Mad-chester City!!!

FBJ is back once again folks, hope all is well with you all. Now before I get to the nitty-gritty of this article and its topic, I want to give a big thanks to all the positive feedback I have received of late regarding Frankly Speaking. Thank you all very much for your support, and indeed it is greatly appreciated. Now with the niceties done, it is amongst some of you that have also been asking me my thoughts on the whole Carlos Tevez, Roberto Mancini, Manchester City debacle from last Tuesday night.

Well those of you who are regular readers of Frankly Speaking, you will know I like to take the long-term view in my assessment to a particular issue. But in saying that, blimey where does one begin? No hold on wait a minute, here’s a good place, how about the moment the club unceremoniously handed Mark Hughes his P45 in December of 2009. To those who may recall, it seemed general knowledge that Hughes had been effectively replaced before his team were taking to the field in a home Premier League fixture against Sunderland. The fans knew it, the media were aware of the state of affairs, but there appeared to be a strange underhand situation that the club had created, in making Hughes a dead man walking. Surely knowing he was going to lose his job, or had been told minutes before stepping out into the stadium that this was to be his final game; Hughes still took to the touchline to lead his team out.

The official word was given out almost two hours after recording a 4-3 home win over Sunderland, that indeed Hughes had been given his marching orders. The swift fallout centered on how the club could sack Hughes on the basis of seven straight draws, and only losing two games in all competitions. One of those defeats came in that memorable, and controversial added-on injury time winner for Manchester United, in the derby match at Old Trafford. Nevertheless the club’s hierarchy felt Hughes just simply was not getting the best of the team.

Now obviously it is too simplistic to state that this is when all Manchester City’s problems have started from, but in my mind it set a certain precedent of haphazard, and care-free management of the club at all levels off the pitch. City’s defeat to Bayern Munich and all that surrounded the match was a mere conclusion to what has steadily been transpiring at the club both on and off the pitch. Think I am wrong? How many times have seen reports with clear images showing the players fighting between themselves, and with the manager Roberto Mancini? 

We have heard the reported situations where former captain Kolo Toure fought with Emmanuel Adebayor, and to those in the know would recognise that these two at the time were regarded as a good friends. The recently departed Jerome Boateng, who played for Bayern Munich last Tuesday night against Manchester City also had a run-in with Mario Balotelli. A deep though I know, but is it not a bit strange how Manchester City’s recent past and present was all laid bare on one night in Munich. Maybe it was written in the stars that a major issue was about to transpire that night, either that or maybe I have been listening to Tinie Tempah's smash hit song a bit too much.

Anyway back to the matter at hand and speaking of Mario Balotelli, we cannot seem to go one week without some mad story documented about the Italian causing some sort of trouble or another. Though on a side note I do feel at times Balotelli is an easy target by the media, and like to embellish certain stories that involve him because of he is a irritable character and has a chequered past. However putting that to one side, let us not forget Balotelli himself has had his own public altercations with Roberto Mancini, the latest occurring this summer during a pre-season game against David Beckham and his LA Galaxy team-mates, in the USA.

Up until a few weeks ago, City were employing a senior executive deemed to be an influential figure within the club, and a man who should demonstrate responsible conduct in and around the Manchester club. What was displayed was a man in Gary Cook who thought it wise to ridicule the severe ailing health of a fellow human being, and someone who is the mother of Nedum Onuoha, a player that represents Manchester City. How can an individual in such a lofty position exhibit such actions which simply go beyond football, are a matter of life and death, and show a complete lack of respect for a fellow human being?

I have merely just highlighted just some of the wild incidents that have transpired at City in the last two years, and have failed to even mention the steady stream of public flashpoints that Tevez and Mancini have had in the past before last Tuesday night’s shenanigans. This brief recap in history really boils down to the simple fact of this, there is something incoherently going wrong internally at the Etihad Stadium.

