Newsletter #1230

Plenty of opinion tonight on our Distin’s contract negotiations (or lack of), Dickov, Mills and what is happening at City – depending on whether you’re a glass half full or half empty person.

We also have views on that awful new kit and transfer targets.

OPINION: LE SULK MARK DEUX

Just seen on various sites that Distin has turned down £35,000 a week because he wants to play in Europe.

Granted, I understand his ambitions. And that £35,000 is not a lot by Premiership standards. But, but…

£35,000 per week IS a lot of money, however you look at it. And don’t give me that twaddle about a “player’s career being short” as a justification for vastly over-inflated wage demands. You can earn thousands sat on your backside at home working on the Internet nowadays, gone are the days when an ex-player inevitably ended up running a seedy pub down a Prestwich or Whitefield back street somewhere (yes, those of us familiar with these places know that we do {did?} have ’em, and I’m slagging my own patch here, so no abuse please!).

However, the thing that really gets me is that Captain Fantastic is basically off because poor, can’t be arsed results meant we didn’t qualify for Europe. That is, the players, led by the self same captain, didn’t achieve. So, effectively, I didn’t do my job, and because of that. I’m quitting! Now, anyone else see a scenario where it’s “I’m Captain, I don’t bother today, we don’t qualify, I’m off”?

However, be fair. He’s not the only one. The creature desecrating the number 8 shirt sees it exactly the same way. I can’t be arsed for this lot, we go nowhere, ergo, I have a good excuse to leave.

Get it through the cranial matter folks. The team that is not performing, not qualifying for Europe is your own doing, you are the people who are charged with getting us there, thus you cannot use it as a reason to leave, to move on to “better things” when you fail.

Ranted!

OPINION: REALITY CHECK

I simply can’t believe what I’m reading.

There are people, seemingly in a blind panic and/or deep depression, based on the fact that we haven’t yet bid for the likes of Lampard and Rooney.

I can understand the disappointment with the damp squib end to last season, and I can also understand a frustration with an ‘apparent’ lack of transfer funds. What I can’t understand is this ‘end of the world’ approach.

I expect City will surprise a few people (as they have constantly done since SP took the reigns) with the deals they do in the summer.

Samaras is an expensive buy but a great investment.

Andy Cole was a surprising recruit but a solid one.

Vassell was cheap and reasonably effective, definitely value.

I was pleased to see the 2 loan deals sent home as they were failing to produce enough. And were likely to get in the way of the youngsters coming through. Having said that, I expect that some more loans will be agreed, though with better quality players coming in.

When the new season kicks off I truly think that SP and the board will have done the right thing and invested what we can afford in players we are happy with.

Add in the young talent we have coming through and next year may just be more fruitful than some would dream of.

City have a policy of talking down the funds available for SP. We were told that there was no transfer money available in the weeks before we spent £7 million on Samaras.

Am I alone in feeling that we bottomed out last season?

I think the board and SP saw the problem of having a dip in form (because of lack of options) when we dropped 7 places and lost huge amounts of place money.

There will be no repeat next year.

Incidentally, If Chelsea want us to get SWP fit and for us to get his confidence back that’s fine, but they certainly can’t have Micah or anyone else in exchange. Would it be unfair on me to suggest that for us to help SWP back to world class we would require the release of say Gudjohnson?

Keep it clean, keep it Blue.

OPINION: REALITY CHECK

I’m hoping against hope that there’s something big round the corner. I cannot for the life of me understand how we are still reportedly £60 million in debt, after we were that figure prior to selling Anelka, never mind SWP. The kit, Dickov and noise surrounding us at the moment make things look bleak. Things in the board room simply don’t seem to add up. For instance, I note in the minutes of the last Points of Blue that it’s now club policy to change away kits every year. When did this happen? [And doesn’t it contravene FA rules on kits? – Ed]

The first team débâcle is easily rectified IMO. Gravesen (we’re bigger than Celtic even if not yet in Europe), Gera (not my tip but do like the look of him), plus Jarosik and SWP on loan would give us a spend of £6 million. Paid back with the sale of Distin. Then go all Peter Swales with the cheque book, but this time buy a forward who has proved everything in the game, still hungry and costs a bomb but can deliver – yes, spend some cash on quality. We need something to be excited about after Samaras fever subdued within six games.

My tip would be Ronaldo and Carlos (just for good measure and a bit of support) from Madrid. Hear me out. It’s not too implausible given our very own Portuguese speaking dedicated personal trainer primed and ready in waiting. Financially, the wages would be paid back in full gates. Note the minimum 6,000 spare capacity each week and getting worse by the season – my analysis suggests every 1,000 spares costs us £300,000 a season in gate receipts, not including cross sales -£1.8 million would be a good start. Further, increased shirt – yes even those w**nk shirt – sales, NB: City shorts should always be white, tops always Blue and away kit red and black, IMO. Finally, as an incentive to come to City, as cash won’t be the only consideration for these fellas, the offer of a Shaun Goater type Academy link in the towns of their choice in Brazil if they play 100 games apiece.

