I should really start off on a completely off topic point, and say that this is my first piece of writing in a good 2 years, so bear with me if you will, as this might not be the Lionel Messi of articles.
As you can probably tell by the title of the article, this whole thing is going to be about Manchester City and the most important thing that us fans desire, success. And not the short term kind. Since I’m only 18 I can’t really talk about the Colin Bell era, or anything of that nature, but what I can talk about is what I have seen in those measly 18 years.
I don’t remember a great deal from my early years of being a blue, and the only thing I do remember pre 4 years old is going to matches with my Dad at Maine Road, and spending the whole 90 minutes looking at the clock thinking ‘Why the bloody hell am I here?’. In toddler gibberish, obviously. It wasn’t until I was 7 or 8 that my love for Manchester City really kicked in, and by this time we’d moved just over the City to The Eastlands, or now more commonly known as ‘The Etihad Stadium’ (Never been a big fan of that one).
Now I’m going to skip quite a lot of the early 2000’s, as not a lot of thrilling events happened when it came to City and the Premier League, so I’m just going to jump to the latter half of the 2000’s. Now one big match sticks out in my mind still to this day relating to Man City and our early 21st century woes, and this is the 8-1 loss to Middlesborough on the 11th May 2008. Now, an overwhelming majority of City fans will throw this game to one side, as not many want to think about this disastrous day in the life of a blue, but for me I want to remember it until the day my heart stops. I vividly remember sitting at home at an innocent age of 11 years old when this game was played, watching it on the TV and saying to my Dad ‘What’s going on?’ in absolute bewilderment, and him looking back at me and not uttering a word. Nothing. I thought this was it for City, I’d only been interested in them for a short while but I imagined no way back, ‘Championship here we come’ I remember thinking to myself with not a single positive thought that I could take away from this embarrassment. I was wrong.
Later that year a certain Sheikh Mansour decided that little old Manchester City was the perfect match for him and his Mt. Everest sized heaps of money, and in simple terms, this was just the beginning. Ever since that point everything has looked positive for City, and to tell you the truth, it’s the best thing in the world. Ever since the takeover Manchester City have won 2 Premier League trophies, 1 FA Cup, 1 Football League cup, and 1 Community Shield, not to mention the mass amount of players that have been signed. I could never have dreamed of the success the Sheik’s money has brought to City, and I wouldn’t have it any other way.
Finally, after that 500 word introduction, I’ll get onto the main part of this article and talk about what comes next for the Noisy Neighbours. This season has not been a brilliant one for City, despite being second in the League Table, and I believe this is due to many accumulating factors, and not small ones either.
First lets talk about our current squad and possible future additions to it. I feel that despite sitting second in the league our squad is a huge way off what it needs to be to continually stay in that top 4 bracket. This may just be me, however I highly doubt it is, but I do not think that for the calibre of team that City are renowned for being, and being a so-called ‘feared’ opponent to a large portion of the top european teams, that we have enough players on our team sheet that other teams will see and think ‘Oh sh*t, so and so is playing’. Obviously we have Aguero, Silva and Toure, who are easily 3 of the best players around, but 3 out of a squad of 20 plus players is not what we should be carrying with the money and power we possess at this point in the Manchester City life cycle. I’m almost certain that Yaya Toure will leave the club in the summer transfer window, and being our most influential player, we’ll need a suitable match to take over from him, and we’re probably all thinking of the same player aren’t we, let’s be honest (It’s Paul Pogba if you didn’t get that already).
Paul Pogba, whether you like to admit or not, is one of the best central midfielders in the world, and so similar to Yaya Toure and what we need to replace him, that it’d be rude not to sign him… Wouldn’t it? Let’s compare the two players shall we, can Yaya hit a ball like a bullet? Yes indeed. Can Pogba do that? Oh look, yes he can. Can Yaya run 50 yards bashing the players out of the way as he goes? Yep. Can Pogba also act like a bull when he wants to? Absolutely.
Alright that’s enough of that. But it’s more than obvious that Pogba would be the perfect replacement for Yaya when he’s gone, and since Toure is 32 now, he’s only got a few years left in him, probably. The only thing in the way of Manchester City and Pogba are other teams and that hefty price tag that’ll come with him, £70 million is my educated but not that well educated guess as to what he’d cost us. But why not buy him? We’ve got the money and after maybe scraping £30 million for Toure, it’s not that much of an extravagant price. Simply put, Pellegrini if you want transfer advice, you know where I am, mate.
Adding Pogba and 1 or 2 other world class names, such as Marco Reus and the likes to our team sheet would make us a great deal more threatening to opposing teams, which although many people will say isn’t that important, in the grand scheme of things, it is.
Let’s move onto the second thing that needs to be addressed to lead us to Football Heaven, our fan base and support. Now this is always a touchy one, and one that City fans like to avoid and come up with the whole ‘There’s nothing wrong with our support’ malarky, but there’s a lot wrong with it isn’t there, be honest. We’re currently in the process of extending the Etihad to hold an extra 12,000 fans on top of the 49,000 already available seats, which in my opinion, isn’t the best idea. Now I’m all for extending our fan base and wishful thinking, but when we’re barely scraping 47,000 fans per game, it begs the question, why are we bothering? And that’s the hard hitting truth whether you like it or not, sorry lads.
Another thing I really do not like about the Etihad, is the family stand. Now I get that it’s supposed to be a more affordable section where a whole family can go and sit together and enjoy the match, but it’s littered with empty seats, every game. The solution? Condense it, make it smaller, move it. Simple. Another gripe of mine (I like to moan I know) is where the away section is located, it is slap bang in the middle of the two singing sections, no wonder the atmosphere is atrocious, imagine what’d be like if the two singing sections became one large one, it’d definitely make the 1894 Group’s incredible efforts to improve the atmosphere a hell of a lot easier. Improve our fan base and stadium experiences and you improve our chances of global success, simple as that.
And finally let’s get onto my third and final thing that I think if amended, we can get well on our way to worldwide success. Don’t get wrong in this section here, I love Manuel Pellegrini, I think the guys humble, down to earth, and well and truly professional, but is he the big, arrogant, not afraid to try something ridiculous manager that Manchester City need? I don’t think so, no. Now you tell me, do any of the greatest managers of our modern era, play a solid 4-4-2 formation, week in week out? I’ll give you a clue, the answer’s no. But Manuel does. Every top bar manager of the 21st century chops and changes their formations every week nearly, which makes it much harder for opposing managers to be able to recognise before the match has even started, what the team plans to do in the game. And something I’ve come to realise about Pellegrini is that more often than not, he gets figured out tactically.
Most managers will look at our mundane 4-4-2 formation and go ‘Christ, is Manuel really still doing this?’ and know exactly how to do us over in the game. I’m not saying that we always get done over because we sometimes just have too much quality for opponents to beat us, but one thing is for sure, we get figured out a lot more than I’d like it to happen. It’s really not hard to just every so often, play a 4-3-3, or a 4-3-1-2, but for some peculiar reason, Manuel doesn’t seem too fond of change. I think this is the key thing that needs to be addressed if we’re to become one of the most successful teams around, as the manager runs the team from the inside out and is the most influential part when it comes to winning trophies and dominating domestic leagues. Funnily enough, I think this is probably the easiest one to solve, and the real kick start to our domination.
So Mansour, get Pep on the phone.
