I would just ignore those posters, ultimately saving you a lot of time in the process of rebutting back and forth. But anyways, I applaud your soccer knowledge. Anyways this isn't the Inter board so I'll try to discuss things purely based on Manchester City. From what I've heard Lescott has been a bust, and Wayne Bridge just isn't a left back that a team aspiring for Champions League titles should be fielding. I would not be surprised to see Mancini urging the owner to dump millions on a talented Italian defender. From what I've heard he wants Giorgio Chiellini, who would be an absolute stud in the premier league. He's the most talented Italian central defender in the world at the moment, a very tough guy who also is great in the aerial game. A partnership of Chiellini and Toure would probably be one of the best in the world. Now would Juventus be willing to give him away? Well as we learned this past year with the Florentino Perez saga, anything is possible.
What grounds do you base this on? Do you actually read the British newspapers? Being someone in the UK who does, the media is constantly twisting the truth and outright lying at times in order to demean us. They have absolutely no love for us barring one journalist who writes for The Times, IIRC. Barely an hour after Bellamy had his altercation with the Man U fan earlier this season, one of the papers had an article out called "The Top 10 Worst Moments of Craig Bellamy" or similar. Months and weeks before Hughes was sacked, the media trashed him as someone who couldn't get the job done and made taxi jokes among other things about him. The moment he is removed and they love him - he's a martyr - because he's no longer with City. It goes on and on and on. People who don't believe the media hate us actually have to read the English newspapers. I live in Manchester and I read them, obviously paying keen attention to my clubs' stories. Some of them are outright scandalous in their fabrication. I recommend a look at the back of today's papers for an example. A unanimous, united attempt to destroy the club's reputation and trod Mancini in the dirt already. The problem is, City doesn't have fickle fans. We have fans who have been with the club through everything, away trips to York in the dark old days, being mocked by Stockport fans when we were a division below them (whose laughing now!?), etc. etc. We've yet to be latched on to by the glory hunters worldwide so no attempt from the Sky 4-leaning media is going to sway us away from Manchester City.
StuMCFC is right despite being in the US I read the UK papers and the bias is evident. They hate us for 1. Having a rich Arab owner and 2 for daring to challenge the elitist class which is the top four. They trash us and kiss Fergie's scum red a$$ like we have no right to breathe Manchester air. Same sentiment I get from the US based front running scum fans always telling me why we will fail and how the title is some how their divine right. Makes me want to puke.
Fact of the matter is Hughes was sacked without justification and good cause so these so called unfair stories about your club don't seem to be that unfair if you are willing to fire a man who was doing really well. Also a lot of your players are dirty cheats. Look what Adeboyer did when he stomped on RVP face and also celebrated in the manner he did. Terrible just terrible. Bellemy has been known to get out of hand and I agree it wasn't all that bad, but he did hit a fan which is uncalled for and if I recall BAE hit a fan and police action is being taken. I saw the vid and it wasn't that bad. Also Tevez has quite a mean streak when things aren't going his way. You wanted all the money well you have to live with all the media too. They go hand in hand. You chose to sign the likes of Ade, Robinho, Lescott, and numerous other bad character players(tremendous talent, but they have bad attitudes.) At the start of the season roles were reversed in that we were being slated while you boys were being called kings already and a lot of you relished it and hyped yourselves on this forum about being a massive club. Well here you are all the attention and not all of it is going to be good. I'm getting off topic though and I have to say that Hughes was unfairly done in by an owner who knows nothing except fantasy football so I would get used to this kind of stuff going on with your club.
