PARIS SYNDROME

"It shows in compelling fashion their remarkable strength in depth ,,, and also raises questions about how competitive this league really is..." 

These not the words of an overheating Arsenal TV member on their way out of the Etihad two hours after drawing Churchillian bluster to entice their team over the finishing line, but instead of Dan Roan, BBC Sport's Editor and the 2021 Journalist of the Year.

That we are experiencing the Bundesligafication of the Premier League or, as the Independent's Miguel Delaney put it, "it's just like Ligue Un".

Et ils ne plaisant pas.*

Firstly, City have one of the thinnest squads in the Premier League. En route to reeling in season-long leaders Arsenal on a budget trimmed so much that City no longer feature in the top 20 net spending clubs in Europe since 2018, they have used a small but cohesive number of well drilled professionals. Well-drilled, well chosen, well tutored. When it comes to the pointy end of the season, Manchester City know what they are doing, know who they need doing it and know when they have to perform.

This kind of big match experience doesn't come easy of course. Scrolling back to 2010 and City's initial attempts to rid themselves of 40 barren years of struggling to live up to their occasionally successful past, there were plenty of occasions where experience, or a lack thereof, was the deciding factor against them. 

Defeat to a still-crowing Manchester United in the semi finals of the 2009-10 League Cup over two tempestuous legs and losing out to Tottenham in the race for the final Champions League place spring readily to mind.

2009-10 League Cup semi final 2nd leg. dominant United deal with upstart City to progress to the final

Since then, things have taken off somewhat. With a massive influx of cash from Abu Dhabi, a beginning was made to mounting an assault on the very well defended ramparts of the Top 4 (Manchester United, Chelsea, Arsenal and Liverpool), a group who had had it their own way almost uninterrupted for three decades. That this could only be done by spending vast amounts of money was a fact that, at the time, nobody denied. In fact there was a frisson of excitement similar to that which met Chelsea's arrival at the top table, funded at first by Mathew Harding's largesse then by the oil billions of Roman Abramovich. Upsetting the applecart was by and large seen as a good thing.

But you can of course have too much of a good thing. Fast forward a decade and we have a new status quo which is causing more pain and stress than any frisson of excitement that might have been felt in the early days of challenge. 

City, to the surprise of all who said Sheikh Mansour would grow bored with his plaything, that throwing money at a project was just like the lottery winner gassed up on cheap champagne and not to worry, United would reclaim their perch from these noisy neighbour upstarts soon enough, have got stronger and stronger. Those critics were forgetting one thing and misjudging another, however. Succession problems at Old Trafford meant trying to replace the irreplaceable (an issue City themselves will face on Guardiola's departure) is nigh on impossible. The end of the cycle of domination was nigh, but what a cycle it had been (see table below).

Taking the different eras into account, it is clear that the profound worry of some at the present predicament is premature, or, if not, out of proportion. The first of the tables below show quite clearly that the domination City currently exhibit pales in comparison with that of Liverpool and United during their own much vaunted periods in the ascendency, when little was written about competitive balance, financial doping, Bundesliga woes and the strange whiff of Paris St Germain.

We come to praise

Misjudgement of just how professionally the long term project at City would be handled was also rife and widespread. None of the willy-nilly crash and burn politics of Chelsea or the desperate overspending of United and Liverpool on any players that shone brightly for twenty minutes. Here was a rock solid plan, well researched, properly constructed and funded, with the right people in the right places, highly tuned professionals who knew how to put coherent strategies into working order. Ed Woodward it was not.

City's development on the pitch has progressed carefully through the canny strategies of Roberto Mancini, via the exuberant poetry of Manuel Pellegrini to the arch plotter himself, Josep Guardiola. Nothing has been left to chance. Player recruitment too has been the subject of proper due diligence from day one. The mala leche that Johan Cruyff so desired to shake up his Barcelona pot (he brought in Stoichkov and Romario) has balanced the good solid pros. For every Tevez, a Zabaleta, for every Balotelli a Kompany, for every Bellamy a Barry and so on. Add the little recognised brilliance of David Silva (Ferguson "They thought they were buying David Villa"), Yaya Toure, Kevin de Bruyne, the 60 million pound flop, and you can see that City have seen something others have not.

It has reaped surprisingly rich rewards. City have won 17 trophies since 2010, quite the turnaround from the 1976-2010 potless abyss. 26 Wembley visits in that time speak for themselves, and to a degree the reason for an occasional lack of enthusiasm for extortionate trips down south these days.

If City manage to overhaul Arsenal in the finishing straight it will mark their 5th title in six seasons. The alarm bells that have been ringing for a while now, will ring themselves to a standstill. Those trying to persuade us that there is now a concomitant lack of competitiveness in English football will produce these bald statistics. Well, we all know what we can do with statistics to make a case.

