I really wish Stoke would be relegated. Not because of the way they play, just because I am sick of the sight of them and the players must be too.

But I’m amazed that, given the problems that we had against them in the FA Cup tie that we weren’t more on the ball for the league game on Tuesday. At times, we were like a newly promoted side, watching them pass the ball and doing nothing about it. We learnt nothing about their style of play and to cap it all, Patrick Vieira gets himself suspended for a stupid reaction.

Then we go 1-0 down to ten men after Faye was sent off. What was all that about? We are the team chasing fourth in the league and we couldn’t take advantage of the extra man. I know that when a team loses a man, they can often up their game, but at that point we should have gone for the jugular but instead we concede a goal that really should have been kept out.

It was a bit of poor defending from new boy Adam Johnson but Given should really have done better. There have been a lot of calls this week saying that we shouldn’t lose Joe Hart and on some of Given’s recent performances, you can see why.

Bellamy Bust-Up?

No, surely not. Craig Bellamy involved in a bust-up with a manager? That’s not like him, is it? But apparently Bellamy’s City future has been thrown into doubt after he had a bit of a tiff with Roberto Mancini over training.

According to The Sun, Mancini told the Welsh striker to ‘get out and not come back for three months.’ On Wednesday, Bellers had been ordered to report to one of Mancini’s coaches the next day but he refused. Following this, he was then sent to headmaster Mancini’s office were they had a ‘heated’ discussion and Mancini gave his order.

Of course, Bellers stormed out of Carrington and was asked to apologise by Garry Cook and Brian Marwood. Amazingly, he refused. How about that?

Dour Draw Sees Blues Lose Pace

Another lacklustre performance has again seen the blues drop points. It seems weird talking like this after we have just drawn against Liverpool but this is the standard we are setting now. We have got to beat teams like this if we are to go that one step further. Draws are not going to help when team like Villa and Spurs are breathing down our necks waiting for us to slip.

It could have been worse though. If we’d lost today, we’d be in seventh now, considering Villa’s result against Burnley but we must seriously improve, if not for the FA Cup tie then for Chelsea next Saturday.

That’s going to be one of those games where we want to win but if we lose, it could go some way to United not winning the league. But I’d rather we win at Chelsea and beat United at Eastlands as well. The second we should pull off but the first? We’ll see next week.

Anyway, until next Sunday keep the faith and have a good week.

Another three points in the bag at home to Bolton was just the tonic we needed after the defeat at Hull.

It was a comfortable win but another unconvincing performance and we simply have to improve if we are to sustain a challenge for a top four place. Any of the top teams visiting Eastlands on the basis of our performance would have inflicted our first home defeat of the season so it was lucky it was only Bolton.

Adam Johnson impressed with some good runs and decent crosses and certainly looks like adding a spark that we have been missing. But it seems whenever we play these lower teams, some of the players just switch off. It seems to be a case of ‘they’re near the bottom + we’re at home = three points no matter what the performance.’

We seem to take games for granted at Eastlands but it must be difficult not to when we have such a good home record. The point is emphasised again following Saturday’s game against Stoke. We go a goal up and sit back rather than going for the jugular. It was a fortuitous goal, one which will end up on a DVD of football biggest gaffe’s or something.

But we really should have capitalised on our good fortune but instead we allowed Stoke back into the game. But I don’t want to detract anything for Stoke who lived up to their manager’s expectations and did have a go at us and justly got their reward.

But on how many occasions has Rory Delap made these huge throw-ins and someone has got on the end of it and scored? The defence should have been ready and made sure they picked up every Stoke player but they simply went to sleep and now we not only have to go to Stoke on Tuesday, but visit there again a week later, something which we definitely didn’t need.

The Potters will start the game as favourites to win but this reminds me of a game in 1993 when Reading came to Maine Road. City should have hammered the visitors, but they scored on the stroke of half time and the game went to a replay at Elm Park. Reading were being tipped to go through but City crushed them 4-0. Hopefully it will happen like that against Stoke.

Bridge To Fill Cole’s Gap?

Well he has nothing else to do now he’s broken his ankle but not sure Wayne would be up for it. Anyway, Ashley Cole has broken his ankle which has provided Wayne Bridge with the opportunity to play for England again but with one condition; he would be playing alongside John Terry.

Now if you didn’t know, or you’ve been living on the edge of the solar system for the last couple of weeks, Terry supposedly had an affair with Bridge’s girlfriend and the whole thing, in my own opinion, has been blown way out of proportion. As reported this week, City manager Roberto Mancini has backed Bridge to play for England without any problems should Fabio Capello select him.

