The criticism will be immense. There will be the inevitable claims of failure. Twitter will fall over with taunts from rival fans, mostly Arsenal ones mocking Samir Nasri for deciding to leave their club. The knives will be out, and sharpened, then thrust forward. The message will be clear: that with a “warchest” of £500m/£600m/£1 billion (delete according to which journalist you follow), with a squad clearly superior to all others, with a lead in the league table for the past five months, and at a time when many of its rivals are in disarray/crisis/process of rebuilding (delete according to…..), that Manchester City surely HAD to win the title this season. Which of course they may still do, and are still the bookmakers’ favourites to do so.
But Sunday saw a shift in the title race, because Manchester United had come through their difficult spell of games, the spell during which most expected to see City extend their lead to at least six points, and yet they are still only two points behind. Now United have a run of very winnable games that could see them go into the powder keg of the Manchester Derby on 30th April as league leaders. And as their players tell us on a daily basis, they have the experience of a title-push, whilst City haven’t, so City will probably bottle it.
Many blues are jittery now. The odd few, fuelled by decades of false dawns and base comedy, have almost thrown in the towel. All a bit over the top of course, considering City are still top of the league, but that’s football fans for you.
But what more could Mancini really have done? Of course there are those simpletons in the media who would have you believe that such an expensively assembled squad should win every single game, steamroll every opponent, break every football record in sight. Because that’s how football works eh?
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Needless to say, much of the assembled talent isn’t actually on the pitch. Emmanuel Adebayor is over at White Hart Lane. Carlos Tevez has spent more time in Argentina than England, Kolo Toure had plenty of time to think about his waistline, and with his brother left our shores for Africa for over a month (not that any manager can complain, they know the rules, though having one next year as well seems a bit harsh), and as for Roque Santa Cruz, well frankly who cares?
But misbehaving mercenaries apart (not my words), City have only failed to win six league games all season. If they finish second, it may well be the highest points total in Premiership history not to win the title. As it stands, they have scored more goals than any other team, and conceded fewer (by a long way). They’ve won 19 home league games on the row. They’ve beaten Newcastle’s Premiership record by winning their first 14 home games of the season. Their goal difference is plus 50, ten better than United’s. It’s 31 better than Tottenham’s, who in 3rd place also have the 3rd best goal difference in the league, but are 13 points behind City. And City are 20 points clear of Chelsea, the biggest spenders of the past year, the other “mega-bucks” side. City were the first team to reach 60 points this season. And the first to reach 50, 40, 30 and 20. Joe Hart has kept more clean sheets than any other keeper. Some of the individual player stats compare favourably not only in the Premier League but across all the top leagues in Europe. Basically what I am saying is – they’ve done pretty well. It’s just that another team might do even better. As Roberto might say: is football.
Naturally it’s the manager that takes the bullet for under-performance – Andre Villas-Boas is proof of that, at a club where his senior players acted like spoilt children, went running to the press, and undermined his efforts at every turn, whilst failing to show enough effort themselves when on the pitch. Which is to say that players are the ultimate deliverers of success or failure. It’s about time the buck stopped with them every now and then. The players are there for City, the system in place, the lead at the top still similar to what it has been for many a month, so it is time for the players to carry the team over the finishing line just as much as Mancini needs to.
So if United go on to win the league, then perhaps it would be wise not to chastise Mancini and talk of chasing Mourinho to replace him, meaning another period of rebuilding, new ideas, and discarded players, but to doff our metaphorical caps and accept that Ferguson will have pulled off the greatest achievement of his career.
City have failed to pull away because of key away games. Defeat to Everton showed that old habits die hard. Defeat at Sunderland was an exercise in utter frustration against a massed defence – and it is City’s struggles to break down two lines of defence on occasion that may cost them dear. Though of course United continuing to win hasn’t helped. Either way, they’ve maintained their lead for months, and now face a trust test of their mettle. If they can maintain their lead from now on, then they will have truly earned it. If not, forget the post-mortems and recriminations, and accept that it wasn’t to be. And pray that Ferguson retires as soon as possible.
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