The fact is four of City's six title have been won on the final day of the league season. That is, after ten months of infernal struggle, it has come down to the last day. and in two heart-wrenching cases, the final kicks of the season to decide who won. City have won these titles by nil, one, one and two points respectively, hardly a case of a juggernaut steaming away with only flattened Arsenals and Liverpools in their giant treadmarks.        

Debunking other people's worries is one thing. Reminding the same people that the domination perpetuated by Liverpool and Manchester United in previous cycles was a lot worse, is another. In nine years of the 90s Manchester United won seven Premier League titles and were lauded to the rafters for their excellence, their haughty dominance under Roy Keane and Paul Scholes, the bargain buys Van Nistelrooy, Cole and Yorke. Their exploits became legend, their players unforgettable Premier League icons. There was not a single feather ruffled by anyone suggesting this domination might not be a good thing. people were far too busy excitedly gobbling up the spectacle of David Beckham's twirling free kicks and Ryan Giggs' extravagant jungle of chest hair. They were truly the glory days.

The Glory Years

City's domination of the Premier League in recent times is not nearly as iron-cast. For all their well-planned excellence, they have worthy challengers close in their wake. This year Arsenal, in recent times Liverpool, Chelsea, Leicester and others. The quest for ever-improving standards has brought the challengers into a new bracket too. In order to challenge, the likes of United and Liverpool have had to tighten their own operations and improve. This they have done or are in the process of doing, leaving us with a top level to the Premier League which is of the highest order.

That City are currently the best of the field is the cycle we are in right now. It will not last, neither will it, or does it, herald the last rites of competitiveness in the Premier League. A cursory glance at the facts will confirm this for anyone who wishes to know.    

Much has also been made of the prospect of City winning three titles in a row, a kind of holy grail that only Huddersfield, back in the mists of time, Liverpool, United and Arsenal have managed. If it comes to pass, it will not be met by the same high praise City's predecessors rightly received, but by a wall of opprobrium and yet more cries that our national game is ruined. 

And David May, for one, will not be hosting a barbecue.

When City's presence was tolerable

* they're not joking

THE WAY WE WERE: QPR (h) 1978-79

April 21st 1979

Season 1978-79

Manchester City v QPR

Cruising, or limping, towards the end of a frustrating season of backwards progress, City took on Queens Park Rangers at Maine Road.

Following on from a disastrous, shapeless 0-2 defeat at Middlesbrough, the only surprise was that over 30,000 fans decided it was still a good place to be on a Saturday afternoon. Malcolm Allison's January return had thus far produced only bad air and disastrous transfer manoeuvring, allowing almost all of City's recognised international stars to believe their time was up with the club. 

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It was not all bad news, however, as Barry Silkman had arrived with a trumpet blast from his new manager. 

Silkman, these days a talkative football agent, had thus far let his feet do the communicating, scoring at Ipswich on his debut and again v Wolves four days later and would score here too to help defeat a desperate QPR side. Despite this, and somewhat predictably, he was no replacement for the likes of Asa Hartford, Peter Barnes, Mike Channon et al, who were about to be shown the door in Big Mal's much lamented Autumn Clearout.

Rangers on this occasion were supine opponents, the days of yore when they ran Liverpool right to the finishing line for the title in 1975-76 long forgotten. As Allison would do at Maine Road, Rangers under successive stopgap managers Frank Sibley and Steve Burtenshaw had started to ship out the bulk of that brilliant, swashbuckling side, Dave Thomas going to Everton, Don Givens to Birmingham, Dave Webb, Frank McLintock, Stan Bowles, John Hollins, Don Masson, 'keeper Phil Parkes and Mick Leach all sadly either departed or about to jump ship at season's end. The glory years under Gordon Jago were but a wistful memory.  

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In their stead Rangers had promoted youngsters and reserves that would carry them back into the 2nd division at the end of the season. Those young players, including Clive Allen, Glenn Roeder and Paul Goddard, would eventually catapult them back to the top flight and more success in the early 80s, but this was the beginning of a brief dip.

Despite the malaise, City pulled in more support than the 
Leeds v Everton clash between two sides vying for Europe.

For City the 3-1 win heralded peace at last for supporters worried their club might be dragged deeper into the relegation skirmishes. Silkman's goal plus two from Gary Owen rubberstamped a relatively simple 3-1 victory. The following week Rangers registered a 5-1 win over Coventry to spark a flicker of hope around Shephard's Bush, but three consecutive heavy defeats against Leeds, Birmingham and Ipswich would see them relegated with Chelsea and Birmingham. City's final position of 15th did not disguise the rot setting in under Allison either. 

