Man City Overspent?
Manchester City have been the busiest English club in the transfer market, and it seemed they had over-compensated in the amount of strikers they bought.
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Ten years ago, while Manchester United were lifting the greatest club-level prize in world football, Manchester City were pulling off one off the greatest, yet largely unnoticed football comebacks of all time. They scored twice in five minutes of injury time in the Division Two play-off final to take Gillingham to extra time and penalties, with a young goalkeeper from Mansfield, Nicky Weaver, becoming a City saviour and now legend. While Paul Dickov scored in the fifth minute of injury time to drag City from the pits of doom. On this day, if you were to have told any City fan that ten years on, they would be the richest club in the world, bidding for the most high-profile players, from Camden to Cameroon, they would have sniffed, swallowed a stream of tears, smiled, and laughed a hearty, cynical laugh while slapping you on the back. However, as it turns out, it is now the blue side of Manchester that is on the name of the English public’s lips. Tabloids and broadsheets alike are scrambling for stories, or even murmurs to stamp on their back pages for the next days print. Alex Ferguson has already said that United now need to compete with City for the back page story.
Yet a cloud of uncertainty hangs over Eastlands right now. Will they really be able to achieve a ram-raid into the top four, which is so obviously there target? A cloud of uncertainty that is fuelled by the fact that they now have seven high profile strikers, and a defence that still seems shaky. How all of these, notably egotistical strikers, in Bellamy, Robinho, Tevez, Santa Cruz and Adebayor, will be seived down to two or three, is a question other Premiership managers find laughing to each other as Mark Hughes himself seems to become more confused and perplexed than anyone. Goals have been coming, but in recent tests against two of the traditional top four, cracks in the defence have begun to spring leaks. It remains truly to be seen if Mark Hughes will be able to gel his team together in time to compete for a high-profile finish as early as this season. Surely, anything lower than fourth come next May will see him sacked.
So far, Manchester City have followed their own expectations. On Saturday 12th September they knocked down Arsenal 4-2. Possibly a very flattering score, City were able to beat the Gunners at their own game of counter-attacking football. The Manchester derby on September 20th was one of the most intense and entertaining of it’s kind to take place for many years. One half of Manchester was left in tatters when Michael Owen scored in the sixth minute of injury time. Whether it should have been is not debatable, as it stands. Through most eyes, Manchester Untied were and still are the better team. However, the way in which City really took the game to United at Old Trafford, in spells being the dominant team, is a little inkling, one small showing of light, that could suggest that a Blue Moon is rising.
