Newsletter #1526

Match reactions tonight to the WBA game, a round-up of all things City happening and views from Mike playing devil’s advocate on the manager, player form, the run-in and Hillsborough.

NEWS SUMMARY

General News

Football United: On a day where the world of English football changed forever, ninety six people tragically lost their lives and on the twentieth anniversary of the disaster last week, it was not only Liverpool FC who remembered the sad loss that football suffered. MCFC Executive Chairman Garry Cook laid a wreath in the CoMS memorial garden in memory of the 96 and shared a message of support on behalf of the club: “The tragedy that day will never be forgotten by anyone, not just in the football community. We should all take a moment to reflect on what occurred at Hillsborough, and of course our thoughts are with the families and loved ones of those who died on that awful day.”

Fort CoMS: Despite facing the heartbreak of being knocked out of the UEFA Cup quarter finals last week, City’s versatile Belgian, Vincent Kompany, has spoken of how the squad wants more European nights like last Thursday and has pleaded with fans to help the club make CoMS a fortress: “The atmosphere on Thursday was amazing, and the fans were absolutely fantastic. We want more nights like this, and I fully expect us to have them in the future. It’s not just about playing well; we were like a team and were strong. Don’t forget, we were 1-0 down, many teams would have thought it was finished – maybe Hamburg did. But we kept coming back at them, there was a real hunger about us, we wanted to all beat our opponent and that’s what it should be like for every game, and I am definitely going to be one of the players that tries to please our fans like this. I felt we had a good chance in this competition, we came from a long way back and it has been a long road so it’s a pity that we gave it away so easily in Hamburg. Coming into the home leg, everyone thought they were much stronger than us, but we showed that we are a very good side. Going out in this manner makes me a bit stronger, and hopefully the team as well.”

Going Bananas: Not only did last Thursday see a return to the atmosphere of the good old days at Maine Road but the club’s most famous novelty also made a comeback. Which one I hear you cry? That would be those rather subtle giant inflatable bananas. Both the bananas and City flags played a huge rôle in the European tie last week and from the donations made in order to purchase the two items, fans raised an impressive £8,212 for the club’s primary charity, The New Children’s Hospital Appeal. The club’s corporate and individual fundraising manager Jenny Yates showed her appreciation to the dedicated Blues: “The grand total for last week’s collection came to £8,212.56, which was fantastic. Many thanks to City fans for their kind generosity.”

Bridging the Gap: England and City left back Wayne Bridge has made his intentions clear; to prove a worthy asset to the club and to ensure that in the coming years City are sitting alongside the European greats. The man who moved from Stamford Bridge in the winter transfer window was one of the first signings of the Chelski revolution and has tasted success under Claudio Ranieri, Jose Mourinho and Avram Grant. Now Bridge is determined to help the Citizens reach the same heights but claims that first the focus must be on qualifying for next term’s Europa League: “I know that I can do better and I mean to make sure that I do. That’s something I will be working on. The hamstring is fine now, but I need to get in some more training games. The lads here have made sure I settled in quite quickly, but I’ve not played as much as I would have liked. Injury has held me back a bit, and now I just hope I can play in all the games the rest of the season. Europe is still within our grasp, but we’ve got to go into every game as we did against Hamburg, week in week out. We showed that night we’re definitely capable, and we’ll have more rest time now with no UEFA games. It won’t be easy; we might have to win all our games to push on for a place. We have to aim for three points every week. I can’t believe how good our home form is, then we go away and it doesn’t happen. That must change.”

Squad News

Stevie’s PFA Shock: Following a season that will undoubtedly see him named the club’s player of the season, Stevie Ireland has received an extra morale boost going into the final games of the season – a nomination for PFA Young Player of the Year. Ireland will now battle it out with Gabi Agbonlahor, Ashley Young, Aaron Lennon, Jonny Evans and Rafael Da Silva for the award and claims that just to be nominated was a shock: “I’m shocked to be on the short-list but it shows how good the season has been.”