Bridge himself hasn’t said anything regarding the possibility of replacing Cole and is more than likely waiting to hear if he will be called up. Capello, who was in the Eastlands crowd on Saturday, must have been pleased of what he saw of the ex-Chelsea defender and should give him the call.

It Had To Happen

City meeting Chelsea in the FA Cup was more predictable than a soap opera storyline. If the blues get past Stoke in the replay they face a nice little visit to Stamford Bridge where John Terry’s Chelsea wait for Wayne Bridge’s City. It would be the second meeting between the two in a week and I’m sure Wayne will be in for some very special treatment by the Chelsea fans.

The taunts heard from the visiting Stoke fans on Saturday will be nothing to what Stamford Bridge will subject him to and Bridge may have go through that twice. But Wayne is a professional and he handled the abuse at Hull and against Stoke by putting in some superb performances and I am backing him to do the same in London, not once but twice.

Until next Sunday, keep the faith and don’t work too hard.

Real go gaga over Gago

Over the course of January and for some time before, City had been linked to a number of players to sign before the transfer window closed last Monday. Indeed, on deadline day itself, we were linked to a number of players, most notably McDonald Mariga, Adam Johnson and Fernando Gago.

At the beginning of the day, Mariga was on his way to England to seal a transfer to City while Johnson was staying put and the Gago deal was dead in the water. Then the home office intervened and refused to give Kenyan international Mariga his work permit and the deal was off. The reason was because of Kenya’s FIFA ranking being outside the top 70 in the world.

You would have thought that, when the deal was being agreed with Parma someone would have stopped and said “er, hang on a minute, we might have a problem. What the FA’s stance on world rankings?” Had this been done, the club could have scraped the deal for the Kenyan and got Gago instead.

The blues have some in for a bit of stick over the Gago deal, which is only to be expected really. Think about it. Real Madrid embarked on a summer transfer spree and had to recoup some of the money from somewhere. But when City came along, the Spaniards obviously saw Euros in their eyes and upped their price considerably, which tends to happen when City make an approach for a player these days. Yet when the deal fell through, it wasn’t because City didn’t want the player, it was because Real were victims of their own greed and City showed that they would not be held to ransom over transfer fees.

But we did sign Adam Johnson and he has the potential to be big at Eastlands, but who will he replace? Martin Petrov is the obvious candidate but SWP hasn’t made many starts. Cooke and Mancini though will risk the wrath of the supporters should they dare sell SWP for a second time.

Terry went a Bridge too far.

For his indiscretions with Wayne Bridge’s ex girlfriend, Fabio Capello this week stripped John Terry of the England captaincy. And rightly so. Some may think that the action Capello took was a bit harsh; after all John Terry’s private life has nothing to do with his performance as captain of England does it? Well yes it does. Like any leader, Terry is supposed to set an example not only to the players on the pitch under his leadership but also to the supporters and the thousands of youngsters that are looking to get into the game. What sort of message has he given out over the last couple of weeks? It was the only action Capello could have taken.

Terry has missed the chance to lift the World Cup in South Africa but now that job has been given to Rio Ferdinand. I would have thought that Steven Gerrard would have got the job but Capello would have needed to tell him to win games before walking off with the trophy.

When will the blues learn?

That’s the question being asked at the moment. When will City learn to beat these lower teams? It’s becoming a bit of a joke now that we can’t seem to beat lower teams away from home. Last weekend we beat Portsmouth without getting out of bed but on Saturday none of the players even woke up for the game. I don’t care it’s a case of taking the game for granted, they couldn’t be bothered or they had one eye on the FA Cup fifth round next week, there should be no excuses for losing at Hull. Yes the home team can be a very good side when the want to be but if the blues have serious ambitions of winning something, of making the season count for something, we should be travelling to these places and wiping the floor with them.

Teams like Hull always raise their game against teams like us so we too should raise our game. It’s no good going there thinking the three points are in the bag. You have to play well and earn them. City supporters travelled a long way to Hull and to be rewarded by allowing the home team to run you off the park is just a disgrace.

We’ve got a home game against Bolton and there had better be a stark improvement or the Eastlands faithful will start to get restless. Since September, my father-in-law has been saying ‘someone’s going to get a thrashing from us soon,’ so please let it be on Tuesday so I don’t have to hear it again the next time I see him.

And finally…

As you may already know, England have been given a kind(ish) draw to qualify for Euro 2012. Craig Bellamy’s Wales, Martin Petrov’s Bulgaria and former star Gelson Fernandes’ Switzerland as well as Montenegro. Any captions to go with this picture of Fabio Capello?

