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Last season, Brazilian flop Robinho slated the blues when he said that the blues lacked a winning mentality and in some ways he was right and maybe that mentality has been passed onto the supporters.
I was speaking to a friend the other day (yes I do have some) and we were talking about the possibility of finishing fourth and he just looked at me and said ‘we could still be relegated you know.’
For a moment, I wondered if I’d heard him right but he went to explain that it was not mathematically impossible for Bolton or Burnley to catch us up and we’d be relegated. Even when I pointed out that, although it wasn’t mathematically impossible it would take a monumental collapse on our part, coupled with an amazing run by either Bolton or Burnley, which would see them win virtually all their remaining games, for us to go down, he still said he wouldn’t be happy until we were ‘safe.’
But after he had been carted off to the loony bin I sat and thought about why he would think we could be relegated and could only come to one conclusion; our own winning mentality.
For many years, we have lived with the belief that we can achieve something again but something has always happened to shatter our dream. For as long as I can remember, we’ve seen players stroll into the club and just not perform. We’ve had managers come in and the promise has been there but never delivered and the supporters have seen the club take one step forward and two steps back.
Twenty years ago, City were promoted to the First Division and were involved in a relegation fight but the following two seasons they finished fifth, a position that would get us in Europe today. Things were looking up for City but then the shattering blow that the supporters were waiting for arrived. Manager Peter Reid was not given the money to strengthen the squad and was sacked a few games into the new season which started our downward spiral.
In the mid to end nineties, we found ourselves involved in either promotion or relegation battles. Relegated in 1996, battled relegation 1997, lost the battle in 1998, promoted in 1999, promoted in 2000, relegated in 2001, promoted in 2002. Keegan resigned, Pearce almost took us to Europe then almost took us down. And it was only last season that Mark Hughes’ side found themselves in the bottom three before pulling away to safety.
So is it any wonder, even given our current league standing, that blues fans are still looking over their shoulders with a quarter of an eye on the bottom three? The fear of failure amongst the supporters is greater than ever (even though we don’t want to admit it), given the huge amounts of money that has been invested in the club.
And although we won’t be relegated, only success in a cup competition or qualification for Europe will begin to banish the mentality that has been built around the blues. The the supporters will then be able to look up at the league table and calculate how many points we need to be at the top, rather than counting the ones that will make us safe.
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I agree, in my 30+ years of watching City, there always appears to be a cloud hovering over our heads. You never feel safe such as in play off finals against Gillingham …. the only game I felt that something was going to happen was the FA cup game at Tottenham – I went to that game and there was something in the air that night, as soon as we got our first goal we believed it was on.. and you could sense the spurs fans apprehension… CTID
You are a complete nitwit
Nice article. You have to look at the talent and the size of the squad now, strength in depth and all that. We are not finished yet, but are stronger now than we’ve been for years. Mancini still settling in, just getting our back four fit again, Adebayor and Tevez both in scoring form, what could possibly go wrong?
cue dramatic music..
Pete, point out to your mate that it wouldn’t just be bolton & burnley that would need to go on a run of epic proportions; 11 other teams below us would also have to do something similar. Given that they’ll be playing each other, it’ll be virtually impossible for them all to catch us …
I don’t think the mentality of the supporters is so much one of expecting the worst, I think the club has lacked ambition over the last twenty-odd years, and rested on it’s laurels as a “big” club.
If the board were as serious as we are in winning trophies, they should have realised that the one ingredient above all others for success, is a top level, proven manager.
The list of cheap, second rate managers down the years is frankly embarrassing, for a club the equal of United and Liverpool in the late sixties through the seventies.
Only with the introduction of Denis Tueart to the board did we start to see ambitious appointments – Kevin Keegan was inspired as an appointment, only when the board pulled the plug on the spending did it go sour for him – he always has had ambition to manage a team to the Premiership title, just not quite the backing (he only spent £50 million if I’m not mistaken in the 3 years he was at City, compared to Sven’s one season spending the same).
When Thaksin Shinawatra bought City, he genuinely had the money and the real plan to take us to the top – he might have been a dodgy character, and his money was frozen by the authorities, but he wanted to be the best, and was searching for the best available manager money could buy, and at the time Sven was seen to be the man.
Because of his ambitious plans, our current owners saw the potential, and the rest is history -we now have a world recognised top manager with targets to suit.
If you appoint unproven cheap caretaker managers at the top level, more often than not you will have just prolonged the inevitable need to go for proven experience – a risk no big club would take nowadays.
It’s easy for me to put this point of view now we have barrels of money, but my opinion is, and has been for many years, if it costs you to get the best manager, then pay the price, scrimp on players etc. A great manager will find bargains and mould teams out of nothing.
I hope the days of mis-management are behind us now for good, and we’ve all learnt our lesson.
I can taste the silverware now, it’s getting that close!
You can’t be serious- relegation is no issue. We have raised the bar for failure. Succes this season is to finish 4th or higher. Failure would be to finish 7th or lower.
I don’t why it is, but I’ve just got a sneaky feeling we’ll avoid the drop this year! C’mon blues, we can do this….
your mate is a penis we r not going to go down, deary me bet he is one of the many non singers at the match, tool!
As a group of people we are one of the most divided bunch I’ve ever come across. The atmosphere is terrible and some of the people that call themselves city die hards are almost enough to drive you to suicide. It’s as if they are happy to wallow in self pity, have never seen the benefits of working together and want to be perrenial losers. If we want to progress this is an area that the club’s management need to seriously look at.
How can man city fans even think of relegation. id bet all of my life savings that we wouldnt get religated. I like to look at the positives, we have two games in hand over liverpool and spurs are in bad form. i rekon 4th place is ours this year
nice post. thanks.