Smiles Better than Before: City’s Samba boy from Madrid may have had a tough start to 2009 having not scored since December 28th but following his goal against West Brom, Robinho has promised to make us all smile with his upcoming form and has once again pledged his long term loyalty to the club: “The manager gives me total confidence, and he and the whole team help me to produce my best football for the club. That goal gives me a lot more confidence to score more in the matches that we have left. There are no regrets on my part about coming here. Of course this is only my first year, and I try to get better and better every year. Hopefully in the future I will be even happier at this football club. My relationship with the manager is very good. Our manager is a very good manager, an excellent manager. Of course expectations are high over how the team will do. But my aim is to remain here for a long time to come.”

Bellamy Blow: Craig Bellamy’s comeback trail has been dealt a fresh blow as the Welsh skipper has been ruled out of the rest of the season. Bellamy, whose knee injury had kept him out of the last three weeks worth of action, suffered a re-occurrence of the same injury during the defeat to Hamburg last week and will now face a battle to regain his fitness. His fellow Welshman Mark Hughes stated: “Craig has got to have complete rest for two weeks then he comes back for strength work. Hopefully he might get the last couple of games, but the probability is that he won’t.”

Injury Update: Bellamy is just one of a few of City’s regulars currently sitting it out on the sidelines with SWP struggling from ankle pain and Zabaleta out for the season due to a hamstring injury, and Bojinov has been playing reserve fixtures in order to regain match fitness: “He (SWP) had a bang on the bone and it’s still sore but the scan was positive. Once the swelling in and around the injury has settled then hopefully he’ll be an option again.” On the other hand, Michael Johnson made strides towards a comeback when he played for an hour in the reserve game against Boro’ earlier in the week and it is hoped that he should be fully fit for the start of the next campaign having not played since the Carling Cup third round game at Brighton back in September.

Academy Blues

FA Youth Cup Semi-Final vs. Arsenal at the Emirates: In their first competitive game since being knocked out of the prestigious Dallas Cup at the hands of Sao Paulo, a shockingly uncharacteristic performance from the City youth side saw them 4-1 down come half time and 6-2 behind on aggregate. This is how the tie ended and though the game was deceptively more even, a first minute goal form Arsenal’s Sanchez knocked the holder’s off their balance and from then Jim Cassell’s side struggled to find a foothold in the game. Despite such a heavy defeat, Alex Gibson was very proud of his young Blues: “It was a difficult start, the worst we could have had. We had planned to contain them for the first 10 minutes to have a good look at them, and then to counter-attack, but unfortunately we could not do that because of the early goal. We have won our league this year and overall the lads have been terrific. Their attitude is great, so is their application, and I think we saw that at Arsenal. I told them at half time that they had to roll their sleeves up, but we had created a few chances in the last 20 minutes of the first half, and we just did not get the rub of the green. I’m proud of them for the second half. They kept going when their heads could have dropped, and we could have had a couple more goals.”

Promised Chance: With long term injuries to Bellamy and Zabaleta, Hughes has hinted that a couple of his youngsters may be given the chance to prove themselves on the big stage after an under 18 league season in which they remain unbeaten. It is believed that Youth side skipper Kieran Trippier and reserve star Vladimir Weiss would be the most likely to push their way into the senior squad for the remaining games but whoever the manager chooses will continue to prove the success of the Blues’ academy: “There are a number of players who are very much in my thoughts. It’s about circumstances leading into games, and the expectations, and whether or not we get into the position in games where we can bring players on in a positive atmosphere and allow them to develop slowly in the correct manner. We have to look at how the squad is. We’ve probably lost Pablo for a number of games and the opportunities will present themselves. We still need to win Premier League games, that’s important for us. But if the opportunity presents itself to blood a young player, we’ll have a look at that. There’s a new crop who have made their mark this year and by all accounts the players coming through in the next couple of seasons are going to be as good as anything we have had. The recruitment of these players has been excellent.”