Until next Sunday, keep the faith, have a good week and don’t work too hard.

It’s difficult to know where to begin this week. The Robinho transfer saga caught the headlines throughout the week and most blues fans are happy to see the back of him. But am I the only person who believed he should never have been signed in the first place?

The problem you get when you sign a player of Robinho’s class is a lack of confidence throughout the team. Take the period when we had Gio Kinkladze in the squad. Whenever anything happened, it was usually Kinkladze who started it off. If he was off form, so were the team and the same happened with Robinho last season.

It was almost like the team were waiting for him to do something and if he didn’t. no-one else did either. But this season we have added something different and it has made the Brazilian just another fish in our pond, rather the big fish and it’s not in Robinho’s nature to be just another fish.

City teams in the past have been built on workers throughout the side. Yes they have had occasional flair, such as Colin Bell or Paul Lake for example, but the majority of our sides have always had a bit of grit in the middle of the park. Should we sign McDonald Mariga, it will add height as well as strength and at £7m plus Bojinov in exchange, he could turn out to be quite a bargain.

We have also strongly been linked with Adam Johnson from Middlesbrough but where will that leave SWP or Petrov? I like both players but I can only see the Bulgarian going as SWP is a City institution and Garry Cook will want to avoid aggravating the fans by selling him to Barcelona.

Cooks own position has been put on the line and rightly so. He was a man in the sports industry who knew nothing about City or football for that matter.

Just Not Good Enough, I’m Afraid

Well, I’ve got to mention it and it will re-open that whole in our hearts. I am of course, talking about City’s Carling Cup exit on Wednesday. A 2-1 would have been enough against many other teams but not at Old Trafford. All we needed was one extra goal at OT. That would have given us the advantage of two away goals and could have seen us through.

But we didn’t get it and the truth is that we had 180 minutes to score more than three goals and we simply couldn’t achieve it. It was a brilliant effort by the boys though and it has given the supporters hope for the future. Last season we went out to Brighton and over the last few years, beaten by Doncaster and Chesterfield so to reach the semi-final is a great boost for us. Maybe next year we will go one further.

But what makes me laugh is the United fans and their manager. They say they aren’t bothered by us and we are nothing more than noisy neighbours but their celebrations seem to be more in relief than about putting us out.

We’ve got Stoke coming up and we should hopefully see ourselves in the quarter finals. Hopefully the draw will be kind to us if we do manage to get through although I’m not too worried about who we play. If we get someone at home, we’re a match for anyone. But let’s not get ahead of ourselves. We have to secure our place first and that means beating Stoke, who put Arsenal out in the last round.

Should Have Been A Hatful, Really

A club going for a place in the top four should easily brush aside a team that has not been out of the bottom three this season. Yet the blues made hard work of Portsmouth. Maybe they were still suffering the effects of Wednesday night but I’m just glad we weren’t playing Chelsea or Spurs. I say Spurs because they are our bogey side at the moment and have been for a while, but if we’d played someone of that standing and performed the way we did, we’d have been taken to the cleaners.

Was it tiredness or did the players simply underestimate Portsmouth? It would be difficult not to really. We have a wealth of talent that should have destroyed the South Coast club and maybe a few players were thinking it would be a stroll. In the end it was but if they’d put in a bit more effort, we’d still be level on points but goal difference could become crucial at the end of the season. If we miss out on fourth by a couple of goals, the players and fans will be gutted, particularly since we had a chance today.

The Real Reason Terry Didn’t Join City?

It was a big transfer story during the summer. John Terry was offered the chance to leave Stamford Bridge and join the blue revolution and for a while it looked a possibility. Then someone must have reminded him that Wayne Bridge plays for us and he turned us down.

Is the reason for this because he was having an affair with Bridge’s then girlfriend? It has all emerged in the last couple of days that the married England captain and so called ‘Mr Chelsea’ was cheating on his wife and allegedly got her pregnant. If it wasn’t for Bridge coming to Eastlands last January, it may have been possible Terry would have been leading us into the new season.

Some City players showed their solidarity to Wayne today by sporting ‘team Bridge’ shirts underneath their playing shirts. Some Chelsea blogs have, for some reason deemed this unacceptable. So are they condoning what Terry, a supposed father of the year, has been doing behind his trusting wife’s back?

Well we can see where their scruples lie.

The transfer window shuts a 5pm tomorrow and we will have details of any new signings we make as and when they come in. I hope by next Sunday we have another away win under our belts.

Until next week, keep the faith and have a good week.