It’s difficult to know where to begin this week. The Robinho transfer saga caught the headlines throughout the week and most blues fans are happy to see the back of him. But am I the only person who believed he should never have been signed in the first place?
The problem you get when you sign a player of Robinho’s class is a lack of confidence throughout the team. Take the period when we had Gio Kinkladze in the squad. Whenever anything happened, it was usually Kinkladze who started it off. If he was off form, so were the team and the same happened with Robinho last season.
It was almost like the team were waiting for him to do something and if he didn’t. no-one else did either. But this season we have added something different and it has made the Brazilian just another fish in our pond, rather the big fish and it’s not in Robinho’s nature to be just another fish.
City teams in the past have been built on workers throughout the side. Yes they have had occasional flair, such as Colin Bell or Paul Lake for example, but the majority of our sides have always had a bit of grit in the middle of the park. Should we sign McDonald Mariga, it will add height as well as strength and at £7m plus Bojinov in exchange, he could turn out to be quite a bargain.
We have also strongly been linked with Adam Johnson from Middlesbrough but where will that leave SWP or Petrov? I like both players but I can only see the Bulgarian going as SWP is a City institution and Garry Cook will want to avoid aggravating the fans by selling him to Barcelona.
Cooks own position has been put on the line and rightly so. He was a man in the sports industry who knew nothing about City or football for that matter.
Just Not Good Enough, I’m Afraid
Well, I’ve got to mention it and it will re-open that whole in our hearts. I am of course, talking about City’s Carling Cup exit on Wednesday. A 2-1 would have been enough against many other teams but not at Old Trafford. All we needed was one extra goal at OT. That would have given us the advantage of two away goals and could have seen us through.
But we didn’t get it and the truth is that we had 180 minutes to score more than three goals and we simply couldn’t achieve it. It was a brilliant effort by the boys though and it has given the supporters hope for the future. Last season we went out to Brighton and over the last few years, beaten by Doncaster and Chesterfield so to reach the semi-final is a great boost for us. Maybe next year we will go one further.
But what makes me laugh is the United fans and their manager. They say they aren’t bothered by us and we are nothing more than noisy neighbours but their celebrations seem to be more in relief than about putting us out.
We’ve got Stoke coming up and we should hopefully see ourselves in the quarter finals. Hopefully the draw will be kind to us if we do manage to get through although I’m not too worried about who we play. If we get someone at home, we’re a match for anyone. But let’s not get ahead of ourselves. We have to secure our place first and that means beating Stoke, who put Arsenal out in the last round.
Should Have Been A Hatful, Really
A club going for a place in the top four should easily brush aside a team that has not been out of the bottom three this season. Yet the blues made hard work of Portsmouth. Maybe they were still suffering the effects of Wednesday night but I’m just glad we weren’t playing Chelsea or Spurs. I say Spurs because they are our bogey side at the moment and have been for a while, but if we’d played someone of that standing and performed the way we did, we’d have been taken to the cleaners.
Was it tiredness or did the players simply underestimate Portsmouth? It would be difficult not to really. We have a wealth of talent that should have destroyed the South Coast club and maybe a few players were thinking it would be a stroll. In the end it was but if they’d put in a bit more effort, we’d still be level on points but goal difference could become crucial at the end of the season. If we miss out on fourth by a couple of goals, the players and fans will be gutted, particularly since we had a chance today.
The Real Reason Terry Didn’t Join City?
It was a big transfer story during the summer. John Terry was offered the chance to leave Stamford Bridge and join the blue revolution and for a while it looked a possibility. Then someone must have reminded him that Wayne Bridge plays for us and he turned us down.
Is the reason for this because he was having an affair with Bridge’s then girlfriend? It has all emerged in the last couple of days that the married England captain and so called ‘Mr Chelsea’ was cheating on his wife and allegedly got her pregnant. If it wasn’t for Bridge coming to Eastlands last January, it may have been possible Terry would have been leading us into the new season.
Some City players showed their solidarity to Wayne today by sporting ‘team Bridge’ shirts underneath their playing shirts. Some Chelsea blogs have, for some reason deemed this unacceptable. So are they condoning what Terry, a supposed father of the year, has been doing behind his trusting wife’s back?
Well we can see where their scruples lie.
The transfer window shuts a 5pm tomorrow and we will have details of any new signings we make as and when they come in. I hope by next Sunday we have another away win under our belts.
Until next week, keep the faith and have a good week.
