Can City’s players avoid the axe?
world cup? city doesn't...
You can’t help but sympathise with (be jealous of) City fans at this point. Since last year, they’ve gone from despair (going nowhere fast) to joy (Shinawatra) to eventual despair (Shinawatra) and now, on the last day of the transfer window, sheer joy (Abu Dhabi United) again.
It’s enough to drive you insane – and we haven’t even got to Kompany, Jo, Robinho or the ambitions of Dr Fahim yet.
Mark Hughes now officially has the toughest job in the Premier League – he knows he will be axed unless he performs a miracle, and he knows that it will take a year until he gets players good enough to perform miracles, by which time it may be too late.
In addition he has a squad that’s both excited and nervous – since Dr Fahim has wasted no time in insisting that the new owners will spend as much money as is necessary to win titles as quickly as possible.
If you’re Robinho or Richards, you know there’s pressure to perform but you’re also sure you’ll be in the side come September 2009 as long as you play at your best. Even Kompany, Jo, Dunne and SWP can expect to stick around.
For many others, not least the two young keepers or the likes of Ireland, Johnson, Onuoha, Elano, Petrov and Bejani, it’s not so easy. At their best they’re still vulnerable to being replaced as soon as the transfer window opens with better players just because the owners have the money and the will to spend.
Motivating a set of players who know they’re doomed is impossible – Hughes must convince the players (and the board) that if they play to the best of their ability then they will be kept, and use that to motivate his squad into punching above its weight. It’s the only way for City to push on and challenge for 4th spot, and it’s the only way most people at the club will keep their jobs in the next year.
Luckily for City fans, they’re in capable hands where Hughes is concerned. He’s strong enough to handle the pressure and respected enough by his players to get them to do what he wants. And if he can get Robinho to start firing in goals instead of crying, City have exciting times ahead of them.
As for the new set of ‘Blues’ fans – well, it’s the price of buying success. London to Manchester was never too far anyway….
This is an excellent piece Ahmed. I wonder if, during the elation of transfer deadline day, anybody stopped to think of the existing city players. The likes of Richard Dunne who has been a solid “player of the year” centre half, may be gradually squeezed out as city look for world class defenders. Then there is the city academy which has successfully boasted some of the country’s finest young talent. I fear for the academy.
I know it’s an ongoing debate.. that of foreign superstars taking the place of young English talent.
As a city fan, you cannot turn your nose up at the likes of Robinho, Gomez, Kaka and all the other names recently linked with us. (although I do take exception at Cristiano Ronaldo. As good as he is.. he is a slimy little show pony and City fans despise him. Of course you would take Robinho above the excellent Ched Evans who is just breaking into our squad. I just hope that Hughes has the sense to realise that it is outfits like our academy which have built our club over the years and, instead of being blinkered by the money, he is able to keep an even balance.
It has worked well for the likes of Wenger and Ferguson (I mean not buying players like they were playing fantasy football)
An alternative theory!
http://offthepost.wordpress.com/2008/09/03/manchester-citys-formation-for-february/
There are certainly a lot of changes going on at City over the last few days.
I’m sure some of the ‘lesser’ players will be more nervous about their future at the club than excited about its prospects.
As you say come the next tranfer window they all may be replaced with a new Galacticos style set-up and the new owners said they could be looking at bringing 18n ew players in. I don’t doubt them to be honest.
As for Mark Hughes, he definitely needs some good results and fast. Their away win at the weekend over Sunderland was a good start though and I don’t doubt his ability as a manager, I just doubt if he will be given a long enough term to prove himself. Time will tell.
John
http://www.onlinebettingsystemreviews.com
I’ve got a feeling that all of these foreign takeovers may, eventually be beneficial to some of the so-called smaller premiership clubs which seem to dally between the top two leagues (West Brom etc.), and eventually may have a positive filter down effect to the championship. I know this may seem counter intuitive at first, but players with established quality may see their futures lie outside of the “top” teams (ie, those which have encountered substantial investment, such as city) and could well sign for promising smaller teams even though they may or may not be in the premier league (such as sunderland, wolves). This could lead to an overall increase in quality in these teams, and as such could potentially stem or even reduce the evident gap between the premier league/championship. However, for this to work would require a greater investment in scouting networks, and a fairly constant influx of top quality players from outside of the domestic leagues, or else a tipping point may occur where the drain of talent by the effectively unlimited budget of clubs such as those run by Abramovich/ADUG will cause a break away of clubs with overwhelming power, as previously seen in Scotland with the Celtic/Rangers domination (although this has been broken down somewhat in the last few years, in part due to external investment from overseas).
There’s a piece on Manutd.com about City willing to pay obscene amounts for Ronaldo, Messi and the like. The amount quoted for CR is a mind-bending 134M pounds! There should be a law against this.
btw, Alan Curbs have been the first manager to be sacked(unless in the next 24hrs, someone denies that).
wonder if SL will blog on the first Gaffer to be showed the door.
discussed it here
Looks like City hit the jackpot,literally.Now with the new owners talking about buying players like Ronaldo,Torres,Fabregas(hands off!!!!!)I do agree there’s added pressure on the players,and Robinho might have gotten lucky by crying his way out of Real,because if he performs this season they’ll build a team around him.City fans must be salivating at all the possibilities.I guess they now know what it feels to be a Chelsea fan,except that City has got a lot more cash to throw around.
Seeing the takeover, I’m more worried about the future of football itself. Given the extreme popularity of the English league, I doubt that current EPL club-owners will hang on to their post when billionaire investors come knocking their doors. The league has become the platform of excellent investment, undoubtedly. I won’t be too surprised if some random multi-billionaire hit the headline tomorrow by taking over clubs like Hull or Stoke, because investors know the flow too well, ‘the English league promises profit’, (mostly because of TV revenues, no other league in the world has bigger TV revenues than the English league). The issue is not the takeover, however, it’s the sudden influx of world class players into the league. The Abu Dhabi United has promised the club that players with the caliber of Kaka, Messi, Torres, Villa etc will come, and future billionaire club-owners would do the same. In 2 or 3 years time, the EPL could be a battle between 3 or 4 ‘World Cup Dream Teams’, which could be continued in the UEFA Champions League, where clubs from germany, italy, spain and france are no longer able to compete (due to star players all ply trade in England). And what the local players would have become? bench-warmers? and what’s the competitive level gonna be like in La Liga, Bundesliga, Serie A and French liege after all their exciting players move to England??
Zulfadli, Agree totally, there will be more of this to come and where it all ends up, who knows?
The scenario you paint is a very real possibility.
What about Shaun Wright-Phillips? Talk about jumping out of the frying pan and into the fire!
SWP will probably survive – he’s got a good 6 months and even a whole season of regular football to establish himself.