Post-Match Reaction

Hamburg SV: The most important match in the club’s recent history and it almost went to plan. On a night that pulled in a capacity crowd of 48,000 fans and showcased world class performances from Elano, Robinho and Vincent Kompany, the Blues fell just short of the 2-0 victory required to progress to the semi finals of the competition. City’s nine month journey seemed to be at an end only twelve minutes in when the German side took the lead on the night and led 4-1 on aggregate, yet not even the most optimistic of City fans would have foreseen the performance to come. A wonderfully rejuvenated Elano gave the Blues hope before the break from the spot and when Felipe Caicedo scored only five minutes into the second half, Blues’ fans did what we always find ourselves doing – hoping. Even when Richard Dunne was sent off yet again, the ten men continued to press and if it wasn’t for some outstanding goalkeeping by Frank Rost and a little help from the woodwork, the Blues may have taken the game into extra time. But it wasn’t to be and Martin Jol’s side progressed to an all German semi-final against Werder Bremen.

Manager Mark Hughes spoke of his pride: “Therewas a real sense that we were trying to makesomething special happen. They (the players) knewthe importance of the game and sensed theopportunity to make a statement. Elano and Robiwere very much a part of that. We can’t go intogames with players not performing at theiroptimum level, as has happened at times. Unfortunatelywe didn’t get that break when we needed it whenwere in the ascendancy. But we still asked thequestions. Hamburg are a good side but we madethem struggle at times to stay in the game. Wetook the game to Hamburg and on another nightthose chances would fly in and you win the tie.Nobody gave us any chance of turning the tiearound, but we came very close. Elano wasoutstanding. He has great ability at set plays,and we just needed one of those to go in. Emotionscan be draining as well as the physical exertionof a high-intensity match like that. They are verylow in the dressing-room, but we have a very biggame here on Sunday. It’s a case of making surewe recover and clear our heads to go again. Wewill take encouragement from this to finish theseason well. Hopefully there will be more greatEuropean nights to come. It’s been an emotionalnight, a big night for everybody. We needed tomake a statement and I think we did with the levelof performance.”

Take the performance on the pitch away from the scenario and you are left with the best atmosphere that CoMS has ever experienced. Ex-Manager Stuart Pearce once described the atmosphere inside the stadium as similar to that of a library but Hughes told of how much that had changed: “The atmosphere was outstanding. Even at ten men when we were obviously struggling to keep the momentum going, the crowd kept forcing us forward, they were the key to us being able to sustain what we did ten against 11. It was a long and varied adventure that went to some interesting places along the way, but we always had a great complement of fans that followed us far and wide. It was much appreciated by myself and everyone connected to the first team. The atmosphere on Thursday was amazing, and the fans were absolutely fantastic. We want more nights like this, and I fully expect us to have them in the future.”

And he wasn’t the only one as Martin Jol (formerly a visiting manager as the Head Coach of Tottenham Hotspur) told the media of how taken aback his players were when walking out into CoMS and throughout the game: “I don’t think I was the only one who knew about them, but I don’t think a lot of the players expected the intensity and electricity of the crowd – the fans were probably our best opponent of the night.”

West Bromwich Albion: Even West Brom super fan and Match of the Day 2 host Adrian Chiles has succumbed to the reality that West Brom will be playing Championship football next season and yet following this performance it’s unclear to see why. Granted their defence was shaky and they lacked a certain authority at the back but as an attacking unit WBA has a lot of potential and should have easily been picking up points from the teams around them. As it is, the tired Blues were just too much for the Baggies on the day, but only just as Tony Mowbray’s side came back from 2-0 down only to lose 4-2. Hughes praised his battling side: “We had a lot of players out on their feet and that’s to be expected, given the emotions and the amount of energy expended on Thursday night. It’s difficult to keep up the intensity and we were a bit slack on occasions. We were up against a good West Brom side fighting for their lives, and they had a clear week leading up to the game with their sole focus to beat Manchester City. On occasion we just didn’t have enough energy to stop their creative play at source. As a consequence they got into good areas and were able to get balls into our box, which we had to deal with. But we showed a lot of commitment, dug in, and got the result that we wanted.”

OPINION: HUGHES MUST GO … OR

There has been much debate in this newsletter over the past few weeks (and months) about the future direction of the club and who should be leading us there. Having considered the matter long and hard, I am now of the opinion that Hughes must go as soon as the season is over, and we should be making plans now so that his replacement can have the entire summer to create the team he wants, in readiness for next year.

