City Winners Despite Defeat...

Clearly losing a game of football is never an enjoyable experience, and as time passes it is a feeling that we are experiencing less and less of, especially at home.  When it does come though, it is a hollow feeling, and for me personally it takes me back, right back to the dark years of constant relegation when losing was such a regular occurrence.  The FA Cup Derby though was different, there was no hollow feeling yesterday as I walked away from Eastlands through the wind and rain, instead I felt buoyant and almost happy, I certainly was not tempted to dive straight under the bed covers when I got home and not come out until Monday morning which is my usual reaction to losing to United.  The interesting thing however, is that I think many of us felt the same yesterday, sure we had lost, and the red lot progressed, but in some ways we were winners and there was a massive amount to be proud of.


There is clearly a danger of slipping into the mindset of dishing out 'ifs and buts' and so I am instead going to deal with the facts, I am not going to get into discussing whether Kompany deserved to be sent off or not, because frankly that argument could and probably will go on for days yet.  Before Vinnie was dismissed we managed to dominate the game, and even after Wayne Rooney scored what we must acknowledge as being an excellent goal I genuinely believed we would run out victorious.  

After the red card things changed, we lost our shape and I don't think Mancini played the situation quite right, he should instantly have made the changes that he made at half time, with some excellent football United gave themselves a commending lead.  I suppose the highlight of the first half after the initial 10 minutes was a superb strike by Aguero that was somehow kept out by Lindegaard.


At half time and 3-0 down the atmosphere was clearly one of depression and misery, it had gone beyond anger, and there seemed a genuine air of disbelief, at that moment our season could have gone either way.  Discussions up and down the concourses featured lines such as 'this could be 6 or 7' or 'now it's just a case of damage limitation'.  Roberto Mancini and the players in the dressing room had a different idea, and the second 45minutes of football made me so proud to be blue, when Kolarov drove home his sublime free kick there was a flickering dream, and when Aguero made it two, 46000 believed.  We came so close to forcing a replay at the end, another Kolarov free kick well saved, a possible penalty shout, and that Richards over head kick that would have blown the roof off Eastlands.

The second period was a demonstration to everyone that City are a team, what was once a collection of talented individuals has been turned into a unit that will all fight for one another,  they battled and they put everything on the line.  At the fore front of this was James Milner and Sergio Aguero who showed the passion of someone who is totally sold on the 'project' and a player that understood what this great football club is about.  The fight lifted the supporters too, who created a din that I have not heard at Eastlands for a long time, possibly surpassing that night against Hamburg.


OK, so what about the result, we lost, but the manner of the defeat was fantastic to behold, our great rivals shipped six goals and were humiliated after playing 30 mins with 10 men, we played 80 mins with 10 and came incredible close to stealing what would have been a miraculous replay.  I think the players sum it up perfectly, many of you will already have read the comments that filled twitter after the game, but I feel they sum up feelings, and they give me the reason for writing this post:

Sergio Aguero: "Despite losing, I believe we leave the field strengthened. We almost equalised against all odds. With this attitude, anything is possible" and " I want to thank the fans of MCFC who inspired us today. If we stand together, both fans and players, we can achieve important feats."

Vincent Kompany: "The fans, the players and every single person involved with Man City FC were incredible today. Definitely the moral winners of this game".

Micah Richards: "We lost today but in our heads we won! Out team spirit is inspirational! The fans kept us going for 90 mins! Thank u. Ctid"

Pablo Zabaleta: "Hello everyone! Disappointed for the result today but very proud for the team,we showed fighting spirit.Thanks to the fans for your support!"

Nigel De Jong: "We might lost the game, but we won more respect among each other, for working that extra yard. Thanks 2 our fans for their support. Heads up"

Samir Nasri: "Thank you so much to the MCFC fans today you were amazing"

Adam Johnson: "Great effort today!! so unlucky.. fans and everyone involved were excellent!"

