EPL Talk » Robinho

Talk Of Manchester City Making A Top Five Is Premature

Paul Bestall — Mon, 10 Aug 2009 21:55:02 +0000

If I was an Arsenal fan, I’d be fed up already listening to people saying that Manchester City were obviously going to usurp them as one of the “Big Four” sides. It’s amazing what spending money does to peoples judgement when it comes to football and Manchester City have certainly caught more than their fair share of attention over the summer. To all intents and purposes, Manchester City will easily outstrip Arsenal on the pitch and leapfrog them in the Premiership.

So since last summer City have spent over £160 million pounds, but have they really bought the required players to turn them into a major force in the Premiership. In my honest opinion, no they haven’t. It’s easy to simply look at the figures they’ve spent and it all becomes an addiction to money rather than talent. For some, Arsene Wenger and Sir Alex Ferguson have suddenly lost the managerial skills they’ve earned over one summer due to players going to Manchester City.

How has Ferguson lost his abilities by not signing Carlos Tevez? Whilst the vocal United fans tried to convince Ferguson to sign him up, Ferguson would not be budged. He was quite right to question how a striker who only scored 5 goals in the Premiership was worth £25 million. He consistently failed to deliver in big games time and again, yet because he ran around like a dog chasing a rabbit, he was “world class”. It is such an over rated term, that is consistently trotted out all the time as to make it almost redundant. Would you honestly say he’s a better striker than Wayne Rooney? Really? Even the most blinkered City fan can surely see the stupidity of that comparison.

Not one of Manchester City’s new signings is World Class, that’s a fact. Not one of them. Honestly, seriously, none of them. With the exception of Gareth Barry, Shay Given and Wayne Bridge, there isn’t one player who would be at Liverpool, Manchester United, Arsenal or Chelsea. Adebayor, Toure and Tevez have all been let go because they aren’t good enough for a top 4 side. City had clean run at every one of the targets they’ve signed because the clubs that owned the players were happy to see them leave, Barry and Given apart.

Craig Bellamy, over rated, over paid and has never, ever delivered consistently. A temper that causes more problems than he’s worth, I witnessed one of his strops at Norwich. Refused a decision by the referee, little Craig stomped his feet and jumped up and down on the spot for almost a minute. Pathetic. I wonder how long it will be before he starts texting his team mates spiteful messages?

Roque Santa Cruz, so good that when he left Bayern Munich, he joined Blackburn, no offence Rovers fans. If every major club in Europe wasn’t interested, how has he become such a brilliant striker after one good season and then moping around for a year hoping for a move. In 8 years at Bayern, he scored 38 goals playing for one of the biggest sides in Europe and one that consistently challenged for trophies at home and in Europe. That’s a dreadful record for someone allegedly so good.

Robinho joined Manchester City, then forgot who he’d signed for. Chelsea to be fair, wouldn’t pay over £27.5 million for him and by Christmas, they were probably glad they hadn’t. Another one touted as “world class”, laughably so if you’ve watched him regularly at Real Madrid. A good player, almost really good, but wildly inconsistent, prone to having hissy fits and a strike rate that doesn’t match the amount of chances he gets.

As for the two signings from Arsenal, Toure and Adebayor, Wenger must be laughing all the way the bank with his £40 million transfer kitty. He has, thanks to Manchester City, made a fortune from Arsenal’s two biggest troublemakers who were simply not at the races last season. If anything, Arsenal are stronger without spending a penny. The issues that those two caused in the dressing room and on the training ground had caused fractures through out Wengers squad in the last two seasons. Arsenal are better without those two at the Emirates, no question.

Adebayor famously attacked a team mate during a match because he didn’t pass to him, Toure got his gang to ignore William Gallas because he couldn’t be captain. Once again, childish, immature and bringing tons of baggage with them.Good riddance, I don’t know one Arsenal fan who is sad to see them leave. Not one. That tells you everything you need to know about those two.

This rag tag bunch of egotistical, money driven mercenaries are now all nicely tied up on 4 and 5 year contracts, earning more money than they ever believed they possibly could. Do you really think they’ve come to win trophies or count their cash? All this talk of “ being excited by the project” makes me laugh, it’s jibberish. It’s all about the money, nothing more, nothing less. Now somehow this team will be bonded and formed into one the best teams in England within weeks? It’s crazy to expect such results so soon.

