From the outside it might seem easy to point to one single issue at the moment as to why I'm letting my fingers let out a lot of rage, but the fact is that there are many issues and I think these past few days have been the tipping point.
Where to start? How about the stuff on the pitch?
This rant is not just about yesterday. Yesterday was shit, and it's never nice to get beaten by United but I've seen us lose to United plenty of times before. Having said that, I've never seen a poorer United team and as one of my mate's said, there's been plenty of times in the last few years where you've seen them play and thought 'De Gea is keeping them in this', but they could have had either Andy Goram's in goal and and it wouldn't have made any difference.
Yesterday was typical of the season we've had so far. We've not turned up at all against any of the clubs doing well this season and we've looked the complete opposite of how we started this season and ended last season. Yeah sure there have been injuries to key players, something which Arsenal and United have both had to deal with. But gone is the reliability of a lot of players. Aguero won the player of the year award last year because of being the league's top scorer, but I think it's hard to argue that since his dip in form in the Autumn of 2013, Joe Hart has been our most consistent and reliable performer. Especially in the big games.
When we won the title in 2012 we had a first 16 that were reliable and relatively fresh. Since then we've given Kompany more centre half pairings than calf injuries, we've played Silva and Yaya constantly without a sufficient break and we've gone from Tevez to Bony.
A question I asked a fair few times last night before I sloped off home was; do we overrate our players? Ask many and they'll tell you that Fernandinho has been the best player in the team this season. And although I'm not disagreeing with that as such, is he really the best in the league in his position? Sagna too has had a great season after few and far between performances last year, but when Zabaleta has been fit we've looked a lot more dangerous attacking wise.
And the players we don't rate; Otamendi, Mangala, Fernando for example - are they really as bad as we think? These three have been the long term replacements for Kolo Toure, Lescott and Barry/de Jong (arguably Garcia, who was sold as soon as he looked half decent). Since we won the title in 2014 I can only think of a handful of great performances from the team and individuals. And what does that tell you?
The manager.
Now I still feel uncomfortable and maybe a bit ashamed that I see so many people saying some really bad things about Manuel. I know people scoff at "well Chappy thinks he's a nice guy" or whatever, but the fact is he's just a football manager who is massively out of his depth and out of ideas. That shouldn't mean that you hate the guy or wish death upon him. It's not like he's the bloke in La Rosa takeaway on Great Ancoats Street who takes the chips out too early despite me telling him every fucking time that I like my chips crispy. No but seriously, no one cannot deny that Pellegrini has massively over stayed his welcome and he should resign/be sacked but I couldn't bring myself to hate him. This club has only ever won the league 4 times and he was there during one of these times, no matter how much you could now argue that we won it in spite of him.
He's lost it. Properly. I think the turning point for a lot of people including myself was Burnley away last season. But I gave him a second chance as we ended the season well and got off to a flyer. I was stood in the away end at Stoke a few months ago luckily only 2-0 and the combination of the cold air, my hangover and the Brittania playing "You're my Waterloo" by The Libertines at half time made it hit me once again. What are we doing with this guy? He's not got us organised and we seem to be absolutely shitting it every time the opposition go forward and there's not enough creativity when attacking.
I can't really think of ever feeling this way about a manager of City. I backed Pearce and Hughes right til the end. But this guy has been a caretaker manager for three years. No City player has improved in the time he has been here. Pep has got a proper job on his hands next year. And if you think there's any correlation between the announcement of the new manager and our form then you're wrong. We've been shite for 18 months, take away about 10 games.
Is he solely to blame? Of course not. Fair thing to say that some of the investment into the team hasn't been the best, with the aforementioned poorer players looking like huge amounts of money squandered - but is that down to the manager's coaching? The decision to sell Negredo, Dzeko and Jovetic within a calender year and only replace them with Bony is staggering when you think about it. We actually paid more for Bonehead than any of the three other strikers that fired us to the title 2 years ago. The club from the top seem to view this season getting through to the quarter finals of the Champions League as a great success. Semi's will be a good achievement, no doubt, but it doesn't stop the fact that despite some bad luck in groups and draws we've hugely under performed in Europe.
Which brings me on to the 2nd half of this rant. Ticket prices.
I've written before about City and the Champions League and how we didn't really "get" it. Well whether I get it now or not I want to win it as it's the only thing left for us this season. One of the issues I touched on was the empty seats at games. City not selling out home games is topic of much joy for people throughout the social media wank world. I see people I know who support other clubs mocking ours or other teams support. "Haha look at Stoke, they only took 1,300 to X" Barold McMongathon likes this post and also comments on it saying "shit club, shit fans". I can't even be arsed going in to these twattish shenanigans.
This time last year I was working in Trafford Park and I had to drive past Old Trafford every day. I turned right off Chester Road and used to drive past a school. You're in a proper red area here and anyone who went to that school is well in their rights to support United. But I can only imagine how many of these kids will ever get to go to a live game watching their club. Not many I would think until they were over 18.
This is happening all over the country. A sport which has it's traditions in working class areas of England is no longer affordable. This isn't new news. It's been like this for years. But it has been getting worse.
But then there's a reason to celebrate. The Premier League has enforced a cap on away tickets to £30. Great news. Especially for someone like me without the greatest income who goes to at least 15 away games per season. You're seeing it everywhere now as well that clubs are either freezing season ticket prices or making reductions. The penny must have finally dropped at all the clubs.
Silence from City. The richest club in the world, no longer bound by FFP restrictions, famous for having to give away tickets for some games, are staying silent.
They have a great opportunity to show us what we can expect from next years prices by publishing the Champions League quarter final prices. And they don't only drop a bollock, they kick you in the bollocks first. We can't be expecting it to be £10 to get in for such a big game, and yeah I have paid £60 to watch us play at Stamford Bridge and The Emirates more than once in the past few years, but £40 being the cheapest adult ticket for a game which might not mean anything is so out of touch with the fanbase.
Better wordsmiths than me have already written articles about how City should remember that Manchester is one of the most deprived areas of the country and that's bang on. There's a lot of people a lot worse off out there than myself as far as income goes but I'm getting to the point now where I can't really justify it. City do so much in so many areas of the club but they've done nothing for years to try and maintain the culture and traditions of City fans. What does an emotional video of Kinkladze and Colin Bell to dramatic music before kick off mean when the stadium is full of people who don't even know where Claremont Road is?
City have not let us down on replacing this current clown with a much greater manager. They cannot let us down by squeezing us harder financially before August rolls round.