To make life easy for our manager, forget Willie McKay’s number, leave off Gera until Shaun’s been bagged, then it’s only two clubs to phone to get in five players that would send our club, its Academy products and future players up into the stratosphere.

Finally, offer Joey £25,000 basic, plus a further £10,000 for every season he plays 25 games or more and we finish top six. A two week deadline to sign, or get rid, this is Manchester City you are being offered. Don’t buy off Willie McKay again.

Whatever you do, stay Blue!

P.S.: Decided to pick and choose away games next season, as I couldn’t part with my season ticket. Still a come down from religiously doing home and away. Will change if above materialises and mitigates the Dickov and shirt fiasco.

OPINION: LOOKING ON THE DARK SIDE

Quiet time of the year? Not if one visits the various websites concerning City (I consult Teamtalk and MOL – happy clappers vs. the doom and gloomers). Just like MCIVTA, the reaction to Dickov’s ‘homecoming’ has been mixed. Being one of those who never really liked him when he was at City, I see this as a backwards step. I watched him for Blackburn at CoMS – he and Savage are very much alike. Gamesmanship, rather than sportsmanship, defines their game. Always trying to con the referee in order to get the opposition players sent off. Still, if that’s what Pearce wants, well he’s the manager (for now).

The arrival of Dickov has implications for our younger players – apparently QPR would like to take BWP for a season. In my opinion this might not be such a bad idea. At least he won’t have to think of himself as being behind Sibierski (enough to knock anyone’s confidence).

What is of concern though are the players who may very well be leaving. I know a lot of City fans don’t like Mills but he has played in the World Cup and we did have a solid defence when we had him, Dunne, Distin and Thatcher in season 2004/5. Now I see that Distin may be going – well he’s rejected his contract offer. And Joey B might also be on his way. I can only see this as being a disaster. We have no senior left sided midfielders now (God forbid we have either Sun or Sibierski there). Looks like the middle of our midfield is about to go and Sinclair was looking very ragged at the end of last season. Yet there seems to be no urgency in filling the most crucial part of the team. Pearce seems intent on ripping the heart out of the team. I wonder if he’s losing the dressing room – has Mills tapped into something when he hints that Pearce does not want to listen to the views of his senior players?

Frankly I live away from Manchester so don’t hear the gossip. But it seems to me that there is something radically wrong at City. My own guess is that Pearce will not make any major signings during the summer. At this rate I predict we will struggle at the beginning of the season and some of our younger players may very well lose confidence. I know we have some good junior players but we need good senior ones to go with them. The old saying that you win nothing with kids attributed to Alan Hansen is always thrown back in his face because of Manchester United. Some of their juniors were special – especially Beckham, Butt and Scholes. But they also had Cantona, Schmeichel and I daresay some others. What will we have? James, Dunne (good but error prone), Reyna (past it and injury prone hence the moniker Captain Sicknote), Cole (a really class player) but that’s it. Distin will have gone, JB will be out while Vassell flatters to deceive. Of course we’ll have Dickov and the rest of the mediocre bunch. I can see us getting relegated next season. The team that Keegan brought up to the Premiership (if you add in Anelka and Foe) would murder the lot that we have now. That’s progress? We’ll see what Pearce does. I’m not optimistic. Now if only Sven would select Carrick rather than that donkey Hargreaves and forget about Rooney (unless he’s proven to be fit) who knows, maybe England will do well in the World Cup.

OPINION: THE MIDDLE MAN

Re current transfer targets. Am I the only one who thinks we’ve got no midfield? Surely the priority has to be at least two new midfielders, both of whom can track back at reasonable speed, and one of which uses his left foot for something other than standing on. The current names being mentioned seem to be clapped out defenders and unknown strikers, none of whom are inspiring. How come the Trotters and Pie-Eaters can find £8.5 million to bid for Andy Johnson and we’re stuck with aged Bosmans? We could be in for a long, hard depressing season if we’re not careful.

OPINION: NOT FIT TO WEAR THE SHIRT I

Enough is enough. I’ve just seen the kit on the website. Although I don’t mind the design (with blue shorts and socks I think it’s nice – but the shirt alone looks as if Arsenal have gone blue), the problem is it’s not a Manchester City kit. Even Andy Cole looks embarrassed wearing it and the first impact it had on me is that it will be so horrible to see City dressed in such an awful way.

