Pause and rewind, two years this month if you will, Sheikh Mansour bin Zayed Al Nahyan has just bought Manchester City for a staggering £210million, clearing all City's debts in the process. August 2008 signalled a new era in the history of a club that looked forever like the little brother of their biggest rivals United.
Ever since British football and indeed the worlds transfer markets have had a new pin up boy who have never once managed to remove themselves from the spotlight, be it changing managers, spending millions upon millions of pounds on players or for their on the pitch fortunes.
Over £100million have been spent in each of the last two summers with players such as Milner, the Toure's and Carlos Tevez coming in, all of whom were able to walk straight into the City starting line up. The attitude taken towards Craig Bellamy's exit from the club was also a stark decision which went along the lines of 'we don't want him, but nobody else can have him', so much so that it's rumoured that City will be paying at least half of his £90,000 per week wages as well as giving him a £2million pay off.
City will be hoping that all the outlay will finally reap the rewards, it is the third year and so Champions League football is the aim for the season and the pressure will certainly be on Mancini and his players but they should be able to cope. A squad of the calibre of City's should be able to handle such pressure, many of them have played in the world cup, all have played at some of the top levels of Europe while Tevez and the Toure brothers have previously played in Champions League finals.
Certainly in previous years the board have been sensible in their behind the scenes decisions, the first season they came in City dropped a place to tenth in the league and failed to qualify for Europe but they stuck with Mark Hughes, that was until a better option became available, Hughes leaving City in December 2009 despite the club being in seventh place in the Premier League, they eventually finished fifth under Roberto Mancini, narrowly missing out on a place in the Champions League.
Thus far City have made a decent start to the season, drawing with Tottenham and beating Liverpool, as well as winning the first leg of their Europa League tie with FC Timisoara and these will certainly help build confidence among the squad, confidence breeds confidence, moving the club forward at an ever increasing rate. But what happens if a couple of results quickly go the wrong way?
With the team still gelling together a string of poor results could upset the balance of team harmony in a dressing room where the wages are currently unbalanced, Yaya Toure thought to be on nearly £220,000 when the new 50% tax bracket arrives, making him the best paid player in the history of the Premier League. This situation could cause aggravation among some members of the squad who are known to be on considerably less than Yaya. Roberto Mancini, however, is recognised as a good man manager, a skill he will certainly need with the fiery Mario Balotelli in his squad, so City will hope to keep any trouble down to a minimum.
Indeed, the team seemed to have worked well with eachother so far and results seem to suggest that the new era at City is starting to move along nicely.
No comments:
Post a Comment