Manchester City’s unprecedented spending on football players could bring the club the Premier League title this Sunday with QPR the apparent lambs to the slaughter. Meh.
For Manchester City , read Demi Moore. Sheikh Mansour is played by Robert Redford.
"I'll give you £1bn for one night with your football team," says Redford and immediately presents Woody Harrelson with Robinho to show he's serious. Two years later and, just like in Indecent Proposal, Demi is riding the Sheikh for all he's worth, rolling around on a bed of money with her tits out wondering what on earth she ever saw in poor Woody. Her former friends, however, wonder if they like her quite as much as they used to.
When Manchester City were with Woody Harrelson they were fun. This was the club that was four points clear at the top of the First Division in March 1972 and in a final flourish decided to seal the deal by signing Rodney Marsh from QPR for a club record fee of £200,000. Two months down the line they'd finished fourth.
This is the club that between 1993 and 1998 rattled through five permanent managers and two caretakers including a memorable 25 days and six matches with Steve Coppell who promptly resigned through the stress of it all.
It's also the club that believed a 2-2 draw at home to Liverpool on the final day of the 1995/96 season was good enough to keep them up so went to waste time in the corner – it wasn't and they were relegated.
Two years later they were relegated again, from the First Division this time, thanks, largely, to the most outrageous own goal of all time scored by Jamie Pollock. QPR were the beneficiaries that day and what is often forgotten is the first goal for the R's in a 2-2 draw, that saved their skin and relegated City instead, came when goalkeeper Martyn Margetson took leave of his senses, picked up a back pass, and then handed the ball to Kevin Gallen for a quick free kick and equaliser for Mike Sheron – a former City player.
Their route back from the third tier included a play off final against Gillingham where they were 2-0 down in injury time but drew and won on penalties. Upon arrival back in the Premiership they threw their hat in with former Thai Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra and spunked unbelievable money on ridiculously poor players at the behest of Sven Goran Ericsson and agent Jerome Anderson. You may remember Jerome Anderson from such escapades as parachuting a board of his choice that had no clue about football into Blackburn Rovers, getting them to appoint his inexperienced client as manager and offloading several of his other clients, and his eldest son, onto the playing staff. Blackburn were relegated on Monday night.
There but for the grace of God go City perhaps, rescued from an experiment that has doomed Rovers by the arrest of Shinawatra in his homeland where he was accused of all manner of financial offences, and had his human rights record was criticized by Amnesty International.
Now they nuzzle at the teat of the Sheikh, and perform a goal celebration stolen from a Polish team, and they enjoy it all very much indeed.
Moore, for those who haven't seen the film, eventually realises that Redford isn't all he's cracked up to be - you can't pleasure yourself with a £50 note at the end of the day, although I've no doubt Danielle Lloyd has had a bloody good go on a few occasions – and she returns to Harrelson.
There's talk of the forthcoming financial fair play regulations scuppering City's remorseless acquisition of their rivals' best players in the pursuit of an artificial glory but the threats still ring hollow and City would by no means be the only club affected by them. I mean outside Germany , UEFA would struggle to find a team living within its means that could compete in its tournaments. Are they really going to forbid City, Chelsea , Barcelona , Real Madrid and the whole of Serie A from international competitions? I don't see it. Firstly, and most importantly, a Champions League Final between Athletic Bilbao and West Bromwich Albion isn't going to pull a big television audience.
City seem to believe they can circumnavigate the whole thing by naming their stadium after their owner's airline, and charging said airline the cost of the team for the privilege. Everybody knows what's going on there, nobody seems to care very much.
Personally I'm ambivalent towards them. I don't like Chelsea , I detest Manchester United, and suddenly all this money has created a monster that can engulf both of them which, if it does, I shall find extremely funny. The idea that, with Stoke City 4-0 up against Bolton, QPR deliberately score an own goal to seal a City win and league title and then text pictures of post match celebrations involving City and QPR players to Ashley Young thrills me a great deal. If there was nothing at stake in this game I'd almost be tempted to go wearing Sky Blue and plea with QPR to roll over and die. Sadly we cannot afford such luxuries.
