Manchester City

Manchester City’s plan to start an Alex Ferguson sort of rule at the Ethiad will depend not on how much money they spend, but how they succeed in managing the club. And by making sure that they keep hold of their management team, manager Roberto Mancini in particular, who has taken them to this wonderland. The initial signs are optimistic that they will avoid the problems Chelsea have had.

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Mancini led City to glory, but must now be in sole control of football matters. Image courtessy of PlayUp

The comparison with Chelsea is very relevant. Remember back in 2005, we heard a similar vision of the future from Chelsea. Then, Peter Kenyon, chief executive of Chelsea, spoke of his vision to turn the world blue. Chelsea went on to win two more titles, indeed, they did the coveted double of League and Cup under Carlo Ancelotti and have won other trophies. The club could still crown it all with what its Russian Tsar dearly wants: the Champions League on Saturday. But if they do not, this is a season with only an FA Cup and sixth in the League, and that domination over United, taking over from Old Trafford in the way Ferguson took over from Anfield, has not been achieved.

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Insideworldfootball.biz

Change in football (let alone the wider society) is difficult to predict. It is often best left to historians with their long lenses to look back and tell us when one era ends and another begins.

However, despite the fact that we do not know for sure who will win this season’s English Premier League title, it is my firm belief that this campaign marks a momentous season of change in the Premiership – the third such change since the Premiership started 20 years ago. This shift not only affects the top of the League where the power lies but also the survivors at the bottom.

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The Evening Standard

Exclusive: Ahead of title D‑Day, striking great reveals his admiration for City boss and why he could not talk to Ferguson after that 6-1 derby humbling

You won’t hear Denis Law belittling Roberto Mancini if Manchester City’s dreams of a first title since 1968 are shattered this season. Some supporters may not be so kind to the Italian, given that he has spent £210million on players in two years and that failure for City would mean United celebrating their 20th championship.

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What a load of nonsense is being written about the future of Roberto Mancini. Yes, we can take it that it is almost certain City are not going to win the title, as they seemed destined to do only a month ago. But that is no reason for all this debate as to whether he goes or stays.

That picture of the Manchester City owners looking like thunder at the Emirates was widely interpreted as Mancini’s death warrant. I am not convinced it is. It made for good pictures and headlines but maybe no more than that.

Let me concede that the Italian’s handling of Mario Balotelli has been a lesson on how not to deal with a brilliant player who is also a head case. I disagree with critics who say that the fact that he signed Balotelli showed his lack of judgement as manager. Not at all. Balotelli is gifted, there can be no doubt of that. Any manager reading his scouting reports, and probably having seen him perform, would want him in his squad if not his team.

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For Tevez and Terry, read Spurs’ Danny Blanchflower

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I wonder if we’ve ever had a better season to demonstrate the contrasting effects of player power than recent events at Chelsea and Manchester City.

Yet it would be wrong to see this as reflecting the fact that players are now super stars, and because of the money they earn, they have acquired power that players of previous generations did not have. That is moonshine. How modern players exercise the power may have changed, but players have always had powers, particularly players at the top of their profession.

The most potent example of this was of course Danny Blanchflower, the captain of the great Tottenham teams of the early 6os. Blanchflower will always be remembered for those classic lines that define the game, “The great fallacy is that the game is first and last about winning. It is nothing of the kind. The game is about glory, it is about doing things in style and with a flourish, about going out and beating the other lot, not waiting for them to die of boredom.”

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