What can I say, this kit is a scandal to me. I feel insulted and humiliated as a City fan, The club and Reebok must think we’re merely idiots and we have to be treated accordingly. Why don’t we change our colour now? Well, I know, they did that in the mid 90’s with that fantasy laser blue but, I mean why don’t we play in red for example, eh? Is it so difficult to manufacture a blue shirt and white shorts? And why the likes of United never appear like clowns? How about a black sleeve and red shorts for them? Or white shorts for Liverpool? Horizontal stripes for Newcastle? No, it must be City that kit manufacturers can play with, and I wonder why.

Wearing our shirt gives us a great feeling. Especially in a foreign country like Italy, I feel so proud when I can see people looking at me with curiosity, having a guess after realising it’s not Lazio, asking me what club it is, congratulating me on the shirt because let’s say it, the one that’s just been changed was excellent. But the thing is, we don’t have to own a City shirt to be City fans, because that’s in our heart. Helping the club with our money surely makes us feel happy and useful. We do that by buying match tickets and swiping our credit cards in the City store. But things have changed. To them we are idiots (and this concept could easily be extended to the football industry), we are such idiots that we are all going to buy a shirt (worth one pound, maybe two?) believing it’s a Manchester City shirt. Well it’s not.

This year we’re going to appear like Manchester City in videogames when the software house haven’t paid for the copyright and they have to field a “Man Blue” with unlikely white stripes… now they’ll have to design a real kit to avoid legal consequences! Unbelievable.

They think we are idiots, but we have a weapon, invincible. Let’s not buy the new shirt. Let’s not buy it! Why do Reebok and friends change kits every year? Because the players get bored with the one they’ve got? Or because thousands of people will fork out their own money to buy them? Let’s let them rot in dust and see if they don’t change it. They will, oh yes they will. Reebok and Thomas Cook are still with City, carrying on with the one we’ve got now would be ideal, it’s beautiful. Maybe the players can’t, but the fans? That would be a massive signal. It’s only early June, I think we have plenty of time to make our voice heard, both at City and Reebok. We could start immediately emailing them, and then showing what we mean by keeping 40 pounds in our wallets.

OPINION: NOT FIT TO WEAR THE SHIRT II

I only have one word for the new home kit: yuk!

I understand the marketing practices of all the clubs now by changing the kit often, but if they want us fans to buy the product, at least make it something that we all like, and looks good.

Methinks Reebok need a new design team.

But if City win their games in the new kit, and don’t play like Coventry City who also used a similar kit, maybe, and only just maybe, we can be a bit blind to the new kit.

I liked Svenn’s comments in the last MCIVTA about the kit being designed by a grandmother,

OK so at least it’s Sky Blue.

OPINION: TRICKY DICKY

Loads of comments on the return of Dickov so here’s my two bob’s worth. The squad is paper-thin: if we had as many players struck down as Spurs in the last game of the season, SP would have had to give shirts to the first few people through the turnstiles. Dickov may be an aggressive little thingy at times – it’ll be good to have someone on the field who actually looks as though he wants to wear the shirt and he’ll be a great “impact” player – needing a goal with 15 minutes to go he’s the sort of lunatic I’d like to see coming on to replace a prima donna who is only here to collect their salary. He was priced at roughly what we can afford – nowt.

Despite our aspirations, we are still a few players and a multi-billionaire sugar daddy shy of winning the Premiership so let’s just accept that and get over it.

OPINION: MILLS

Personally I feel sorry for Danny Mills as he has been slowly hounded out of the club by the ever increasing legion of boo boys who generally never seem happy unless they are moaning about somebody or something. Let’s be realistic, Danny is still of an age where he can perform at the peak of fitness and has World Cup and Champions’ League experience, surely having somebody of that level of experience in the club is not a bad thing? Prior to breaking his leg, he was playing well again and the defence of Mills, Distin, Dunne, and Thatcher was working very well as a unit. Once we starting tinkering with that unit and bringing youth in over experience, the gaps started appearing and the goals were being leaked.

I agree that youth has to be brought into the squad and the likes of Onuoha and Richards are wonderful prospects for the future but as I’m sure SP knows, you need knowledge and experience as well as youth in defensive areas. A lot of the charming boo boys’ issues with Danny have been about his distribution; maybe they ought also to be looking at the midfield in that situation, as if they were making themselves available then the need for Danny to execute long, searching passes would go away.

For sure Danny speaks his mind and maybe sometimes he needs to learn when to voice an opinion and when not, but I am growing increasingly concerned over the type of player SP likes in his squad; it seems as long as you are working hard in training and doing as you are told then you are in the squad irrespective of your ability (i.e. Sibierski and Sun); how many times have we heard the phrase “he’s a model professional” thrown at us with respect to ‘average’ players? Personally I like a player with a bit of balls about them who isn’t afraid to voice an opinion, especially if they are prepared to back it with performances on the training pitch and on match day. Mills is a rare breed in Football in that he actually has a brain and is relatively articulate (maybe not to Gary Neville et al) and therefore will say what he thinks. It seems to me SP doesn’t particularly like that and therefore he’s shown the door. Let’s just hope we don’t end up with a personality-free team of ‘yes men’ who are all model professionals but unfortunately lack the basic requirement of football – ability!

