of the European experience of Asa Hartford, Brian Kidd  and their ilk, Allison blooded eighteen year old Nicky Reid and briefed him to mark European Footballer of the Year Allan Simonsen. The writing was on the wall after a 1-1 first leg draw at Maine Road and City left the competition in the return at the Bokelberg with their tales firmly between their legs. Reid acquitted himself well enough but it had not been the occasion for experiments.  

City had overcome FC Twente, Standard Liege and, more famously, AC Milan on their way to the quarter finals before Allison's return to the club and it would be nearly 25 years before they played in Europe again. 

For Allison, Gladbach represented his last hurrah with City in Europe and Budapest represented the bedrock to his opening gambit as a football coach. Both ends of his sparkling, never-dull career are thus dovetailed beautifully by UEFA's decision to house the first leg of this enthralling tie in the Hungarian capital.

    



ON THE WINGS OF DESIRE

City's total domination of English football continues. Those that decried the self-styled one-sided end of football, this morning whoop...