It's not the "fact of the matter" to say he was sacked without justification. MANY City fans wanted Hughes out! And MANY were not happy with the way he was removed as manager. However, there was absolute justification for replacing Mark Hughes as manager in the eyes of many. Few others besides City fans watch all of our games. As one person who watches all of our games I can tell you why there was justification to remove Mark Hughes even if the timing may have been ill. Hughes has an attacking force that you could almost throw together with your eyes closed and they'd have an effect. Yet somehow he managed to play Adebayor well out of position constantly and do nothing to repair it. A tall, lanky striker with a lethal header and a good shot, Adebayor has been pushed to the wing over and over and over again to the absolute frustration of countless City fans. Hughes invested a fortune in new defenders (and had a hand in forcing our captain out of the door) yet we have conceded more goals than Portsmouth. This isn't down to the quality of the defenders... clearly our defenders are generally good players who a better manager could have gotten more out of. But also clearly, we did not have a coach able to weave this defence into a functioning unit. All Hughes had to do was sort our shocking defence out and he had so much time to do it (Mancini has already identified this as our main problem and wants to tighten it up). The problems were evident a long time ago but Hughes constantly sat back, often in brooding silence on his bench, while we leaked goals for fun with some calamitous defensive displays. Perhaps if Hughes hadn't surrounded himself with his "Welsh mafia" and hired some better class coaches then the defensive problems might have been sorted. Toure, Lescott, and Bridge were all Hughes signings (and he pursued Lescott obsessively when he could have had Hangeland for half the price) so it was his responsibility to make them gel and play well. If he had sorted those problems we would now be in 3rd or 4th place without question. No one should comment on Hughes' ability as manager until they watch our string of draws back to back and watch how the same problems repeatedly emerge and Hughes just sits there doing bugger all! No changes, no tactical ambition, no ability to hold a lead, same mistakes over and over again until we fans were tearing our hair out. The Spurs match in particular (the one that the bosses say made their decision to replace Hughes) was horrible. There were so many tactical errors in this match that even a Sunday league coach could address, such as 36-year-old Sylvinho being ran ragged by Lennon early on. Hughes' answer? Leave Sylvinho on for 90 minutes. No width in our play with SWP injured. A young player who has been touted as one of Europe's most exciting, Vladimir Weiss - also a right winger - on the bench. Kept on the bench. These are issues the "other team" fans from afar don't see by not watching our matches regularly. Hughes had us playing unpredictable and exciting football but also unbalanced, tactically flawed, unpolished football with a defence that wouldn't look out of place in League 1. I suddenly regret writing all the above after reading this for the first time as it kind of implies that I have basically banged my head against a wall for 5 minutes in order to try and convince one with the media mentality. So may I label Arsenal cheats after Eduardo did one of the most disgraceful dives outside of Serie A in football history? And Wenger claimed not to see it? Tevez's behaviour on the pitch has been nothing short of great from what I have seen. No deliberately nasty tackles that I can remember and a very humble celebration when he scored against West Ham, winning him applause from both sets of fans. What? At the start of the season the UK papers were mocking us still, saying we were trying to buy success and we'd be lucky to finish the season above midtable. It was a typical smear campaign that us City fans have now become used to from the vermin press. There is only one journalist in the top English newspapers that constantly shows any love for City at all. I don't count the Manchester Evening News, the local, which gives both United and City good coverage equally but local papers always will get behind their teams.
Rumor mill states Mancini is interested in bringing in Cassano. MERCATO: ANCHE KJAER E CASSANO - E adesso, a pochi giorni dall'apertura del mercato invernale, il City si prepara a spendere dopo aver già investito oltre 220 milioni di euro in acquisti nell'ultimo anno. Numerosi gli obiettivi del club inglese, a cominciare - scrive il Guardian - da Giorgio Chiellini, indispensabile per puntellare una difesa che ha subito otto gol nelle ultime tre partite. La prima alternativa, secondo il Daily Mail, è Simon Kjaer del Palermo o il terzino del Rubin Kazan Cristian Ansaldi. Ma lo stesso Antonio Cassano potrebbe rientrare nei piani di Mancini, e ora grazie ai petrol-dollari degli sceicchi, ogni desiderio potrebbe tramutarsi in ordine.
Plus for Cassano... every Italian I know has been screaming for him to make the Italian side. Neg for Cassano... would without a doubt be considered the ugliest looking team in the league. Could you imagine him, Bellzer, and Tevez all starting up front. Jesus, together they toppled the whole f*ckin ugly tree!
God, Robinho is already sucking ass with the Goal.com story about "everyone" is behind Mancini. Sad thing is, we'll keep temper mental Robi and trade in form Bellamy because of his lack suckassitidus.
Hughes was sacked without good cause end of it. I mean the man lost two games how bad is that really. Please tell me? I mean United lost 5 games so I guess Fergie should be fired already, right? You people over here have gone from grateful to be in the top 7-10 in the league to downright obscene. This place is a Moppet factory with all the things I hear. I couldn't be bothered to read your whole page of explanation and frankly I find it mad how you could defend a policy to sack a man who lost two games to two very good teams. You bought an entire team and expect to be world beaters overnight, but guess what it takes time for a team to gel if you throw players together like that. You really have to understand that. Chelski didn't just get money and become all mighty. They were pretty established in the top 4 years before so you can't say that it was unexpected. They got money and were able to push on to win titles. You guys were lucky to be in the top 10 of this league on a year by year basis and this man Mark Hughes who had you guys in 6th with a game in hand was sacked because the Owner is a total tool and doesn't know a thing about the game. Defend your team all you want, but I know you know that this was a shitty deal for Mark and it was absolutely disgraceful how they treated him.
