City face a stern Italian test in the group stage of the Europa League as they were drawn in the same group as Juventus.
The blues, who easily won their play off tie against Romanians Timisoara, will also face Austrian side FC Salzburg and Polish side Lech
Juventus were one of Fulham’s victims as the Londoners powered their way to last season’s final, overcoming a 3-1 deficit from Turin to win 4-1 at Craven Cottage and the blues will be hoping to make it a miserable return for the Italians, while Salzburg is probably only known for being the birthplace of Mozart. I must admit, I know absolutely nothing about Lech apart from the fact that it’s in Poland.
Elsewhere in the draw Liverpool, the only other remaining British side in the competition, will face also face Italian opposition in Napoli, while Romanian side Steaua Bucharest and Celtic’s conquerors FC Utrecht.
What do you think of the draw? Could it have been worse? Let us know your thoughts
Article By Real Mancs Are Blue
Alexander ‘Baconface’ Ferguson, renowned whiskey connoisseur and shameless hypocrite is risking ‘Manchester’ United’s financial future with a bizarre and risky transfer strategy, one which has seemingly backfired in a most embarrassing manner.
We all know of the unfortunate and well documented financial mire that Stretford’s finest are in (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/10237268) and how Manchester City’s’ increased spending has left Alexander with a face like a bulldog licking piss of a thistle. He recently, and with absolutely no sense of irony, accused gods own club of ‘Kamikaze spending’ when discussing their purchasing of England’s finest prospects, Champions league and World cup winners and internationally renowned talent. It seems odd then, that he has spent what little pocket money he’s been given on an unknown Portuguese fellow called ‘Bebe’. ‘Bebe’ cost £7.5 million, around 7/8ths of his transfer budget. This is a chap that Alexander confesses to have never seen play.
Fair enough, you may think, Alexander knows what he is doing, snapping up the best youth albeit at steep prices, the real big names have continually snubbed the downtrodden rags and even average players are out of the range of his limited funds, and it’s a shrewd move by the man with a face like a roofer’s nailbag. Sadly, it seems that this isn’t the case. The Guardian have reported on good authority that Bebe is a lemon. Poor ball control and passing skills meant he couldn’t even find a place in the reserve team that played their heart out to narrowly beat Manchester City’s’ fourth string.
Given the constraints previously mentioned there is growing concern around parts of southern England that Alexander is putting the very fabric of the club at risk with what is seen as ‘strange and desperate signings’. One United fan I spoke to earlier simply said;
”I really fear for my club, if this carries on we are considering a green and yellow style campaign for Fergie, parts of Lambeth will be awash with Black scarves to signify our dismay. Some of us are even talking about cancelling our Sky accounts.”
What do you make of this frivolous spending by Alexander? Where will end?
As the blue moon rises one can only worry that the man simply known as ‘Whiskey nose’ in Manchester is losing his grip on his club, and his marbles.
It is with a little regret that, after a year online, Over The Blue Moon will shortly cease to exist.
But don’t worry because we have simply merged the site with one from the Football Media network and will in future be known as the Man City Blog. Features will remain the same but we will be closing the comments boards and activating a new, better discussion forum. We are also looking at redeveloping the site completely and hope to provide more interactive games and other features to keep you entertained.
We now have several writers on board, which include Callum Rothwell, Brian Roban, Jake Hartley and the Man United loving Real Mancs Are Blue (I promise he will get full credit for all his articles) as well as the occasional guest writer.
There will be small alterations to the look of the new site to make it feel more like a City site. So come and join us over on the new place. The address is www.mancityblog.com.
Thanks for visiting OTBM but come along and join us on the new site. We still want to hear your views and opinions.
See you there
Article by Real Mancs Are Blue
Last night I watched Manchester City destroy Liverpool. We played them off the park, dominating possession, winning every tackle and generally disposing of them in a clinical and classy fashion.
I got home from the match and immediately wanted to watch it again on Sky plus, I’m that kind of character. Anyway, it got to half time and Andy Gray reared his ugly head, a truly odious little man who typifies the term ‘Sky 4′. The love he has for Rooney and Gerrard is borderline sexual. He went on to tell us how Liverpool we’re showing glimpses of greatness towards the end, how one mistake from Kuyt was all that separated us and how Manchester should ‘just defend and try to pop another one in on the break’ against the onslaught by Liverpool he clearly expected in the second half. The man is a clown. His blatant and unapologetic bias towards the Sky 4 has been obvious years but last night it was perhaps at its very peak.
The second half ended and Gray appears once more. City had scored another two goals but the way he was harping on with his ‘classic Gerrard’ nonsense you’d think the bin dippers had slaughtered us. ‘From the scoreline you’d think Liverpool we’re battered but it wasn’t the case, it was quite evenly matched, Liverpool had more shots on target’. Here’s a little fact for you Andrew, Ngog rolling the ball with no power along the ground into the waiting hands of England’s number one are not really shots. Liverpool had ONE spell where they looked like they might score, some excellent defending and two world class saves kept them out but its was again ‘Classic Gerrard’.
It’s going to be interesting to watch this little troll when Manchester break that top four permanently and to see how he is forced to change his attitude towards us, he was clearly livid last night when his mighty scousers took a pasting but it’s something he needs to get used to.
Shirt Says It All Really
The blue moon is rising.
Article by Real Mancs Are Blue
‘Manchester United’, Malcolm Glazers’ green and yellow army were today cast into further debt crisis as it was revealed interest rates on their debts have risen due to agreed repayments not being met.
Failure to meet the borrowers’ terms by 16 August meant the annual interest rose from 14.25% to 16.25%, with repayments estimated to increase by £38 million, or to put it in football terms, ’4 Nemanja Vidics’ or ’8 Darren Fletchers’.
As part of a struggle to repay bad debts last year, Malcolm refinanced the club through bonds, leaving himself a clause whereby he can takes £95m of the clubs £95.5m cash reserves to finance his own debt repayments, a fact that sent shockwaves through London and significant areas of Ireland.
It is the opinion of myself and others that these clubs should be forced to bring their debt into line and be run on a sound financial footing, even becoming a feeder club for more ambitious teams has not had the desired effect in reducing debt, it has only increased.
The FA and government need to step in to ban all transfer activity on these debt ridden clubs until they can prove they are not being financed with spiralling debt.
The real sadness in all of this is how Malcolm Glazer has been victimised. One of the most popular, charismatic owners in world sport has been vilified by the Stretford massive when truth be told, dwindling season ticket sales and the ridiculous fad of purchasing unofficial green and yellow neckwear has only escalated the debt problem.
We have to ask ourselves what will happen when Stretford fail to get in the top four, without the revenues of champions league and their global plastic fan base moving on the clock is surely ticking on the red side of the borough of Greater Manchester. Dark times ahead at the Theatre of Debt.
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