The madness in Munich only compounds this theorem, and in my mind, the events that we saw were simply only a matter of time before exploding. How can a player in Edin Džeko, to my knowledge at least has no major record of challenging the manager and throwing a strop at the dare notion that a manager wants to substitute him? The exacting story has not come out yet but we saw Pablo Zabaleta having some sort of heated exchange with Mancini. And to top it all off we have Tevez who allegedly refused to go on to the pitch while his team are losing two-nil in a high stakes match. Why? Because supposedly his head was not right place, or his nose was out of joint at not being the first substitute used from the City bench. This is craziness!! Could you ever imagine all this going on at a club under the stewardship of an Alex Ferguson, Kenny Dalglish, or Harry Redknapp?

This is no way a reflection of my opinion to Roberto Mancini’s style of management, however questions must be asked. But I feel more importantly, the latest issue that currently surrounds City is from the result of the club’s slapdash approach of trying to buy success at breakneck speed under the ownership of the Abu Dhabi United Group. Are there any sound building blocks in place at the club? What happened to holding any positive, principled, and traditional attributes that the club used to have? Such as the successful academy setup that was producing solid talent, and the unyielding pros who knew that playing football was a privilege. Instead, the club shines as a beacon for individuals to come to the club and treble or quadruple their weekly salaries, with the club and not really knowing if their staff is going to conduct themselves accordingly with what a professional should exemplify in a work environment.

From a neutral perspective, I have always welcomed the way that Manchester City has helped shake the monopoly of what was ‘the big four’. Along with Tottenham Hotspurs, we have a legitimate significant six that can all stake some sort of claim to potentially being crowed English Premier League Champions. But at the very least, all these teams are realistic shouts for occupying the four Champions League berths the English Premier League has available. I just wish it was not at my team’s expense.

But in any case, I have always often said that Manchester City’s one true policy of buying anybody and everybody was a recipe for disaster. Acquiring top draw players for the pure sake of it without any necessity will come with consequences. The club had in my eyes a world-class goalkeeper in Shay Given warming the bench for most of last season. Putting it bluntly, Given could not complain because in Joe Hart, stood a player in front of him is that is every bit the world class keeper. Now with Shay Given being the top professional that he is, or what I like to call ‘old skool’, we never saw the histrionics that now goes before some of Manchester City’s players. To be fair it is not an attitude that is exclusive to Manchester City, but unfortunately it seems that this phenomenon is embedded with today’s modern day footballer.

Today’s football is indeed a squad game, and no one player is merited an automatic starting place. But when a competitive athlete performs well in one game and is dropped for the next several matches, whilst being regarded as one of the best in their profession, at times it is not that easy to accept. Unquestionably City should buy for what is needed and incorporate their acquisitions into the general setup of the playing squad, not stack several players for one position and only use sparingly. From the outside looking in, it will only create a problematic situation in the long term for both manager and their relationship with the players, and if not used wisely, can distort the employment of the key personnel used for a match.

Joleon Lescott has worked well with Vincent Kompany for much of the backend of last season, and so far this season the two have continued to perform well. But in trying to keep a top player happy, Mancini fields Kolo Toure who looked sluggish, slow, and woefully short of match fitness to start the game against Bayern Munich and in my viewpoint, his selection was only on the basis to make him feel part of the squad. Surely in such a key area of the team where continuity is paramount, selection should rather be based on the current form of the team to post a positive result.

Look at the players that did not either start, or feature in the match squad during the Champions League game in Munich. The register includes, Joleon Lescott, Stefan Savic, Aleksandar Kolarov, Adam Johnson, James Millner, Mario Balotelli, Owen Hargreaves, Dedryck Boyata, Nedum Onuoha, Pablo Zabaleta, Nigel de Jong, and of course Carlos Tevez. It will be him and his actions that I will focus upon chiefly in the next article, but I will conclude this post with this thought.

In the post match analysis of Manchester City’s last Premier League against Everton, in which Mancini’s men won 2-0, the studio analysts for that televised game for UK viewers were Jamie Redknapp and Joe Royle. In debating how they thought Tevez could be used going forward for the rest of the season, Jamie Redknapp claimed that Mancini should not isolate Tevez too much from the team and have a major problem on his hands during this campaign. Although things are going swimmingly for City now, he felt that the season is a long one and with injuries or loss of form of others, Mancini may have to call upon the services of Tevez for a prolonged period of time to be that match winner like he was many times last year. Clearly Jamie Redknapp must have felt something in his waters of things to come.