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Within 18 months the Dartford Gunslinger would be gone, replaced for a brief happy interlude by John Bond, before his own exit in 1983 led to City's demotion to the second tier. By this time, QPR had contested the 1982 FA Cup final as a 2nd division side and were back among the big boys of the first division, an illustration of the cosmic swings and roundabouts of football. A year before Rangers' Cup Final appearance against Tottenham, City had also contested the centenary final with Spurs, with the same result: close defeat after a replay. 

City's two spells in Division 2 (1983-84 and 1984-85 / 1987-88 and 1988-89) would not involve any games with QPR, who were once again on the rise in Division 1, achieving a 5th place finish in both 87-88 and in the Premier League's inaugural season of 1992-93, where they would be welcomed as Maine Road's first-ever Premier League visitors.

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CITY: Corrigan, Donachie, Power, Viljoen, Watson, Bell, Owen, Deyna, Silkman, Hartford, Barnes. Sub: Henry

QPR: Richardson, Clement, Gillard, Busby, Howe, Roeder, Shanks, Francis, Walsh, McGee, Goddard Sub. Allen

Scorers: Owen (2), Silkman | Busby

Attendance: 30,394

In the following week, John Bean's Express column
suggests the end is nigh for several City big-hitters

 

    

THE BAYERN WE LOVED, THE CUP WE CARED FOR

An everyday footballer scene

Between 1974 and 1976 Bayern Munich won the European Cup, that useless stupidly formulated all knock-out competition for champions only that ran sometime in the grey days before close form European sparring was reinvented by Gerard Aigner and Alex Fynn with their magnetised balls and multicoloured brainwaves.

These were dark days indeed, when misfits and scallywags like St Etienne, Dynamo Tbilisi and Feyenoord could be seen strutting about European football like they owned the place.

Your Kievs and Magdeburgs, your Colognes (or worse still your Kölns) and Gothenburgs (or Göteborgs) even your bloody Dundee Uniteds, strolled this odd planet playing football and keeping up with the Joneses, Schmidts and Bertillons. God love us, even dear old East Midlands rivals Derby County and Nottingham Forest strutted their stuff against such luminaries as Dynamo Berlin, AEK Athens, Slovan Bratislava and other souls so lost these days, they might as well not even exist.

Thankfully all of that has now been stamped out and we can bask in Bayern v Real every single season, Chelsea v Barcelona every single season and pretend to be happy for FC Gloria Estefzvan when they qualify by mistake and then get absolutely murdered by European stalwarts Atletico, Liverpool and Juve. Poor old FC Gloria getting a good seeing to, but at least the prize money will be enough to help them dominate their domestic league back home and they will be back for more of the same next year.

But wait, deep down we're liking UEFA's work, aren't we? The music that makes your hair stand on end. The marvellous flash redecorating that goes on overnight in all the stadiums to rid the place of all that unnecessary local advertising: Bert Fink's Fish and Chips and Lower Sodbury Hillman Imp Spare Parts. Drink Sensibly that little lot out of the way, we're coming through with the blue paint brushes and the illuminated football stickers.

Still, to City fans, brought up on a solid Euro buffet of jokes and disaster, of timid trips to Lokeren and the snow covered wastes of central Poland (yes, Groclin Dyskobolia, I am talking about you), the almost customary soft shoe shuffle with Real and Napoli, with Dortmund and Ajax that seemed in the early years like Christmas had arrived, is now more or less staple fare. 

It once smelled new, like a fresh pair of Danish espadrilles. It shone and it beckoned us with its high hemline and heavy eye-shadow. Then it battered us over the head with its all-in travel packages, executive level seating and jumbo-priced Eurosnacks. Before you know it you're 3-2 down to Madrid and there's a twitchy copper looking at your forehead like he wants to practise tapping out some Flamenco on it.

Backed by the flags of Bredbury and Denton, you are beguiled by the foreign accents and the waft of strangely becoming pipe smoke. You take in the view through your giddy Paulaner beer spectacles and breathe in the elixir of the Champions League, the biggest ever thing to happen to you and your club, the all-inclusive place that makes you a little queasy at first, a little unsure whether to let yourself go completely and like it. Once you're in you're in, though, no questions asked. You'd better buy the travel package, the executive olives with the curious taste and belt up for the ride.

Maier: big gloves

Where were we? 

Ah yes. 1974. A time of strikes, brown tank tops and one dimensional damp half time snacks. Bayern, a young team of red clad physical specimens were about to spring a surprise and take over Ajax's great European mantle. The Dutch champions, led by the  irrepressible Cruyff and Neeskens and Krol, had been champions of Europe in 1971, 1972 and 1973, beating Panathinaikos, Inter and Juventus. This incredible feat was immediately equalled by imperious Bayern, knocking the stuffing out of Atletico Madrid in a replay and then getting a touch lucky against St Etienne and Leeds United in the next two finals. Leeds fans thought Bayern had got so lucky, in fact, that they dismantled the Parc des Princes as a dirty protest.

