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My Say: Manchester City's Misplaced Ambition
Avnish Anand says that although Manchester City have lots of money, they are not using it properly......
25-Jan-2009 12:22:49 PM
The following are the views of the author and not necessarily of
Goal.com.
Manchester City's ambitions are difficult to understand. Manchester City are the richest football club in the world. They are also perhaps the only club with tons of money to spend in the January transfer window. The club's Abu-Dhabi based owners want to make it the biggest and most successful club in the football world.
And they have made it perfectly clear that money will not come in the way of making this a reality.
Manchester City have the examples of Real Madrid and Chelsea in front of them, two clubs whose money spending ability has given them titles.
But after three weeks of transfer activity it seems that Man City have no ambitions of matching or bettering the likes of Chelsea or Real Madrid. They seem to be heading more in the direction of aping the Newcastle Uniteds and Tottenham Hostpurs of this world.
What else can we make out of the signings of Wayne Bridge, Nigel De Jong and Craig Bellamy? Would any of these players be ever coveted by one of the big Four in England or by one of the major European powerhouses?
Man City must be in fool's paradise if they think they can challenge the big boys with players of this calibre. Wayne Bridge was an often unused second choice player at Chelsea. So Man City have basically picked up the leftovers of the second richest club in England.
Nigel De Jong wasn't really setting the Bundesliga alight and Craig Bellamy has been a decent player at best, the kinds of which are already aplenty at Man City.
Why add more mediocre players to an already mediocre bunch?
And it isn't very clever of them to think that breaking the world record for a single transfer will make the January activity a super success. In the midst of all this mediocrity, they have been involved in a 105 million pound pursuit of Kaka – as if they had to somehow spend the full transfer budget, even if it was on just one player.
Haven't they realized already that one world class Brazilian hardly makes a difference? Their ambition is completely misplaced.
Kaka plays in the same position as City's current best player Robinho, Kaka's compatriot. Was he really worth spending so much on? I would have rather spent 35 million each on three world class players, three players who would have been far better than Bridge, De Jong and Bellamy.
It looks as if their transfer activity is being handled by someone suffering from multiple personality disorder – one personality wants to become the biggest club in the world and goes after Kaka while the other target premiership survival and goes after Bellamy and Bridge.
Fulham president Al-Fayed had warned of the threat of Man City's financial muscle. But the might of money also needs a marriage with tactical acumen to create a world-beating sports team.
And at this point of time Man City football club seems to have all of the former and none of the latter.
Avnish Anand
If you are interested to get your article(s) published in the My Say Section, please write to ckapil@goal.com with the subject "My Say".
Manchester City's ambitions are difficult to understand. Manchester City are the richest football club in the world. They are also perhaps the only club with tons of money to spend in the January transfer window. The club's Abu-Dhabi based owners want to make it the biggest and most successful club in the football world.
And they have made it perfectly clear that money will not come in the way of making this a reality.
Manchester City have the examples of Real Madrid and Chelsea in front of them, two clubs whose money spending ability has given them titles.
But after three weeks of transfer activity it seems that Man City have no ambitions of matching or bettering the likes of Chelsea or Real Madrid. They seem to be heading more in the direction of aping the Newcastle Uniteds and Tottenham Hostpurs of this world.
What else can we make out of the signings of Wayne Bridge, Nigel De Jong and Craig Bellamy? Would any of these players be ever coveted by one of the big Four in England or by one of the major European powerhouses?
Man City must be in fool's paradise if they think they can challenge the big boys with players of this calibre. Wayne Bridge was an often unused second choice player at Chelsea. So Man City have basically picked up the leftovers of the second richest club in England.
Nigel De Jong wasn't really setting the Bundesliga alight and Craig Bellamy has been a decent player at best, the kinds of which are already aplenty at Man City.
Why add more mediocre players to an already mediocre bunch?
And it isn't very clever of them to think that breaking the world record for a single transfer will make the January activity a super success. In the midst of all this mediocrity, they have been involved in a 105 million pound pursuit of Kaka – as if they had to somehow spend the full transfer budget, even if it was on just one player.
Haven't they realized already that one world class Brazilian hardly makes a difference? Their ambition is completely misplaced.
Kaka plays in the same position as City's current best player Robinho, Kaka's compatriot. Was he really worth spending so much on? I would have rather spent 35 million each on three world class players, three players who would have been far better than Bridge, De Jong and Bellamy.
It looks as if their transfer activity is being handled by someone suffering from multiple personality disorder – one personality wants to become the biggest club in the world and goes after Kaka while the other target premiership survival and goes after Bellamy and Bridge.
Fulham president Al-Fayed had warned of the threat of Man City's financial muscle. But the might of money also needs a marriage with tactical acumen to create a world-beating sports team.
And at this point of time Man City football club seems to have all of the former and none of the latter.
Avnish Anand
If you are interested to get your article(s) published in the My Say Section, please write to ckapil@goal.com with the subject "My Say".
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