How long before the cracks appear at Eastlands and the dressing room becomes a pit of ego clashes and cliques. If they’re not in the top 7 come Christmas, the pressure will be really on Mark Hughes. Rome was not built in a day and Manchester City could end up being more like Sodom and Gomorrah than the Eternal City next season. They will have all to do to keep up with Everton, Tottenham, Villa and Fulham, never mind crack the top 4 and worry Arsenal.

Is Mark Hughes Building a Barcelona Clone at Eastlands?

Dave Warner — Tue, 21 Jul 2009 19:56:12 +0000

Say what you will about the obscene amount of money being spent by Manchester City this summer, but you have to admit that there’s a certain perverse pleasure in watching someone build a real-life club lineup in much the same way that most regular joes would create their starting XI in a video game.

Okay, let’s take West Brom out and put Sealand FC into the Premier League. I’ll build a giant floating stadium in the North Sea for them. Awesome. Let’s drop Kaká in the middle here, and David Villa up front with Jozy Altidore… ooh, gotta bump his numbers up a bit… Cool. Hey, let’s make a Kevin Garnett character and put him in goal. He seems like he could have been good at that…

Man City manager Mark Hughes hasn’t gone quite that crazy, of course, but at first glance, he appears to be making the same mistake most novice video gamers might make when building a team: loading up on strikers. At some point, a gamer realizes that Fernando Torres, Didier Drogba, Wayne Rooney, Lionel Messi, Kun Aguero and an injury-free Michael Owen — who seems to exist only in computers and preseasons — can’t all play together at once. Someone has to win the ball and control it in the midfield.

Of course, Hughes hasn’t forgotten this. That’s why he spent £17M on Nigel de Jong in January and another £12M on Gareth Barry this summer. Still, Manchester City has thrown a whopping £129M at forwards since being taken over by Sheikh Mansour bin Zayed Al Nahyan last August, and the projected front line of Robinho, Emmanuel Adebayor and Carlos Tevez alone cost more than £82M.

Throw Stephen Ireland in with Barry, de Jong and that forward trio, however, and Hughes’ plan begins to come into focus. Man City is attempting to emulate FC Barcelona.

And why not? Barcelona used their 4-1-2-3 formation to shatter opponents and win a convincing triple last year, so it’s practically destined to become imitated widely. It’s entirely possible that Sheikh Mansour, like the rest of us, watched Barca break down Manchester United in the UEFA Champions League Final and asked Hughes to build a side exactly like that. He’s also put Hughes in the unique position to do that with just about any players he wants.

The parallels are obvious. Adebayor is the big striker in the middle, a la Samuel Eto’o, while Robinho and Tevez are set wide like Thierry Henry and Lionel Messi. Barry and Ireland are there to control the midfield like Xavi and Iniesta and feed the forwards, while de Jong sits back and provides cover like Yaya Toure. Sort out the central defense, and Sparky could find himself managing a contender.

Plenty of questions remain, though. For starters, can Hughes rotate his strikers enough to keep everyone happy? Craig Bellamy, Roque Santa Cruz, Benjani, Valeri Bojinov, Felipe Caicedo and Ched Evans are all fighting for spots, too, and some of them won’t be satisfied playing just cup ties. Does Elano see any playing time in this midfield, which would suit his skills well, or is safe to assume he’ll be gone come August? And what happens to pure wingers like Shaun Wright-Phillips and Martin Petrov? Do they become square pegs in this triangular front six?

Ah, but that’s the fun thing about building a video game roster. When you’ve got the right players, you can experiment with just about any formation you want. Perhaps Hughes can revert back to the familiar 4-4-2 when the situation calls for it. It would be far more interesting, though, to see if that Barca-style 4-1-2-3 could succeed at Eastlands over a full season. In fact, I might just recreate that lineup myself in Pro Evolution Soccer 2009 this weekend and see how well it works.

Eto’o and Tevez Potentially Agree To Join Manchester City

Paul Bestall — Mon, 29 Jun 2009 13:54:34 +0000

Well, two days are left until the transfer window opens again and Manchester City look like they’ve signed two strikers to help Mark Hughes drag them up the table. I suppose they need some good news down at Eastlands after the ground flooded on Saturday due to flash floods. With both signings, City could have an incredible 12 strikers on their books at the last count, but that number will fall by one on July 1st as young prospect Daniel Sturridge has agreed to join Chelsea.

