Man City 2009-2010

Well only a few days to go before the season starts at Blackburn and though I saw the Celtic game live and viewed the other pre-season games via the laptop I am not yet certain what out final line-up will be. Injures to some key players and Lescottgate must give manager Mark Hughes a few headaches. While several areas of the team have been improved with the new signings for me there are some questions to be answered.
The defence as a unit is not as solid as it should be. Toure if he is fit will certainly be one of the central defenders but who the other one will be is the question - Dunne, Onuoha (when fit) Kompany (when fit ) or another signing - Lescott, Upson, Distin.
Bridge has the left back position without much competition - yet ! For right back Richards and Zabaleta are the contenders with the latter favorite for the bench as he can fill in in midfield if wanted. De Jong has had a good pre-season and will Kompany a run for his money when the Belgium defender is fit again. Ireland and Barry will probably be running the midfield and just maybe if we are in a strong position ( top 4 ) in January I would like a creative midfielder ( Messi perhaps) to be added to the squad. Now we come to the really interesting selection problem and I would not be surprised if the system City play will depend on several factors - the opposition/home or away/injures etc. That leaves three spaces up front - Tevez, Adebayor and Robinho for first choice. Santa Cruz (when fit) is likely to be deputy for Adebayor. and Bellamy, SWP and Petrov for Tevez and Robinho. Weiss may come into contention for some home games and there is also Ben Haim as a defensive possibility.
There are a few areas to be sorted - who takes penalties and free-kicks in attacking areas and we need a great improvement in defending corners etc. Finally I think we need a new captain. Gareth Barry would be my choice.

The away win at Blackburn was a great way to start the season especially as we managed only two away wins last season! The new signings did well and Adebayor scored a great goal in the early minutes to warm the hearts of the 7000 City fans who made the journey to Blackburn. City didn't have it all their own way Given making 2 important saves but generally City controlled the game and Irelands late individual effort sealed the win. Tevez had a 20 minute run out to further test his fitness. Toure's presence in defence helped a lot but I think there is still much work to be done there. Bellamy worked his socks off as usual and Barry who played just in front of the back 4 was excellent.

Talk at the moment is the possibility of City signing a Brazilian starlet - Rafael de Souza Rodolfo known as Pernao. He was only 16 in March this year and on the books of Fluminense but has not played for their first team yet. He is a striker and very good with the ball at his feet.

Full marks to City for streaming the Barcelona friendly game live the other evening . Over 90,000 supporters filled the giant stadium to see City win the Joan Gamper Trophy by a single goal. Both teams started under strength and Barcelona dominated the early stages. So it was an excellent opportunity to fine tune our defence. Despite the pressure the home side rarely troubled Given in the first half.
A quick counter attack caught Barca napping just under the 30 minute mark. A great pass by man-of-the -match Stevie Ireland found Petrov who raced away and cracked the ball past Pinto to silence the home supporters. The sound of Blue Moon could be heard drifting down from the top of one of the stands! It would have been a terrific experience for the City players and one Vladdy Weiss will never forget. He really tried very hard and did not look out of place even when Messi and Ibrahimovic came on in the second half. City defended well in the second half protecting Given who had only a couple of good saves to make in the game.

With the transfer deadline approaching it looks like City are putting the final touches to their defensive new look with both Lescott and Sylvinho joining today ( 24th). Finally the Lescottgate saga has come to an end. At the open day Peter Stevenson mentioned to me that Everton were asking 23 odd million and it looks like Moyes has at last given way as he has to find a replacement in the next week.
Sylvinho has come on a free from Barcelona ( I presume things were sorted out during City's visit there last week). He played for Arsenal from 1999- 2001 scoring three times in 55 games. He then moved to Ceta Vigo (89 games) before ending up at Barcelona for whom he scored twice in 89 games. He's 35 and 5ft 8inches tall . He will be joining fellow countryman Robinho and no doubt will be deputy for Wayne Bridge. He has much experience playing in the Champions League and has played for Brazil 6 times.
Joleon Lescott played for Wolves before joining Everton and for a central defender has a very good scoring record - 13 for Wolves ( 212 games) and 14 for Everton in 113. He is 27 and 6ft 2 in tall. He has 7 England caps

Yet another striker for City - if reports are true. Apparently City are in the process of signing Danijel Aleksic for £6million from Voyvodina in the Serbian League. He is 18 and a brilliant prospect. and has played once for Serbia. Made his debut at 16 and is about 6ft tall. He's finished his weeks trial but because he needed a work permit he could not be signed before the deadline.

