The £500 Million Bus Mancini Left At the Emirates

It’s been two days since the match and I am still pissed about this match. Not at our boys mind you but at that lot that call themselves a football team from the blue side of Manchester and for the press that seems to not have seen the same display onthe pitch I did.

Steely. Dug-in. Determined. These are all words being used by the press, players and supporters of Manchester City after their 0-0 draw with Arsenal this past Wednesday. So much praise is being hoisted on this group of over-priced defenders that now they believe they will win the title.

Let me use a couple of other words for the City supporters – disgraceful, disgusting, deplorable. I could go on but what’s the point? What Manchester City showed us and is being avoided by the press or anyone else – is that they are not ready to win anything. Sure, they said all the right things, “Arsenal are like Barcelona and you need to defend,” or this nugget, “you win titles with defence.” Let me perfectly clear – good defences will help you win titles and yes, you do need to defend against good attacking sides. However, that should not prohibit you from actually trying to mount some sort of offence – even from time to time.

Great teams are complete teams. They play a complete brand of football and they adequately defend when it is needed and switch it over to attack when they have the ball. Only one portion of that was clearly evident this Wednesday and that was the defence. Sure there were some muted attempts by Carlos Tevez and by Adam Johnson. But Mancini’s lineup card was so devoid of any true attacking threat, Jo and Milner with Tevez on the attack. Are you kidding me? You spend £500 million on a team and all you can put out there is Jo and Milner to support the bulldog that is Tevez.

"Hey Roberto, You Call That Football?"

City’s tactics were so abundantly clear every time Tevez got the ball – he was the only one in the box. They gave him no support every time he did try to go forward. Our defenders had no pressure on them. Lukasz Fabianski was so un-busy that he knitted a sweater back there. City, with their title ambitions had a total of 5 shots not one of them was on target. Carlos Tevez got so deep sometimes, you didn’t know if he was a striker or a center-half. Had City even tried to make a game of it – I don’t think I could find any fault with the draw. But the fact of the matter is they didn’t try. They took that £500 million dollar bus and parked it for the Emirates and the TV viewers to see.

Credit has to be given to our lads and should rightly be so. They did everything they could – except score. Wenger got it right, the performance was the right performance, just the wrong damn result. Robin Van Persie is clearly coming back into his own. Remember last season, he took 5 games at the beginning of his season and after that and prior to his injury was in career scoring form. His monster shot that was saved byJoe Hart is going to go in more times than not. It was a rocket, it was well placed it was just saved nicely by the keeper. The wood work though was the big savior, keeping the ball out on at least three occasions. On one occassion Fabregas’s shot so stunned Hart he didn’t move. He was frozen and clearly beat only to have it ring off the inside of the post and the followup by Walcott to ring off the top of the post.

As for our key players: Nasri, was his creative and direct self often times drawing two to three citizens with him when he had the ball. Cesc is clearly back into form as the Arsenal maestro and he created what space he could in what little he was given. Alex Song, was good in the middle winning the ball back and aiding in the forward movement of the match. We tend to criticize his going forward but City were sp devoid of any threat what is a DM to do but help move things up. And then there is  Jack Wilshere who in my opinion showed such composure in a big match that was well above his 19 years. He has had some moments this season where his age and inexperience are clearly on display, that wasn’t so in this match. When he got the ball, he was direct and assured and on a few occassions clearly was able to unlock City. He is definitely learning his craft well under the tutelage of Wenger and mentor Cesc Fabregas.

The team was set up the right way. I think maybe with only swapping Koscielny with a healthy Vermalen, we’ve found our solid starting XI. The attack is crisp and creative. They are all buying into the defencive principles of closing down the opponent with the ball and they are supporting each other. There are some other things that need to be worked out – for instance more decisive crossovers when you give the ball outside the box, in order to pull defenders away. But overall the team that was on the pitch against City, Birmingham and Chelsea are by far our best set of players. Using Chamakh and Arshavin in rotation for the attack are good ideas. However, I wouldn’t start them.  Chamakh needs to still get acclimated and we may have all been pleased with his start to the season but he has drifted off and needs more time to strengthen up for the league. Andrei Arshavin, I am beginning to think that as glorious as it is to see his glimpses of magic, he just may be ill-suited for this league with his size.  The only hiccup I could see is if Ramsey gets back to the form he was displaying before his injury. What does that mean for our mid-field. But hey frankly who cares, with many of our big club bretheren not having the depth of squads like us, this is a problem I kind of like having.

So what this all boils down now to is this – I believe we are the only true team capable of really challenging United for the title. As bad as a draw against City was in terms of moving up the table, we still have a game in hand over them. United still have to come into the Emirates as do Liverpool The last of our big matches of the league would be an away visit to Spurs. United have to visit the Emirates, they play Chelsea twice, Spurs at WHL, City at Old Trafford and Liverpool at Anfield. City have, United at Old Trafford, Chelsea at Stamford Bridge, Liverpool at Anfield, and Spurs at home (I will throw Everton @ Goodison park in there because they’ve been a bogey team to City.) So all in all this title race is wide open and frankly the fixture list favours us for once. And as such, I think it means that if we can continue to stay healthy and perform as we’ve been performing, this season will be just like old times as we challenge United for the title (and no United will not go undefeated.)

As for our opponents on Wednesday – City want to fashion themselves as title contenders and maybe they are a year or two away from doing so. But, until they learn that when you play your biggest rivals, the Arsenals, Uniteds, Chelseas and Spurs of the world you have to play to win. Without that drive, you are nothing more than a cheap imitation of a football squad. You should be ashamed to even take the pitch with displays like that. As it is, the Metropolitan Police are now looking to question Mr Mancini and Mr Kidd about the rather large bus they drove onto the pitch at the Emirates and left there.