With the roster of talent up front that Hughes has now, it’s safe to say that City will be looking to probably offload at least another 4 strikers apart from Sturridge. Vassell and Benjani, Ched Evans and the unloved Jo would be favourites to be heading for the door and all 4 will easily find new clubs before the season starts. Bojinov may get another chance to show his potential, after a couple of injury ravaged seasons at Eastlands, Craig Bellamy and Roque Santa Cruz will still be settling in.

Of the others, Robinho will surely stay regardless of the rumours of Barcelona weighing up a bid for him and Caicedo may be off after comments in the press last week stating he’d had contact from 4 or 5 clubs looking to take him next season. Even footballers can work out that 12 strikers into 3 positions does not work out too well if you aren’t called Robinho, Santa Cruz, Eto’o, Tevez or Bellamy.

The signing of Carlos Tevez is no surprise as it’s been mooted since he announced that he was leaving Manchester United last week and throwing his dummy out of the pram as he went. The potential signing of Samuel Eto’o is a different level for me, easily one of the most consistent strikers in world football today, two footed, great in the air, pacey and a thunderous shot on him. He is one of the best strikers in the world to put it simply. I’m surprised but not shocked by Barcelona accepting a bid for him; he’s 28 and only has one year left on his contract at the Camp Nou. £28 million pounds is a lot for a guy with only 12 months left on his contract, but City need to show real ambition and the Eto’o signing is key to that ambition becoming reality.

Eto’o’s signing could be the beginning for Hughes’ side and satisfying the long term aims of the Abu Dhabi Group. By now signing a genuine world class player for Manchester City, it’s a major development. Before anyone goes on about Robinho and Carlos Tevez being world class, no they’re not. They’re both damn good players, but the best players in their positions? Not a chance. Eto’o is certainly a name that would easily be mentioned when discussing the best striker in the world and if he decides to come then City have a top quality player.

The other aspect to this signing is the fact that other players will sit up and take notice that Eto’o has agreed to join Manchester City. It’s a major signing by any stretch of the imagination and will send a message out to other players out there. Now all Mark Hughes has to do is get this squad of players working as a team.

Manchester City: The Next Chelsea FC?

Ethan Armstrong — Wed, 03 Jun 2009 14:11:56 +0000

It wasn’t so long ago, I was completely outraged by Chelsea FC’s spending. 16.6m for Mekelele. 24.4m for Essien. 19.8m for Carvalho. 24m for Drogba. As a business, the club could sustain a 140m loss on a year because Roman Abramovich was there to bankroll the transfers. This was bad for football. The value of players skyrocketed. The old high water marks were obliterated. Bayern Munich chairman Karl-Heinze Rummenigge lamented the damage Chelsea spending was doing to European football. Wrecking the balance. Hogging the resources.

Now, with Manchester City as the new fat cat in town, I almost can’t remember why I was so mad at Abramovich.

Last winter rumors of Kaka coming to City abounded. The press figured City’s transfer offer to be as high as 130m. Thankfully it was turned down and Kaka stayed at Madrid Milan, but the fact City were willing to splash that much out on one player is scary.

City have already set a new British record when they spent 32.5m to buy Robinho from Real Madrid last summer. And they were reportedly talking about shelling out 60m to secure David Villa’s services from Valencia last winter. Villa made it clear then he wanted to stay. Now that Valencia is in serious financial trouble, one wonders if an expensive move may be made after all.

With all the money City are willing to spend it is almost refreshing to see them only pay 12m for Gareth Barry (the remainder of his contract was estimated at about 10m when I last wrote about him potentially leaving Aston Villa), but of course the fact they can offer him a meaty salary factors heavily into his move.

As when City coaxed West Ham’s prolific Craig Bellamy away for 14m, the promise of City’s future has its lure for players like Barry.

City are not looking to merely follow the Abramovich model. They are looking to crumple it up into a ball and leave it behind them in the dust, while the rest of us wonder… what were we so mad about c. 2006?

Abramovich’s past transfer coups are dwarfed by the prospects of 130m for Kaka and 60m for Villa. At some point City will make good on such offers. At some point a club is going to succumb to the lure of big money and sell the top class player for the outrageous sum and the glass ceiling (already raised so high by Chelsea) will come a’ tumblin’ down.

With the Abu Dhabi United Group behind City and with Abramovich’s wealth hurt by the global economic crunch, the Russian oligarch is slipping from his status as wealthy arch-villain into a role of, well, normal owner. He is not expected to spend anything near the amounts he dropped on the market in his first years at the helm. As Chelsea’s stars age, they seem like a club again. Not a superclub.

But the Chelsea spending model was largely a means to launch the club as a global brand. This has worked. Even if Abramovich curtails his upside-down business model and allows Chelsea to climb back into the positive in the books without his cash injections, the club is in a position to thrive and remain a force in domestic and continental football do to the exposure of the talent they brought in and the trophies they won since Abramovich took over.

This is now City’s aim. Using big name players and the potential marketing power of having the name “Manchester” at their disposal, City can make their way into a higher level of global recognition.

With no spending ceilings in place, there’s no need for pragmatism for business or concern for the damage the outrageous transfer fees can do to the sport.

The scary question is: what other investors will follow this absurd model? What other clubs will raise the bar beyond belief? And how high will the bids go?

In five years 32.5 for Robinho may not seem so crazy when the figure has been eclipsed by the next Chelsea FC or the next Manchester City. I cringe at the prospect.

Can Manchester City Win The UEFA CUP?

Paul Bestall — Thu, 19 Mar 2009 20:13:00 +0000

Could Manchester City finally put their 33 year major trophy drought to bed this season by winning the UEFA Cup this season? Why not, what with Ajax crashing out last night at the hands of Marseille and Zenit St Petersburg and CSKA Moscow losing today, the competition for the trophy is getting into the nitty gritty stage and it seems to be opening up for City. Mark Hughes side has been wildly inconsistent, putting 6 past Portsmouth and 5 past Hull City, but dumped out of the League Cup by Brighton on penalties and were humiliated at home 3-0 by Nottingham Forest in the F.A. Cup but they’ve been impressive in the UEFA Cup both at home and abroad this season. With only one away win in the league, it’s been a strange season for the City faithful.

Tonight they travel to Northern Jutland to face Aalborg with a 2-0 lead and a chance to move into the Quarter Finals for a real crack at the trophy. Yet, Manchester City have a history of snatching defeat from the jaws of victory which is unparalled in English Football that has seen their fans develop a very healthy ability to laugh at themselves. Surely this could be their season to finally put a proper smile on faces of the City faithful? It’s certainly a weaker UEFA Cup than it could have been with AC Milan, Aston Villa, Tottenham, Fiorentina, Bordeaux and Valencia all being removed from the competition before we even reached the last 16.I don’t think Mark Hughes will be upset to see any of those sides out at all. Their first 11 is certainly as good as some of the remaining teams in the competition, maybe one of the best, so it’s not impossible to imagine City lifting the trophy in Turkey on May 20th.

City though have perhaps received a little too much stick this season for me. Sure they’ve become the richest club in the world but it’s still a transitional season for them. Thankfully for us, Chief Executive Gary Cook seems to have kept a very low profile after his rather childish comments about AC Milan and Kaka in January, which is a blessing for us all. His rather acidic nature and bombastic attitude doesn’t sit well people and attracts as much criticism as it deserves, but Hughes has also had a fair amount of flak, unfairly I feel. It’s a learning curve for everyone at Manchester City, ever since the Robinho signing, they’ve suddenly moved onto a different level but they’ve got their best chance of some serious silverware for a long time in the UEFA Cup.

If they can negotiate tonight’s away leg, which knowing City, is no forgone conclusion, then the key teams to avoid are Werder Bremen and whoever wins in the tie of the round, Galatasaray v SV Hamburg. Martin Jol’s team have a lot to do and need to score in Turkey tonight to have any chance to get through but if they do, then they’ll become the favourite for the cup. If City can avoid those teams, then reaching the final becomes a realistic proposition for Mark Hughes. I hope they do get there, he’s dealt with rumour and counter rumour all season with supreme patience, fending questions about his future, transfers, ongoing issues with certain big name players and the change in expectations once Manchester City were ought by the Abu Dhabi United Group, with courtesy.He deserves a bit of luck after everything that’s been thrown at him throughout the season.

I wish them all the best in Europe and hope we get a Hamburg and Manchester City final for the last ever UEFA Cup final before we welcome the Europa League next season.