And now, for the seventh time in the modern era, City face these aristocrats of European football, these giants that have bestrode the continental game unchecked for 40-odd years.

Manchester City versus Bayern Munich.

On the same pitch.

Again.

Breitner: fuzzy

Let us be clear on what City face. Bayern Munich have won this thing more times  than some of us have had hot Zigeuner Schnitzel dinners. So, here are some of those heroes in full glory. Look at them. Drink in their furrowed lines. Gaze into those eyes. Try, if you will, to copy their hair. For here is history. Here is where power shot out and grabbed what it wanted. The team that would "still be in that shed on Sabena Strasse" but for Gerd Muller's glorious goals, according to Kaiser Franz.

SEPP MAIER, goalkeeper, joker, bandy-legged wearer of the biggest gloves ever seen in world football. The man was a legend between the sticks, with his toothy grin and his adhesive hands. We had never seen goalkeepers wearing gloves like him before. They were huge paddles and made him look like an alien with oar-ends sticking out of his nice Addidas top. Bayern wore the three stripes like princes. Nobody wore Adidas in English football. They looked like otherworldly knights come to dethrone us all whilst wearing top quality Teutonic sportswear.

PAUL BREITNER: Amazingly talented full back, who - but for the most ridiculous bush of hair sat atop his great communist/Maoist bonce - would surely have been remembered as one of the very best. Smote long range winners like they were going out of fashion, quoted Mao in his spare time and fled to Madrid, where the white shirts of Real clashed terribly with his fuzzy barnet.

HANS GEORG SCWARZENBECK: The man with the extraordinary hooter never got the recognition he deserved, as the calm rock alongside Beckenbauer in the heart of the Bayern defence, staying behind when Kaiser Franz went on one of his regular sorties. Schwarzenbeck played many years at Bayern and in the national team, winning the World Cup in 1974. Then it all went to his head and he opened a tobacconists instead.

FRANZ BECKENBAUER: Kaiser Franz, the ultimate template for the mobile, forward-moving centre half-cum-sweeper. Beckenbauer was quite unlike anything most people had seen at that stage of the 70s. His craft, like Bobby Moore, was to stay on his feet and steal the ball away. No need to tackle and slide, when timing will do it all for you. What made Beckenbauer different was his ability to then move upfield and not lose possession. A truly majestic sight going forward, he was one of the best footballers Germany has ever produced. Reinvented himself several times as a successful manager, half-legal administrator and UEFA Football Person of Interest.

Schwarzenbeck: unfeasibly long sideburns take attention from nose

Beckenbauer: adidas

GERD MULLER: Centre of gravity so low that even a Jack Russell could not have destabilised him. Muller's tree trunk thighs and eye for goal made him an unmovable object and an unreasonable force. 487 goals in 555 games. For West Germany, as they were then, more goals (68) than games (62), an unbelievable feat. Rightly nicknamed Der Bomber, Muller was so addicted to goals that retirement from football brought real problems for him and only the kindness of the club enabled him to fight off alcoholism and make a comeback to the football industry. Will always be the yardstick alongside which all modern scoring records are compared. Take heed, Mr Haaland.

ULI HOENESS: Hoeness has the words Bayern Munich inscribed in his bone marrow. The attacking midfielder or left sided striker played in all three of Bayern's European Cup triumphs and was in the victorious 72 and 74 West Germany side that carried off the European Championship in Brussels and the World Cup in Munich, of all places. Hoeness will perhaps be better remembered for missing the

Hoeness scores against Atlético Madrid in the 1974 final

penalty that allowed Panenka to do an erm Panenka and win the '76 Euro final for Czechoslovakia, so he has several reasons to be put firmly in the European Hall of Fame. Later converted himself into a one club administrator at Bayern with a penchant for absolutely massive attachment to tax evasion. Still not clear whether he pays his taxes or not, but cannot be faulted for being the owner of a Nuremburg bratwurst factory.

FRANZ ROTH: One of the less celebrated members of the team but not in Munich, where his contribution to the cause is well remembered. Scored against Leeds in 75 and St Etienne in 76, as well as a goal against Rangers in the 67 Cup Winners Cup Final. A man for the big occasion.

KARL-HEINZ RUMMENIGGE: A name to strike fear into defenders and proof readers alike, it is often thought that Rummenigge was around later than this era, but he was present in both the 75 and 76 finals and became a Bayern legend over a 310 game career for die Roten. Another who could not resist the temptation to ascend those lushly carpeted steps up into the boardroom for a good argument over how football should be run in the modern age. (it should be run, in case you wondered, like Bayern do it).