I was disappointed to see that our main sponsor Etihad also appear on the shirts of rugby club Harlequins who are at the centre of the Bloodgate affair. I hope that Etihad withdraw their sponsorship of this joke club. The cover-up of the cheating was incredible and there is more to come!
At last the transfer window has come to an end and I can now switch off Sky Sports! No more additions to the City squad ( until January!) but Ben Haim has left for Portsmouth and Richard Dunne has departed for Aston Villa. Now that our defence has been reinforced with Toure and Lescott it was no surprise that there would be departures. Dunne had been a good player for City for several seasons but recently his number of errors had increased and there had been a down turn in form so it would have been difficult for him to retain his place in the team

City headed the big spender list during the transfer window with £118 million - Toure, Tevez, Taylor, Santa Cruz, Barry, Adebayor and Lescott. Out went Elano, Ben Haim, Evans and Dunne.
Considering all these the changes to the squad the team have made a good start to the season winning all three games without conceding a goal. Winning twice away already ( we only won 2 away all last season) and scoring twice from corners is a good omen but the next two games against Arsenal and United will be a reality check as to the progress made.

Best one liner I have heard on TV for a long time came the other Sunday while watching a BBC 2 program - Hardcore Profits. I probably would not have watched it normally ( well that's my story) but it so happens the father of the writer, producer and presenter of the program, Tim Samuels is one of my oldest friends so it was a duty to watch - of course!
During the program which was excellent he did some interviews at an ' exhibition' - eXXXotica in New York. While talking to the two young ladies who were roped together - I can't think why! - at the end of the interview one of them asked Tim -
" What are you into?"
Quick as a flash came the reply -
" Manchester City"
Like his father Tim has been a supporter for many years . Brilliant!

Just received my copy of Garry James' new book -
'The Big Book of City' . Well worth a read.
Plenty of facts and figures, tales of past glories and memories. Discover how Maine Road got its name - the real story. Were CSI Moss Side involved ?
Quiz questions too so overall plenty to dip into.
Lots to read about City's goalkeepers over the years.

Despite the run of draws City still remain in reach of a top four place. Defensive errors have cost valuable points in the last few weeks so it was interesting to see how well City's left defence played for England against an almost full strength Brazil side in the recent friendly!
Though City have played down further big transfers in the January transfer window I still expect some new faces. The future of Robinho has also made the news recently and his return from Injury will be watched with great interest. Though he himself has said he wants to stay his attitude on the pitch is likely to say more than mere words! When everybody is fit the manager will have a problem deciding on his best formation. I believe it will vary depending on the opposition and whether we are at home or away.

The subject of cheating has risen its ugly head again and two recent examples should maybe wake FIFA up from its slumber. The hand ball by Henry on the blind side of the referee to enable France to score against Eire and go through to the World Cup in South Africa should surely be punished. The referee could certainly not have seen the offence from where he was standing and the linesman on the far side would have found it very difficult to see it at full speed. Sky Sports who are milking the situation showed a single frame 3D CGI representation of the moment of the handball from the linesman's viewpoint and said that he could have seen it. I am afraid that real life is not like that and at full speed and that distance it would have been very difficult for him to be certain it was hand ball. An extra official on that touchline would certainly have seen it and surely the fourth official could have viewed it on a monitor and relayed the incident to the referee very quickly .Surely there is a monitor available for him to view incidents near the touchline. I did notice however on one of the many replays I have watched that the referee was pretty static as play developed near the touchline and he made no effort to get nearer to the action to see what was happening. Now most referees will only move from the edge of one penalty area diagonally to the edge of the other. The main reason for that is if the ball is quickly cleared by defenders if the referee is too near the goal line he might find it hard to catch up with play. If they are fit enough though and their gut feeling and football knowledge tells them something is going to happen then they should take a chance and get into a better position to judge. I used to be quite fast and fit when I refereed back in the 50's in my 20's. There were several occasions when players would appeal for a corner or goal kick looking back to where they thought the referee would be only to find I was stood 'next to them' ! They soon got the message. But that was in the good old days when I later used to have lunch with a few of the City players in a cafe in Moss Side!
Now it is a very different game with greater rewards and players are fitter and faster. The temptation to cheat by diving or using a hand to control the ball are greater so the punishments should be greater too. More of this later.
The dive by Liverpool's Ngog to gain a penalty against Birmingham was so blatant and in a similar position to the Henry incident. When a player deliberately dives you often see the chest extended and the arms and legs are pulled back.The Ngog dive is a good example of this. However if you fall or are tripped people instinctively put out an arm or move their feet to soften the effects. You can see this in the sequence below.