So how did I reach my conclusion? It starts with the basic fact that despite the vast amounts of money spent since his arrival, we are almost certainly going to finish lower in the table than last year, and will almost certainly not be participating in European competition next year. Since Sven was more successful in both regards, and he was sacked, the writing should be on the wall for Hughes. Next, Hughes has shown himself to be a poor man-manager of the kinds of star players that our future success will be built around. If he can’t motivate or win the respect of Robhino and Elano, how would he cope with a team full of stars? Not that this would be such a problem though, since Hughes will probably be unable to attract any more top class players to his sinking ship. But it’s not just his motivational skills that are in question; he seems to have no ability to develop talent or play tactically astute football. Jo is a good example of the former, a young player of undoubted quality who was going nowhere fast under Hughes’ tutelage is suddenly reborn and banging them in for Everton, and some of the bizarre substitutions and team formationss are ample evidence of the latter? Almost every time Fernandes comes on is a mistake, we seem utterly incapable of defending against set-pieces, and it’s been well documented in these pages that playing two defensive midfielders is not the way to build a successful team. Players don’t suddenly become useless overnight, but many of our players have seemed pretty clueless recently. Blame it on Hughes’ uniquely terrible combination of motivation and tactics. And can we afford to have Hughes waste any more money buying the likes of Tal Ben Haim, Wayne Bridge, and Craig Bellamy (not a terrible player like the other two, but only top 6 quality at best, which he’s now past, and he’s always injured).

Let’s face it, Hughes has done nothing of note in his managerial career. A few decent performances by Wales with no pressure to be anything other than cannon fodder for Europe’s big boys (and no qualifications for any major tournaments) and a few half decent seasons creating a very ordinary Blackburn team that was able to kick its way into the top six. Barely. Manchester City is a big team with big ambitions, and we need a big name manager to go along with that.

Let’s face it, this year has been a disaster; dumped out of both domestic cups by lower division teams, barely scraped through to the UEFA Cup quarter finals before getting a football lesson in Hamburg, lost at home to Man United after doing the double on them last season, and after the awful capitulation to Fulham last week, only on Sunday did we finally guarantee ourselves top flight football next year!

Sven did the double over United, delivered a 10 game home winning streak, and qualified for Europe. Hughes has done none of these. With Hughes in charge next year we’ll be closer to relegation than the Champions’ League and it could take years to repair the damage. And so I repeat; Hughes must go!

OPINION: … GIVE HUGHES MORE TIME!

There has been much debate in this newsletter over the past few weeks (and months) about the future direction of the club and who should be leading us there. Having considered the matter long and hard, I am now of the opinion that Hughes must be given more time, and that we fans should get behind him and the team for the rest of this season and throughout the next.

So what is it that brings me to this conclusion after an admittedly less-than-stellar season? Consider this; how many teams have become sensational in their manager’s first season? With the exception of Chelsea under Mourinho (and they were already pretty close when he took over), I can’t think of any. Ferguson’s early problems at United have been well-documented, Benitez seems to have been on the verge of getting fired by Liverpool for years now, Moyes almost took Everton down, and Villa didn’t exactly light up the league last year under O’Neill. It takes time for a manager to remake someone else’s team in their image and get the players to buy in to a new system. Look at the players Hughes has brought in (Kompany, Given, de Jong, Zabaleta, Bellamy) and compare their performances with those of the players he inherited and you’ll see that we’re moving in the right direction at last. Not into the top 4 immediately, of course, we first need to establish ourselves in the top 6. Only then will we be able to attract the megastars that will eventually put us over the top. Unfortunately our progress this term has been hindered by a bunch of selfish primadonnas who occasionally shine (when it suits them), but more consistently let us down, especially when the going gets tough. I’m looking at you, Robinho, Elano, Jo (okay, he never actually shone?), Richards, and even Sturridge, who was appalling in the first leg against Hamburg and must be having a laugh if he thinks he’s worth £65-75 grand a week at this point in his career. Hughes could be the best tactician in the world, but if he has players who think they know better and won’t follow the plan, the result is obvious (and has been apparent for much of the season). Some of these players were probably hoping their petulance might be the end of Hughes, but they seem to have misjudged the new owner, who appears to have a much calmer, long-term view than they expected. Once the players realize that Hughes is here to stay, they’ll have to buckle down and do as they’re told. Or b****r off. What we need now, more than ever, is some continuity and a singular vision. We don’t need another season in limbo, with a new manager starting from scratch.