Joan Angel Roman: "With 10 men and 3-0 down..we should be proud of this team! Its a shame we didnt win but always looking ahead! C'mon City!!!"

Alex Nimely: "Proud to be part of MCFC"

Reece Wabara: "Damn.. Great attempted comeback from the boys though with 10 men aswell.."

Devante Cole: "I can handle that loss very good performance from us in the end :)"

Finally this is a text I received from a friend after the game, sums up my feelings perfectly:

"Today we showed a character, determination & sense of purpose which has hitherto been alien to our great football club. It is those ingredients that will serve us exceptionally well as we strive to lift the Premiership & now, more than ever before I believe we will achieve that goal. God help Liverpool on Wednesday-our Boy's will come out fighting. In the face of adversity our response was simply magnificent-a team reacting in the idiom of there Manager. A mild setback but oh how we have so much to look forward to-and oh how woeful United were in exploiting a remarkable opportunity. Privately, it is they who will know that they are simply not good enough. THIS IS OUR TIME"

January Preview

Firstly I would like to wish you all a Happy New Year, and I hope you had a good Christmas.  Things have been quiet on here, mostly because the run up to the festive period was ridiculously busy for me, and then I returned to my parents for the holiday season so didn't really have much opportunity to update the blog, now that things are back to normal, it will be a lot more regular again.


I think the best place to start is by previewing the coming month.  The importance of January can not be underestimated, we are essentially playing every 3 days for the foreseeable future.  In comparison our title rivals have a much easier month, their schedule has been freed up massively after they were knocked out of the Carling Cup by Crystal Palace, they play 4 games between now and February, compared to our 5, it may only be one game, but it could make the world of difference.  The title is often won and lost in this month and I think this year could be the same.  As we all know United still have to play many of the bigger teams away from home, whereas we only have a trip to the Emirates left, if we can end this month on top or trailing by no more than 4 points, I think we can and probably will take the title.

In terms of league competition we will meet Wigan away, where you would expect us to take 3 points with a weakened team, and then old rivals Tottenham visit Eastlands, Spurs will be a really difficult challenge as always and should they provide an upset they will be even more embroiled in the title race than they already are!


Off the field January is also highly important as well, the transfer window opened on the early hours of New Years Day and will remain that way until the end of the month, this time however things are a bit different, with FFP looming larger than ever we have to be even more responsible than windows gone by.  On that very subject there seems to be an element of tension between Roberto Mancini and the powers that be in Abu Dhabi.  The suggestions in the newspapers in the last few days seem to indicate that the Italian wanted to bring in a midfielder and a winger over the Summer but was not authorised to do so.  It wouldn't take a genius to work out that those 2 targets were probably Daniele De Rossi and Italian winger Alessio Cerci, one of those is seemingly a target for this January.

The impending departure of Yaya Toure is going to make what is already a challenging month even more difficult, and De Rossi could really make it a lot more straight forward.  The belief was originally that the club had to sell some players to buy, and it is thought that whilst not all of the incoming money would be made available for new players, some of it would be.  As far as I can see if we do manage to finally move on a certain moody Argentine striker, we will have an extra £250,000 a week in the wage budget and around £20million in the transfer pot.  Not enough to bring in rafts of new players but potentially enough for De Rossi.


It is not just big names that will be on the way, it would appear that Nedum Onuoha will finally move on for around £2.5million, Wayne Bridge could be removed from the wage bill as well, these departures would also free up some important finances.

It would be a dream to end January in both domestic cup competitions, still 3 or more points clear on top of the table, and it would be even more special if we had secured De Rossi and offloaded Tevez.  If that dream is going to become reality we will need to work incredibly hard and obviously some players will have to step up to the plate, Edin Dzeko needs to re find his form and confidence, and Samir Nasri, who personally I think has performed pretty well overall, needs to continue to develop his game and find his exact role in the team.


Things are undeniably going swimmingly, but this month could really make or break the rest of our season, so lets all get behind the team and try to make sure that the dream becomes reality!