OPINION: TOTALLY AUTOMATIC

Forget all the fuss with that lanky one. The first and the best robot goal celebration was by that 5’4″ genius who has since retired from football. Mr Wright Philips. He did the robot after knocking in the last goal against Stretford Wanderers in the 4-1 a couple of seasons back. I’m not sure if he did it when he scored on his début for England, but he doesn’t play anymore so it doesn’t count.

REQUEST: ITALIAN BRANCH

Is there anyone out there who can help? We contacted the OSC last year to form a supporters’ branch of Italian Blues based here in Torino and heard nothing.

For any other Blues in the area, or visiting on holiday, we meet up at the Hotel Italia on C. so Stati Uniti 9 bis, Torino.

If the OSC, ISC or CSA are interested then please get in touch so we can be an official supporters’ club branch!

Thank you.

MCIVTA FAQ [v0506.02]

[1] MCIVTA Addresses

Articles (Heidi Pickup)          : editor@mcivta.city-fan.org
News/rumour (Don Barrie)         : news@mcivta.city-fan.org
Subscriptions (Madeleine Hawkins): subscriptions@mcivta.city-fan.org
Technical problems (Paul)        : paul@city-fan.org
FAQ (David Warburton)            : faq@mcivta.city-fan.org

[2] What are MCIVTA’s publishing deadlines?

Deadlines for issues are nominally 6pm, Monday and Thursday evenings bu email. Unfortunately we cannot accept email attachments.

[3] MCIVTA Back Issues and Manchester City Supporters’ home page

http://www.uit.no/mancity/ is the unofficial Manchester City Supporters’ home page. Created in 1994, it is the longest running of the Manchester City related web sites. Back issues of MCIVTA are also hosted on the site.

[4] What is the club’s official web site?

The official club web site can be found at http://www.mcfc.co.uk/

[5] What supporters’ clubs are there?

Manchester City FC recognises three supporters’ clubs: The “Official Supporters Club” (http://www.mcfcosc.com/); the “Centenary Supporters’ Association” (http://www.reddishblues.com/CSAWebsite/CSA.htm) and “The International Supporters’ Club”.

[6] Where can I find out about the fans’ committee?

The Fans’ Committee operates as an interface between supporters and the club. The Fans’ Committee has been relaunched as “Points of Blue”. It has appeared on the club website as a minor entry under “Fans Zone”.

[7] What match day broadcasts are available on the web?

The GMR pre and post match phone-in is available on the web at http://www.bbc.co.uk/england/gmr/sport_intro.shtml.

Live match commentaries and archives of games, reports and interviews can be found at http://mcfc.videoloungetv.com/do/preLogin?clubSiteCode=MCFC&CMP=AFC-003.

[8] Where can I find out if City are live on satellite TV?

http://www.satfootball.com/pl.html provides a listing of Premiership games being shown on UK domestic and foreign satellite channels. Useful sites for North American viewers are http://www.foxsportsworld.com/named/FSW/Index/Soccer, http://www.soccertv.com/, and http://www.livesoccertv.com/.

[9] Do we have a Usenet newsgroup?

Yes we do: uk.sport.football.clubs.man-city is our home on usenet. If you are not familiar with usenet, a basic explanation is available here: http://whatis.techtarget.com/definition/0,289893,sid9_gci213262,00.html

[10] Do any squad members have their own web pages?

There are a number available and direct links can be found at http://www.uit.no/mancity/players/

[11] Can I buy shares in the club?

Yes you can: Shares in Manchester City PLC are traded on OFEX. The latest prices can be on found the OFEX web site http://www.ofex.com/ (registration required) or in the business section of the Manchester Evening News.

[12] Where can I find match statistics?

Statistics for the current season are available from the club site, but for a more in-depth analysis try http://www.mcfcstats.com/.

[13] Where can I find a list of City-related websites?

Try Wookie’s Lair: http://www.wookieslair.com/modules.php?name=Web_Links

DISCLAIMER
The views expressed in MCIVTA are entirely those of the subscribersand there is no intention to represent these opinions as being thoseof Manchester City Football Club, nor of any of the companies anduniversities by whom the subscribers are employed. It is not inany way whatsoever connected to the club or any other relatedorganisation and is simply a group of supporters using this mediumas a means of disseminating news and exchanging opinions.

Heidi Pickup, editor@mcivta.city-fan.org

Editor: