With an international break now upon us, I thought I’d ‘sign off’, for the time being, with a little piece about a ‘reality check’.
Astonishing whilst at the same time…
…not overly surprising, I suppose.
Of course, it’s inevitable that after seasons of BIG spending, seeing football stars aplenty and ever improving managers coming through our door; expectation levels will rise. But what’s been a little shocking for me over the last few years, is the sheer number of City fans - a lot of whom have been going longer than I have, which is since the mid-1980s and who have, therefore, seen far more dross and bad times than I have - who get so upset when we don’t win or win BIG! Fans in their mid-to-late 50s & 60s who, I believe, should know better than to start getting all ‘Billy Big Biscuits’ and having occasional tantrums when things don’t go our way.
I’m reminded about a game I watched in my local 2 or 3 seasons back when we just about managed a draw away at Crystal Palace. It was all that one, long-standing City fan, then in his late 60s, could stand; as he ranted and whinged on and on for ages about how poor we were. That was a real stand-out moment for me and it left me feeling really disappointed with my fellow Blue; more so than the “dropped” 2 points.
Me too?
Of course, I now expect more from our club, manager and team that has so much talent in it and yeah; I still get disappointed when we lose, which I thought was a little too often last season.
In fact, last Sunday’s 2-5 home defeat to Leicester City still hurt a couple of days later and I found it quite difficult to bring myself round to writing a pre-Burnley post.
But after watching some truly terrible football as a City supporter for so many years, where I’ve suffered SO many relegations right down to the 3rd tier of professional English football; I like to think that I still have a firm grip on reality as well as, in fact, still stepping back from time to time in disbelief about the many, many trophies we’ve won and the many, many records we’ve broken…not forgetting the jaw-dropping football I’ve had the privilege to watch in recent seasons.
And now?
Good grief! I’ve both heard and read some crap from some City fans in recent days.
It started at half time v Leicester on my local radio station where, apparently, City fans had been contacting the station via social media towards the end of the first half with comments like, Kyle Walker and, get this, Raheem Sterling were too old / past it and we should be moved on! This is the game where 33-year old Jamie Vardy ripped us to shreds and scored a hat-trick…
Then, a couple of days later, the same bloke who was nearly crying post-Crystal Palace years earlier, passed me in the street and proclaimed that we were, “Bloody crap”, referring to the Leicester game, presumably.
Then, after yesterday’s brilliant game and away point - that’s…an away point – I went from TV to a national radio station for a short time to find a queue of City-fan-callers, all of which were practically in meltdown! And even though I was nodding in agreement with some of the words one caller was straining herself to get out as quickly as she could, it was the sheer level of panic and anxiety in her voice that had me shaking my head in disbelief. The next fella was shouting so loud in anger I could only pick out every other word…
3 games in with a game in hand over most! That’s…THREE GAMES IN!
Has it really come to this - are “we” now that used to watching top-class football from Manchester City and winning so much that when we don’t win or, indeed, don’t batter teams off the park; that some Blues think that’s ‘the end of us’ as a competing football club? That’s what it sounds like when I’m listing to some of our fans having a nervous breakdown or reading their well-over-the-top comments.
Are there any causes for concern?
Yeah, of course, not everything's right with us at the moment and I too wrote a piece after the Leicester defeat, where I highlighted some issues that I thought we had and still do.
· I honestly can’t remember the last time we had a decent left-back / left-wing back for a sustained period of time. I wasn’t an Aleks Kolarov fan whatsoever so I’m thinking, Andy Hinchliffe? Neil Pointon? No? Bobby McDonald then? Perhaps someone with a better memory than me could, perhaps, fill in some gaps or bring me more up-to-date than Neil Pointon. Years…YEARS I’ve been going on about the need for a decent Zabaleta-like player on the left-hand flank of the defence and it’s no different today. I actually thought, stupidly, and for a reasonable time at Elland Road yesterday, that Benjamin Mendy was having a decent game. But then he just reverted to his usual standards as the game progressed in the second half. So yeah…I agree with the ranting woman on national radio that we DO need to sign a left-sided defender as soon as possible.
· Do we need a striker, which was something the same caller was-also in a rage about? Well, regular readers might recall (I don’t think I’ve mentioned it for some time) that I’ve always believed that, despite the amount of goals our team has in it from the midfield & wing departments, most ‘top clubs’ in the world who are fighting in 4 competitions over 60+ games-a-season should be running with 3 top-quality strikers. That, at least, also gives you more of an option in games to change something significantly that might not-otherwise be working, rather than just tinkering / changing personnel ‘like for like’. And the signs have been shining brightly at us for a number of seasons, now; that Sergio Aguero was always going to be seeing more of the treatment room as the seasons passed. Indeed, Gabriel Jesus sees his own fair share of the medical staff; with a decent amount of ‘time out’ himself. It’s great to see Liam Delap step up and there’s a decent argument that we’ve perhaps not, in this short season so far, shown quite enough faith in the 17-year old. So yeah, I see this as another failing in us not reacting to an obvious situation; similar in how we failed to replace Vincent Kompany quick enough. But I will admit, I say all of that knowing that our owners must have had one eye on that FIFA mess and the possible sanctions we could have faced if we’d have lost our appeal.
· And yep, we are already falling behind in the league even at this early stage. It’s generally considered that you can’t lose more than 4 games and that you shouldn’t draw too many others in a season if you want to stand a chance of wining the league and, so, I sort of get some City fans flapping a little when they see, P3 W1 D1 L1. But flippin’ ‘eck! We’ve had SO many key players out with injury or Covid-19 related and I honestly believe that, perhaps Liverpool aside; if we’d have played that well and with that level of intensity as we did yesterday against ANY other league side, we’d have won handsomely. A LOT of credit has to go to Leeds United and Marcelo Bielsa!
We’ve just signed a flippin’ world-class central defender to add to Aymeric Laporte and Nathan Ake and, following the international break, we’re likely to see Gabriel Jesus return with Sergio not far behind him, fingers crossed.
Yeah, I don’t like to see us this many points behind so many in-form & improved teams and yes-definitely; if we don’t restart well after the international break and both maintain some form and find a way to beat teams who appear to ‘have the makings of us’ now, then I can easily see us not regaining the Premier League trophy. That’ll hurt a little and I might have some questions about where we go from there in order to try ‘n’ get back on track.
But flippin’ ‘eck! I’m not ready to pack it all in just like, it increasingly seems, quite a few other Blues are!