I find it kind of funny that Spurs fans are coming on here and complaining about the 'manner' in which a manager was sacked after what they did to Jol - I mean they kind of revolutionized the whole managerial sacking thing....
1. Deteriorating results. 2. Tactical ineptness; players poorly positioned, no balance, unable to hold leads, unwilling to take risks when we're in trouble to repeatedly poor outcomes. 3. Many of our points racked up earlier in the season before a decline. I already wrote a long post that you "couldn't be bothered to read" so am not going to make the same mistake again. Suffice to say, if you don't watch all of our games like the fans do, you aren't really qualified to comment on how justified his sacking was. Perhaps you and anyone is qualified to comment on the manner of his sacking but on why he was sacked, outsider fans seem oblivious to just how poorly balanced our team has become, relying on attack-attack-attack and leaving holes at the back that a League 1 side could exploit. I frequent most MCFC fan boards - the actual fans - and the majority of them were disillusioned by Hughes' tactical ineptness. At the same time many were disgusted with the timing/manner of Hughes sacking, but not why he was sacked. "Only 2 losses" sounds good but there are also stats like... 1. Won as many games away as Bolton and Wigan. 2. Conceded more goals than Portsmouth. 3. Drew with a huge chunk of mid to low table teams, stalling our season and pushing us further away from United, Chelsea, and Arsenal.
Great summation as to why Hughes was sacked Stu. I find it funny how supporters of other clubs are more upset with the Hughes sacking than we are. Bottom line is he needed to go, we all new it and also we all new it would happen sooner rather than later. Could it have been done in a more professional manner, of course but we all know what crap Garry Cook is. I find no fault with the decision, I was a big backer of Hughes but even I was fed up with flurry of poor managerial decisions he made on the pitch. Let us hope Mancini get off to a fast start and the player rally around him then all these outsiders will go back to just complaining about our rich owners again.
I can't believe you would say something like that. The arrogance is purely unbelievable. You won games, but I guess grinding out a result isn't your style. Pure arrogance.
The thing is I was pissed and couldn't beleive that that had happened. You all are defending this so there is a big difference.
Really? 7 matches drawn in a row in the league, including against Birmingham, Hull, Burnley, Bolton, a woefully out of form Liverpool (who have been losing to the likes of Portsmouth). Followed by a big win over Chelsea, our best performance of the season and basically our sole standout moment since early in the season when we thrashed Arsenal in the league. So we followed up on that with... a 3-0 loss to Spurs. Then we scraped past Sunderland but were atrocious defensively yet again in a 4-3, showing Hughes (who spent so much on "his" defenders) still had not improved his team defensively. The last time we won two Premier League games in a row was late August/early September. Since then it has been all draws (mostly against minnows), a win, a loss, and another very clumsy win. This is the "deteriorating" form mentioned. Two losses all season? How about two wins in ten games and countless points dropped to teams we should have walked over, simply because of Hughes' tactical immaturity? People who watched these matches saw and tore their hair out at our inability to defend or hold on to leads. Thus, we have needed a manager who can create a balance, who can keep us dangerous going forward (which should not be hard with one of the best attacking lineups in Europe) but tighten things up in midfield and defence, which Hughes was poor at. Hopefully it can be Mancini who at least, on paper, has the ability to do this and is already working on the defence as his main priority and we are already linked with some of the top young defenders in Europe (rather than over the hill types) such as Chiellini and Kjaer.
Stu is right!! Before Hughes was fired. City had "won only once in 10 matches", as soon as he's let go, he's "lost only twice in the league and has the team poised for a Champion's League spot" I didn't believe at first, but there is definitely much jealousy and anti-City bias out there!!
Speaking of Anti City, would it be to much to ask to NOT see adds for scum merchandise whenever I come into the forum. No wonder so many City fans leave Big Soccer for City forums. It is insulting to look at their crap on our threads. Sorry for the rant boys, now back on topic.