But what about the argument that Hughes has done worse than Sven, and Sven got sacked? Well, let’s consider what Sven achieved. After an admittedly encouraging start (except for the rude awakening at Chelsea, of course) we faded badly after Christmas, performing no better than the relegated teams in the second half of the season. We had the comedy balloon routine at Sheffield, and then the humiliating, gutless 8-1 reverse at Middlesbrough. The players were undisciplined and unmotivated. The only bright side was that the disgraceful lack of effort resulted in relatively few cards and a back door entry into Europe. By May, most of Sven’s apparently good buys had gone bad (with the exception of Petrov, without whom we might have been flirting with relegation last year), and his team’s best days were far behind them. In contrast, although performances have been very variable, City has shown distinct signs of life in recent weeks, despite the heavy schedule. We were excellent in the home win against Villa and pretty good at home against Aalborg. And who can forget the pride and the passion of the second leg against Hamburg, one of the very best teams in Germany? I’m sure you all, like me, want more nights like that (with a more favorable aggregate score, of course!), so I plead for your patience. If “Big Phil” couldn’t survive a season at the already successful Chelsea, what chance would even a “Galactico” manager have of turning City around in one year? And to think that players like Kaka would rush to sign for a mid-table team that isn’t in Europe just because Mourinho is in charge is ridiculous. So I say give Hughes another year and see where we are then. If there’s been no progress, I’ll be the first to call for his head, but my gut tells me we’re witnessing a major turning point in the history of our great club, and I for one can’t wait to see what happens next!

OPINION: HE’S THE BOSS

Ray Bardsley in MCIVTA 1523 made it very plain he now refuses to attend any more of our games whilst Mark Hughes is in charge. Well, since he made that statement our guys have put on an absolutely sterling display against Hamburg and also scored 4 goals today and secured 3 points against a very stubborn West Brom side.

Yes, we were fortunate to win today but, as has been said many times before, it’s only goals that win games and at the end of this contest City had scored more goals than West Brom. To our opponents’ cost, as we well know, near-misses count for absolutely nothing.

Mark Hughes is indeed the right man to stay in charge of Manchester City during the years ahead so those armchair critics of his out there may as well get used to that fact and change their tune. Besides, the constant moaning is wearing extremely thin. Don’t forget those that can, do, whilst those who cannot merely talk about it.

Instead, simply do the decent thing and give Mark Hughes time to do his job. And, we’re talking years, not months, fellow City supporters. Look no further than the early fortunes of Manchester United’s current manager. And he turned out ok, wouldn’t you say? Because he was given time to do his job. Only the most biased amongst us would not agree.

Maine Road had its alleged Gypsy Curse. After the last two results, we may have well now put the most recent curse to bed.

Incidentally, if Sturridge thinks he’s worth £75,000 per week, he’s in dreamland. He’s a promising striker, nothing more.

OPINION: PLAYER FORM

That article by Andy Clarke (MCIVTA 1525) is spot on. Except he does not mention that we did in fact have a right back, who passes his test of competence.

Every time I see Corluka playing for Spurs I get really angry. MH has made several errors this season but for me, selling him was the biggest.

There was an article in the Guardian recently explaining why right back is the most important position in today’s game. And we had an exponent of the required craft to the highest level and somehow we lost him. Shame on you MH. When you get a player of that calibre/quality, you make sure he stays. No matter what. You put your foot down and things like him and his wife wanting to be with Modric and his family, is not something you entertain.

For those who think Zab an adequate replacement, go to Andy’s article. Zab is a credit to himself and the club and will have a great career at City but he is not an adequate replacement for the great, stylish and cool Corluka who would have become one of the all time greats of Man. City.

OPINION: THE RUN-IN

The rest of the season is going to be tough with all the City injuries, but also good to see some other players back after injuries. The players who can play must show their best if they have any desire to stay with the club; it will be a testing time for some.

It has been a strange and frustrating season so far, but we must all remember that the club is going through some major changes, and transitions.

Although this season is far from being over, I feel that next season is when we shall see a true Mark Hughes team, and then and only then should he be questioned on his ability to continue as the City Manager/Coach. Sparky or any manager has to have time to build a team: some people look at Gus at Chelsea, but he already had the players at Chelsea, he merely changed the dressing room morale, but also with the right tactics.

The next few weeks we will all be making our lists of who should leave, and then who we would like to come into the club.

Richard Dunne has been a very good servant to City for nine years, and for the best part we have all liked him, but I feel that it might be time for him to move on, and there is a rumour that Sunderland would like to sign him. That might suit Dunne for he would be playing for Nial Quinn’s team, both being Irish, and both with City connections.

In the meantime we still have to play hard in every game for whilst it is mathematically possible to get seventh or eighth place we have to go all out for it. Come on City it isn’t over till the fat lady sings, or Superman drops his shorts (just kidding of course).

Come on you Blues! In Sparky I trust.

OPINION: HILLSBOROUGH

Twenty years ago, on April 15th 1989, 96 people died at Hillsborough in a terrible tragedy. I remember the day well. I was at Blackburn watching a faltering City on the promotion trail. Mel Machin had to patch up his side with the totally left-footed Gerry Taggart at right back and Blackburn, with their Scottish striker Andy Kennedy running riot. By half time the game was up, City looking clueless. I can’t even remember whether the score was 2-0 or 3-0 to Rovers. What I can remember is turning on my pocket radio to tune into what the FA Cup semi-final scores were (Forest were playing Liverpool and Norwich were up against Everton). There was no talk of football. I vividly recall hearing the solemn tones of the great radio commentator, Peter Jones, talking about casualties. It was hard to comprehend. It would be stretching a point to say that the second half at Ewood Park didn’t matter, but like so many others, my thoughts were with those Liverpool fans at Hillsborough, and how it had happened.

Despite being involved in some hairy situations following City, where Police hadn’t treated us well to say the least, herding us around like cattle, sometimes brutally, sometimes forcing us into tight, dangerous spaces, it was still a shock to hear of deaths. People should not be crushed to death anywhere, let alone at football matches. Should it have been such a shock, though? I’d been on an away trip to a Cup match at Everton in 1988, and recall being amongst hundreds of well-behaved City fans trying to get home from Edge Hill railway Station and being treated as subhuman and pushed, tightly packed with other Blues, up against a wall in the dark by members of Merseyside Constabulary. No one died that night, and of course it was not on the scale of Hillsborough, but it was dangerous and it is something that I will never forget, so maybe what happened in Sheffield on 15th April 1989 shouldn’t have been such a shock to me after all. Being a football fan, whether you had any interest in trouble or not (and I didn’t), seemed to make you fair game for poor treatment in the 80s.

I lived in Sheffield for twenty odd years and have friends who live just a couple of minutes walk from where the disaster happened. When I drive down Leppings Lane, my thoughts inevitably turn to what happened to those people who died. Somebody’s brother, sister, mum, dad, son, daughter died a frightening death that fateful day.

No one has ever taken responsibility for those deaths. There has always been a suspicion of a cover up. What exactly did Margaret Thatcher’s government know about it? As in any profession, there are good Police officers and there are those who are not so good at their job. Twenty years on, the families of those 96 victims are still awaiting justice. It is a widely held view that South Yorkshire Police still have a lot to answer for. Back in 1990, a Police officer who had been on duty at Hillsborough on 15th April 1989, gave a significant TV interview. He told of how he had been asked by senior Police officers to omit some of his observations from his statement about the lack of direction from senior Police officers at Hillsborough. He refused to remove them from his statement and he maintained that it smacked of a cover up. This begs the question: how many officers did agree to remove significant details from their statements? I am glad that our government has decided to release papers relating to Hillsborough. I do hope that it sheds more light on what happened so that the victims’ families get the justice they are owed. There has to be some accountability.

Whether we agree with all-seater stadia or not, since Lord Justice Taylor’s much-lauded report was acted upon, we now have safer football grounds than we used to have. It is so sad that those people perished in that way, and it is such a tragedy that they paid the ultimate price before safer, better, though by no means perfect, facilities were bestowed on the fans. Football changed for ever on 15th April 1989, and more importantly, many people’s lives were ruined that day. I hope they can find some solace in justice.

REQUEST: CHARLOTTE BLUES VIEWING

I will be in Charlotte, North Carolina, USA during the weekend of the derby game against the Rags. Does anyone know of a bar or pub that will be showing the game live?

Any help would be appreciated.

RESULTS

22 April 2009

Chelsea               0 - 0  Everton               41,556
Manchester United     2 - 0  Portsmouth            74,895

21 April 2009

Liverpool             4 - 4  Arsenal               44,424

League table to 22 April 2009 inclusive

                             HOME          AWAY        OVERALL
                    P  W  D  L  F  A  W  D  L  F  A  W  D  L  F   A   GD Pts
 1 Manchester Utd  32 14  1  1 36 11  9  4  3 20 10 23  5  4  56  21  35 74
 2 Liverpool       33 10  7  0 35 12 10  4  2 28 13 20 11  2  63  25  38 71
 3 Chelsea         33  9  6  2 28 11 11  2  3 27  9 20  8  5  55  20  35 68
 4 Arsenal         33  9  5  2 24 11  8  6  3 34 21 17 11  5  58  32  26 62
 5 Aston Villa     33  5  9  3 25 21 10  0  6 24 22 15  9  9  49  43   6 54
 6 Everton         33  7  5  4 27 17  7  6  4 20 17 14 11  8  47  34  13 53
 7 West Ham United 33  8  2  6 21 17  4  7  6 17 20 12  9 12  38  37   1 45
 8 Fulham          33  9  3  4 24 13  2  8  7  9 15 11 11 11  33  28   5 44
 9 Tottenham H.    33  8  5  4 18  9  4  3  9 21 27 12  8 13  39  36   3 44
10 Manchester City 33 11  0  6 36 17  1  5 10 15 27 12  5 16  51  44   7 41
11 Wigan Athletic  32  7  4  5 15 16  4  4  8 16 20 11  8 13  31  36  -5 41
12 Stoke City      33  9  5  3 20 14  1  4 11 13 34 10  9 14  33  48 -15 39
13 Bolton Wndrs    33  7  2  7 19 19  4  2 11 20 31 11  4 18  39  50 -11 37
14 Portsmouth      33  7  3  7 23 25  2  7  7 12 25  9 10 14  35  50 -15 37
15 Sunderland      33  6  3  8 19 20  3  5  8 12 23  9  8 16  31  43 -12 35
16 Hull City       33  3  5  8 16 30  5  5  7 20 26  8 10 15  36  56 -20 34
17 Blackburn R.    33  4  6  6 18 23  4  4  9 17 32  8 10 15  35  55 -20 34
18 Middlesbrough   33  5  8  4 16 17  2  2 12  9 30  7 10 16  25  47 -22 31
19 Newcastle Utd   33  4  6  6 21 27  2  6  9 16 26  6 12 15  37  53 -16 30
20 West Brom A.    33  5  3  8 20 30  1  4 12 10 33  6  7 20  30  63 -33 25

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

http://www.mcivta.com/ 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 Points of Blue (formerly the Fans’ Committee)?

The committee operates as an interface between supporters and the club. Points of Blue appears on the club website as a minor entry under “Fans Zone”.

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

The Radio Manchester (née GMR) pre and post match phone-in is available on the web at http://www.bbc.co.uk/manchester/sport/manchester_city/index.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://msn.foxsports.com/foxsoccer, 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.mcivta.com/players/

[11] 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/.

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: