I’ve been trying my best to sidestep the ‘intelligent’ mudslinging happening between the two Manchester clubs.[I am of course talking about this] It could be passed off as ‘passion’, and ‘banter’, but really it has got a lot more mileage than it deserved. But since Tim Rich — continuing in what seems like a rather productive-looking Asian assignment for him — pulled off a fantastic interview with the manager, I think I’ll have to allow myself to be sucked into this.
“It’s City isn’t it? They are a small club with a small mentality. All they can talk about is Manchester United; they can’t get away from it. That arrogance will be rewarded. It is a go at us, that’s the one thing it is. They think taking Carlos Tev*z away from Manchester United is a triumph. It is poor stuff.”
And poor stuff indeed. There has been far too much going around with the Tev*z transfer and it has reached a level of silliness. Now Ferguson’s quotes will be put down as him allowing City to get to him, or rather, obsessing about City. But what would be ignored is that those comments were a direct reply to a question put to him. And there really was no two ways about it. Small club. Hence small club mentality etc.
The advertising campaign by City was quite obviously a concerted effort at trying to get under the skin of their rivals. In essence though, there’s little new in it; the time-worn reference to how United is not within city limits etc. But the fact is they are still a few defenders away from a decent, albeit unbalanced, team. The fact is players like Adebayor — as detestable as they may be — still had an iota of conscience to contact us and Chelsea before ultimately settling for Man City some handy wages. The fact is, Samuel Eto’o balked on going to City despite their FM-style wages.
And hence, to borrow from one of the other posters, I pity the fools that went to that club. They may yet prove everyone wrong and break into the top four. They may yet become title contenders in two years. But right now, they are a small club that behave like a small club; seizing on moments like the Tev*z incident to score some points. Another fact: Manchester is Red, despite City fans’ claims. And so what if they claim that the majority of United fans are outside Manchester? Tell that to their owners, who are quite obviously Mancunians who wear tea-towels over their heads just to look like Arabs [never mind their ambitions to build a fan base in Asia, North America, Mars etc.]
The manager also took time to lay into Tev*z. The Argentine seemed to have far too much time to obsess about Ferguson. It was only fair that he had some response come his way. When asked about players roles for the next season, in order to make up for the loss of Ronaldo and Tev*z he said, “Nani will improve, although he is not as mature as Ronaldo was at his age. I expect Anderson to improve and Darren Fletcher to establish himself as a big player in our squad. [Michael] Owen will get me goals, [Dimitar] Berbatov will be much better. And I don’t have to deal with a certain person who is miserable because he is not playing.” Wafer-thin veils used over there, if any.
He also talks about Wenger, Rafa among other things. It’s entertaining as always, but a bit boring for me to parse them any further. I’ve done the juicy bits, you can do the reading of the rest of the interview for yourselves now. Peace.
* * *
Some interesting links (and some house announcements) you might be, well, interested to peruse:
1. An extremely objective piece on Liverpool-Kop, chastising Liverpool fans for jumping with joy over the Gerrard-ruling.
2. Scott draws a comparison of British and English XIs among Arsenal, Liverpool, Chelsea, City and us. (I don’t know why he should even consider City — they don’t deserve to be talked in the same breath as the others in the big four.)
3. And if you haven’t already noticed, I have been quietly running another blog, for thoughts on football as such and occasionally, some other sports I follow. It won’t be as regularly updated as this one (if you can call this blog regularly updated, in the first place.) But let me present you, Throw-ins.
4. As a reminder, we are on twitter — and are rather active on it, posting 140 character-delimited thoughts throughout the day. Feel free to follow us there. However if you are not the twittering type, but are instead quite Facebook-y in your outlook towards life then you should consider getting in touch with a psychiatrist following us on our facebook page.
5. Soccerlens addresses a host of issues from Gerrard, to Beckham and the Galaxy. An entertaining read.
* * *
Note: City fans looking to spew venom aren’t welcome. You don’t have to bother commenting if you are not interested in an objective discussion.