While football remains without a salary cap or serious, enforceable financial rules there will always be the opportunity for one of the world's super rich to take a fancy of a middle of the road football club and turn it into a global player. QPR are probably at least one division higher than they could ever be of their own accord thanks to the intervention of several rich men in recent years. As far as I'm concerned it couldn't really have happened to a nicer or more deserving club than City, who I've always warmed to because of the presence of the red Anti Christ down the road. It just doesn't feel like cricket though does it?
In amongst the inevitable influx of bandwagon jumpers who fraudulently claim they've supported City their whole life, Japanese wankers taking photographs and people outside the ground selling the "official Manchester City song sheet, all the lyrics to all the songs" I hope the hardcore City support that always stuck with their team aren't priced out or losing interest. This was a club that averaged more than 30,000 at Maine Road in the Second Division – worth remembering if you're thinking of singing "where were you when you were shit" this weekend – and for those people I'm pleased.
The rest? Meh. If they remade Indecent Proposal these days not only would Moore stay with Redford , they'd probably have Harrelson killed for daring to get in the way. Modern world, modern game.
I need a summer holiday.
Ahead of this potentially momentous day for City we turn to long time supporter Stevie Williams for his opinions on the champions elect. Don’t mistake him for a bandwagon jumper, back in the late 1990s Stevie and I would calmly take the abuse from the plastic Man Utd fans at our secondary school as the respective fortunes of QPR and City lurched from one farce to the next.
It all comes down to this, you must be confident even though you never can tell with City? Are you surprised it's got this far considering you seemed to be playing your way out of contention a month or so back?
I’m not confident at all as City have always been very impressive at snatching defeat from the jaws of victory. I’m not really surprised to find City only needing three more points going into the last game as this season and others before have proved the unthinkable can happen. Basically we went missing while Yaya Toure and Vincent Kompany were away with the African Cup of Nations and suspension. With those two back and City playing the best football I have ever seen from them, turning around an eight point lead is the sweetest of sweet things. Hopefully.
What difference has Tevez made since returning to the team? How has that return been received by City fans?
Tevez is without doubt a world class striker and would be an asset in any team he played in. His understanding with Aguero is something that has been missing. We tried to get something similar going with Balotelli and Dzeko to no avail. The way the issue was dealt with, I believe sent a message out that no player is bigger than our club. Mancini did say from the start that he would accept an apology but initially it was not forthcoming. Tevez returning has brought a few mixed opinions, I personally am glad to see him back and if he helps bring the title to City for the first time since the Premiership began all will most probably be forgotten.
As nobody can live with City financially could a first title this Sunday be the start of a domination similar to that of Man Utd over the past 20 years? How will the financial fair play rules affect the club? Firstly all teams that have had the glory in the past have done so while holding the monopoly in the transfer market - none more so than United, the well advertised richest team in the world.
I would like to think that the backbone of the club including staff has already been put in place so there should be no more need to splurge hundreds of millions into the market. As far as domination goes, I don’t think City are going to disappear from the top three for a while.
On financial fair play, I honestly think books will be balanced. The owners haven't just spent the money on the players, they're trying to set City up as a global business with academies all over the world and City finally competing with Europe’s elite. The advertising and sponsorship couldn't be better and our owner has other multimillion pound companies that could throw in lucrative packages to boost that further.
What is the general feeling about Roberto Mancini and the job he's done? Is the school of thought that City have spent so much even Bryan Robson might have been able to do something with them fair on him?
When Mancini was announced as manager, I wasn't the most happy person in the world. That’s not because it was Mancini but because I wanted to see City give a manager a chance – I feared we would be like Chelsea and sack a manager after every defeat. However the job he has done has been brilliant and I don’t believe any manager could achieve what he has because he needs to keep all those global superstars happy and playing well. I think the squad of players we have know Mancini is the boss and are happy with that. Sometimes his tactical decisions are questionable -especially last season - but on the whole what City fan could argue with a trophy and potential title after only two full seasons in the seat? FORZA MANCINI.
Who is your City Player of the Year?
Without a doubt the club captain Vincent Kompany. The best centre back in the world? We will always be thankful for Sparky bringing him to Manchester for, would you believe it, just £6m.
Roberto Mancini the player was part of a Sampdoria team that made you glad to be alive so you could watch them. Prior to this season he was the manager of a Manchester City team so dull and negative suicide seemed a more favourable option than settling down in front of one of their away matches.
In the Premiership last year a fixture at an Arsenal side in fast decline featured one of the most negative and miserable visiting team set ups ever seen at the Emirates Stadium. 'Parking the bus' is the modern parlance, and Arsenal have certainly seen a few Blackburn Rovers and Bolton Wanderers teams come and try to do it in recent times, but City were so unashamedly miserable about it that 'bricking the goal up' may have been a more accurate metaphor. "Boring, boring City" was the chorus at full time – of course those clad in Sky Blue chant that ironically these days now Mancini has let his team of stars off the leash.
Mancini may be Italian, and therefore carry the national football stereotype forged over more than a century of battling to 1-0 wins, but he never seemed like ideal management material as a player, and certainly not an overtly negative one. English football fans saw him only very briefly on these shores, four scoreless games at Leicester City at the end of his career, but he was widely recognised as one of the finest footballers of the 1980s and 90s.
He graduated from youth football at Bologna but found himself thrust into a team about to be relegated two years in a row. The entire team scored 25 goals between them in 1981/82 on their way out of Serie A, Mancini scored nine of them and played every match as a 17-year old.
Needless to say he did not journey to Serie B with his hapless team mates. He'd done enough to earn a move to Sampdoria, who passed Bologna coming the other way, and it was there in Genoa that he spearheaded the club's greatest ever side alongside Gianluca Vialli. His goal scoring record, at a time when Serie A was recognised as the best league in the world and famed for the water tight defences of its top teams, was extraordinary. He bagged 132 goals in 424 games. In 1991 Sampdoria won the Serie A title ahead of the big names from Milan, Turin and Rome backed by the millions of oil rich tycoon Paolo Mantovani – it was the club's first, and as yet only, league title. Considering that Inter attacked that season with West German World Cup winners Lothar Matthaus and Jurgen Klinsmann at their disposal and even Napoli had Diego Maradona the achievement was formidable.
They reached the Champions League final a year later but lost to Barcelona , they won the Cup Winners Cup in 1990 having won the Italian cup four times in nine years and they were bloody good to watch. How could a side with Mancini and Vialli up front be anything else?
Mancini was no angel, hence the doubts about his managerial potential. Sampdoria chucked some of Mantovani's money at Trevor Francis in the 1980s after he'd won the European Cup with Nottingham Forest but the soon to be QPR manager's seniority and medal collection didn't stop a young Mancini starting a training ground fight with him that required team mates to wade in. In 1995 he received a six match ban for his reaction to a referee who had refused to award Sampdoria a penalty – Mancini threw his captain's armband at the official and stormed off the field refusing to play. He returned briefly at the behest of manager Sven Goran Eriksson but a wild lunge on Paul Ince soon saw him returning to the dressing room at the referee's request. Nevertheless Eriksson took him to Lazio in 2000 and the pair won another Serie A title together.
Despite this chequered disciplinary history, which perhaps explains his continued patience with wild child Mario Balotelli, Mancini has indeed made a very fine manager. At cash strapped (and soon to be bankrupt) Fiorentina he won the Italian Cup and then did likewise with Lazio. The achievements did not go unnoticed at Inter Milan where owner Massimo Moretti had been throwing millions at the likes of Ronaldo since 1995 and achieved one solitary UEFA Cup success in a decade when Mancini became the latest in a string of managers to try his hand at the San Siro. In his first season in charge they won Serie A thanks to Juventus being stripped of the crown in a match fixing scandal – but Inter were worthy default champions having only lost two games all season.
Three other league titles followed, two Italian Cups and three Italian Super Cups. Then they sacked him – well, this is Italy we're talking about.
Last year City could be dire to watch, but they ended their 35 year wait for a trophy with an FA Cup win continuing Mancini's awesome record in knock out competitions. It seems that the insomnia curing performances they turned in on occasions last season were just while Mancini got his defence in place – he's now hung some of the world's finest trinkets from that tree and while the criticism will always be that success at Inter and City is more about money than managers his record both as a boss and a player speaks for itself.
If you find the prospect of Carlos Tevez waltzing back into Manchester City and collecting the title winner’s medal after a winter sabbatical playing in Argentinean celebrity golf tournaments unedifying then read on no further, because he’s probably had more input than most in turning City’s season around from the brink of failure.
After a tense few weeks between Tevez and the club came to a head in Munich where the striker allegedly refused to come on as a substitute against Bayern manager Roberto Mancini rightly stated that as long as he was in charge of the team Tevez would never play for it again. This was later downscaled to saying Tevez could play again if he apologised, but that didn’t appear much more likely then the first option and the loathsome agent of both Tevez and our manager Mark Hughes, Kia Joorabchian, started hawking him around the January transfer window.
The problem was, in the meantime the Premier League got wise to City’s powers. Initially they were untouchable, winning ten and drawing one of their first 11 league games. But the ninth victory in that run came somewhat against the run of play against QPR at Loftus Road where Mancini’s new boldness in approach, in stark contrast to his miserly tactics last season, let Neil Warnock’s boisterous team in for what should have been a point at least. Rangers showed no fear, pressed City ludicrously high up the field, and exploited their weakness to counter attacks in wide areas, taking full advantage of the absence of their star man Vincent Kompany and terrorising his replacement Stefan Savic. City immediately became more cautious, and straight away dropped points at Liverpool and Chelsea as a result. Over Christmas and into January they won just one of five league and cup games, crashing out of both domestic cup competitions in the process.
They were struggling in the Champions League as well, found out well and truly in their group stage by Italian side Napoli who allowed City’s less creative players – Kompany, Lescott, e Jong, Kolarov, Zabaletta – to have all the possession they wanted and then remorselessly pressing the rest when they came close to the ball. Once retrieved possession was quickly worked in behind Zabaleta and Kolarov into wide areas where now City looked weak and exposed.
Suddenly the Premier League had a cheat sheet for City. They didn’t need to fear the solid base of the team when it had possession, just target the likes of Aguero, Silva, Balotelli and Toure when they got the ball and once won back spring quickly and in big numbers into wide areas. Between March 8 and April 8 City crashed out of the Europa League to Sporting Lisbon and lost in the Premiership against Swansea and Arsenal while drawing with Sunderland and Stoke – two wins from seven matches appeared to have ended their season.
Tevez has changed everything. The thinking on City, worked out during the winter by Napoli and others, was suddenly irrelevant with them now fielding Aguero and Tevez, ignoring Balotelli and Dzeko, and using Nasri as well as Silva in support. When things still weren’t going their way at Newcastle last weekend they moved Yaya Toure forward to join in, slotting De Jong in behind, and that sheer weight of attacking talent proved too much even for the in form Magpies.
The initial plan was difficult but executed well by middle of the road sides like Stoke, Sunderland and Swansea. Now, with Tevez thrown in as well, you have to be a superb team with extraordinary levels of concentration to play in the same way. It’s proved beyond the last six teams City have played, including Man Utd, who have all lost to them as they’ve wrestled back control of the title as a result.
Somehow QPR – two draws and ten defeats from their last 12 away games – need to re-write that cheat sheet.
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