I shot this in 1955 in Hong Kong illustrating fouls for referee training in a course I was running for the HKFA. I found it while hunting for old City pics to be used in a Blurb book I'm working on.

However diving can be difficult to spot when there is a slight contact with the defender which makes the referees' job much more difficult. So how are we going to cut the cheating out of the game. As we have seen several times recently the slightest touch has been exaggerated to ridiculous lengths. Initially massive suspensions need to be imposed when there is no doubt about the offence.3 to 5 games suspensions would soon get the message over. This business about not being able to do it because the referee was judged to have seen the incident is rubbish. Change the FIFA regulations re the referees decision. One of the exercises I used to use in referee training was to set up a situation involving several players and then get the students to write down what they had seen. It was amazing how different the interpretations were in many cases!
Post match analysis will in the long run help referees not undermine their authority. The cheats will be either be run out of the game or they will have to change their ways. Sponsors of cheats should think seriously about dropping them which would hit them in the pocket. Cheaters must not prosper.

I cannot see the France Eire game being replayed and as for Henry himself I doubt whether FIFA have the guts to suspend him from the World Cup. He is getting a lot of stick in the media at the moment and I suppose he is lucky this didn't happen a few years ago - otherwise he would be checking underneath his car every morning!

After a poor display against Spurs away the match against Sunderland proved to be the last for manager Mark Hughes. Roberto Mancini has been given the job to get City into a top 4 place. He is the 18th manager for City over the past 23 years ( the length of time a certain United manager has been in control) Apparently the move has been on the cards for some time and no surprise that Brian Kidd has become his number 2. Hope Brian is learning Italian! Mancini has had no experience in the Premier league but has done well in the italian league winning three Serie A titles with Inter. However Inter were not pretty to watch playing very defensively so he will have his work cut out to sort out the present City defence! He played mainly for Sampdoria and Lazio but had 4 games for leicester City in 2001 at the end of his playing career. He also played for Italy 36 times scoring 4 goals. As a manager he has managed Fiorentina and Lazio before Inter.

He now has a few games to weigh up the team and decide who he will sign in January. With both Bridge and Lescott off for several weeks and Toure off to Africa in January I am sure we shall see some defenders coming in and I would not be surprised if at least one does not come from Serie A . Richards was injured again against Sunderland and I don't think Sylvinho is good enough for the Premiership now new defenders are a must.

Maine Road today
On my way home from the Pompey game I popped into Moss Side to see what had happened to Maine Road. The large building on the left is a new Primary School.

The transfer window is now shut and we had one early and one late newcomer. First to arrive was Patrick Viera who will be 34 in June. A very experienced mid-fielder he played 279 games for Arsenal scoring 29 before moving to Juventus ( 5 goals in 31 games ) and Inter (6 goals in 67). He has won well over 100 caps for France but so far injury has prevented his debut. He joins ex Arsenal colleagues Toure and Sylvinho in the City squad. He will be wearing number 24 shirt.
A last minute signing from Middlesbrough was Adam Johnson a left winger who will be 23 in July. He is a talented young player who scored 13 goals in his 96 games for Middlesbrough. He has also played 19 times for England under 21.
While talks were going on some bright spark inserted the following into Johnson's Wikipedia page on the web ---

'During the January 2010 transfer window, Johnson was heavily linked with a move to PerthGlory who reportedly made a bid of £5 and a dog to acquire his services, which has been accepted by his club and Johnson travels to Perth Australia for his medical on February 1st. Johnson is reportedly delighted with the move, stating that it will give him a real chance of making the World Cup squad.'

It has now been removed! - I didn't know Terry had moved to Perth!

The exit from the Carling Cup was disappointing to say the least and a last minute goal once again emphasized the need for concentration always!
A young player who had been thrust into action and done well is Dedryck Boyata. The great work done by the Academy at Platt Lane triumphed again. This lad has come from nowhere and settled in really well. With injuries to City defenders on the increase his emergence into the limelight is well timed. Other young players given a go at Scunthorpe were Cunningham and Ibrahim. It is good to see our manager having confidence in these young players.