And what proof has there been that Players like sylvinho, bridge, kolo were "his" buys. perhaps only lescott who he publicly went after, was his signing, but i suspect that the other 3 were cook & marwood deals, and here is why.... First toure. Marwood being a former arsenal player, thought he could use his connections and 'steal' a player from us and he and cook were the primary movers in this deal, i never once heard hughes say he wanted him. Sylvinho. i think this was pure Publicity work. the main purpose of this deal is to boost there PR image by doing a transfer with BARCELONA FC. Bridge. Same deal imo. City wanted to show the world that they can "take" players away from the 'Top Clubs' of the world like chelsea, barca, arsenal. Hughes was backed, im not saying he wasn't, he was given an insane amount of money to spend and he spent it. regardless i guess of who exactly did the purchasing, i am smart enough to realize that in the end, the manager is always made responsible for poor dealings. Lescott could still come good with a proper partner. Dunne could still be at City and all this would not have happened, but Cook wanted him out. so many things and this before City have even broke the top4 Yet.
"Two losses all season? How about two wins in ten games and countless points dropped to teams we should have walked over, simply because of Hughes' tactical immaturity?" Your rational is completely out of order. The league all around is much stronger. I won't keep this up cause you are so out of touch with reality because of some billionarie sheik this is nonsense. Your comment above speaks volumes about what you think your club should be, but you fail to realize that you have completely rebuilt the squad so it takes time for that unit to gel. Let me tell you this: Burnley beat United and aren't half bad. Bolton have always been tough and are known to play extremely well defensively so I don't know why you think you should have walked all over them. Hull well that's a shame. Birmingham City is a good team starting to show it's quality so a draw isn't a bad result. Doesn't matter if Liverpool are out of form there still a top team so I don't know why you put them in this discussion. Teams are much better this time around and I can't wait till Mancini stumbles and starts to have a tough time in a league he has no experience in then how your fickle lot will deal with that will be fun to watch. I feel you base too much of your team's failures on a manager who has proven himself at so called smaller clubs and with a Wales team that was worse then it is now and did a good job. This is not his fault, but your owners who thinks he can throw together a new team and want it to start winning the league. Alas I will stop this cause you are obviously blinded by money and have no rhyme or reason for your your accusations. You feel cause you couldn't beat the teams I listed above and also couldn't destroy a Sunderland team who has beaten a strong Arsenal side that Hughes was deserving of a sack is absolute tosh. It seems the blue side of Manchester has become chelesa and arsenal as you have the money and the arrogance to boot. Also the way you talk is as if you were world beaters before the money started flowing. 6th is very good for you all and I would be happy with it.
I agree I'm anti city now cause of the way the fans have taken themselves on this ridiculous circus ride and think they are top of the world, but I can't be jealous cause were sitting above them so ya.
This is bizarre. I've provided clear rationale that was as basic and logical as can be, often in dot point, as to why Hughes went and why so many City fans were unhappy with his managing. It's not arrogance, you'll find most City fans are anything but and have been with the club since before our fall to the lower leagues and re-ascension. I fully understand teams aren't "so easy" to beat now but had you actually watched our matches you would realize we -could- have easily beaten all of these teams we drew with, except Villa, with some tactical efficiency from our manager. In many cases we were in the lead but Hughes - as usual - sat on his backside and watched over and over as the same lack of balance led to us leaking goals back for fun. He showed NO signs of fixing or shoring up his expensive defence no matter how much history repeated itself, right up to his final game in charge, that debacle against Sunderland which we only won because we had such a talented strike force that was just thrown together as per usual and delivered goals - something any manager could do with the cast at his disposal (including Bellamy, one of the most lethal players in the league this season - and he isn't even one of our "glamour" boys). Okay, I'm ending my discussion with you now that I came across this but will continue talking to others in the thread. No time for people here for a rise - especially ones who only look at our club's league position on paper and know nothing of reality - especially not at this time of year.
It's amazing the 180 that the press has done here. I mean a month ago, people all across the media were slamming Hughes for not leading the league with the money spent, now they make hughes out to be this poorly treated wrongly done, quality manager... I'm sure many in the press still have a "Disapointing City" column saved to their hard drives. either way... lots of hate. .
You are 100% right about the press. Like i said before, i may have talked negatively about city, but that was only because i knew that eventually Hughes would get city to the top. His sacking was harsh, but i think deep down, it was probably the right thing for City to do now. anyway, No match thread for today?? go ahead and make one jugg.