The club, the local press and City bloggers will be typing up their drafts right now as to what an incredible decade the 2010's have been for City.
There's no denying it, 4 leagues, 6 domestic cups and a few bin lids - there's no team in the decades "top 6" that we've not had a game where City have knocked at least 5 past them in a single game. No one else can say that and despite not winning the Champions League it would be very difficult to argue that the 2010's have been City's decade. And that's without even mentioning the "moments" - the FA Cup win to end 35 trophy-less years, the 6-1 at Old Trafford, the Aguero moment, winning three titles from 'impossible' positions, becoming 'Centurions' and the first English men's team to win the domestic treble.
But when you're a cynical bastard who revels in misery and sneers at the happiness of others then it's time someone stepped up and highlighted some of the shit of this decade and I think I'm the man to do so, so here you have it in no particular order here are six shit things about City in the 2010's:
Wigan Athletic
Any of three fixtures against these lot could be seen as a relative low point in the decade. Since we've been successful it's really hard to look beyond the FA Cup final as being the grimmest day watching City. From waking up to the news that City were planning on binning Mancini to get in a manager I'd never heard of, to Ben Watson scoring a last minute winner, to walking outside into rain so heavy you could have thought I'd had 3 buckets of water thrown over my head, it was all shit. The mere thought of it makes me see the dark clouds in the air just before we walked in the stadium singing "you can stick your Pellegrini up your arse" all over again. The cherry on top of a painfully frustrating and disappointing season, Mancini was sacked within 48 hours, 1 year to the day since his most famous victory vs QPR.
9 months later and we're playing them again the FA Cup quarter finals. A completely different feel to this season though as the previous-inserted-into-arse Pellegrini had got us banging the goals in and looking like we couldn't be stopped, domestically anyway. I was due to travel to Barcelona after this game as we had the second leg of our Champions League last 16 fixture that week, just the little issue of the now Championship Wigan to see off. Forgot to mention that they were relegated just after the Cup final victory. We welcomed them with a City cult hero as manager - Uwe Rosler had a banner up in the South/East stand corner and his name reverberated round the ground before the game. I have no real recollection of this game (believe it or not I've avoided watching any highlights) apart from The Engineer, The Charming Man, Manuel Pellegrini decided not to wear a nice suit like he had in every game he'd managed us in so far this season but he wore what looked like pyjamas. If he didn't naturally look like death warmed up anyway I'd presume that he had overslept and didn't have time to get changed before speeding up to Manchester from Mere Golf Club. He looked exactly how City played - a load of shit with our minds elsewhere. We lost 2-1 and lost again a few days later to Barca, so our "maybe we'll do the quadruple" talk quickly turned into "fucking hell we better win the league now otherwise just a League Cup looks like shit for how well we've played".
4 year later and we're in the FA Cup against Wigan again. They've done us at Wembley, they've done us at The Etihad, will they do us at The DW? Mancini got done by them, as did Pellers, surely football God himself Josep Guardiola and his soon to be Centurions will be able to turn over a team not in the Premier League or the Championship but in fact League One? I was stood in the away end just in front of Aguero's Dad and son, what a load of shit they witnessed. Delph got himself sent off for being reckless, Walker fell asleep and known pyromaniac Will Grigg slotted past the imposing Claudio Bravo to send us out of the Cup and another year of "maybe we'll do the quadruple" to be put to bed until the following April. It kicked off at the end when the Pie Eaters ran on the pitch to celebrate, after about 10 seconds of flicking the V's and shouting "inbred!" a few times I quickly scurried back to the car and missed it.
Anytime we've not hammered United
Let's have it right - it's been a great decade against our nearest rivals. Since the 6-1 in October 2011 I have seen us play them in the league there 7 times, winning 5 times, drawing and losing once each - that in itself shows the difference between the two clubs this decade. Every single victory has been fully deserved as well, we've absolutely wiped the floor with them. That 3-0 when they had Moyes was not only borderline pornography to my eyes, The Chosen One's comments after saying they should "aspire to be like City" was tattoo on your forehead material. But as someone who unfortunately had to miss the November 2018 derby victory due to being at a wedding, I haven't seen City beat United at home for five years.
Every time they have come to us this decade we've been on paper miles better than them, and as things are right now and have been for quite a few years (since Ferguson left) you would have to say that only a near disaster at City would result in them finishing above us in the league, especially now with having that dinner lady as their manager. Having said that they've done us a few times. The one that sticks out is obviously the Van Persie one as that knocked the stuffing out of us and as our results faltered afterwards, but I'll let them have that as they were good enough to win the title that season. That time Rashford danced round Demichelis (who apparently turned 39 this week, I thought he was 40odd when he signed for us) to score, that 0-0 on a Thursday night, when we were winning 2-0 and could have been 5-0 up at half time, only to lose 3-2 and therefore couldn't win the title that day (I actually rate this day higher than the aforementioned Wigan cup final as the worst footballing day of the post-takeover era) and even this season where we lost 2-1 - you look at the teams and we should be leathering these. Maybe like Wigan they must have some sort of curse on us that you can only get by being supported by a load of badly dressed yonners, who knows.
I could go on about that 3-2 in April 2018 for some time. I never felt as high as that moment when Gundogan put us 2-0 up, I can remember the concourse in the South Stand vividly at half time, absolutely bouncing. It was all your dreams at once. It took me awhile to get over it to be honest, and it certainly didn't help that this game was between the two Champions League quarter final defeats against Liverpool. A real cunt sandwich if there ever was one.
Recruitment post-title wins
Fuck me we've spent some dosh on shite. True we've spent money wisely and we've built two really great Premier League teams, but the money we've spent when we're chasing title wins compared to when we're on top is ridiculous. Clichy, Nasri, Aguero vs Rodwell, Sinclair, Maicon is a great example of the difference between the summer of 2011 and 2012. Javi Garcia isn't remembered as a great City player by any stretch but he's soundly not in the relegation zone of that summer, whereas the previous summer we won 2 titles with those 3 players key to our success.
The summer of 2013 had 5 major signings - Fernandinho, who you could argue is one of the clubs best signings this decade, Negredo, Navas and Demichelis overall had a positive impact that season and Jovetic was a bit in and out, probably viewed as a flop but I didn't mind him that season. Then the following season we signed Eliaquim Mangala and Fernando, thus ending any trust anyone ever had in the Portuguese league. During the Winter window we signed Wilfried Bony. These three players would make it in to my all time underwhelming City XI or any negative XI you could put together. I mean fucking hell these lot were abysmal. Mangala, I'll give you that he had a debut (as did McManaman and he's considered by some as one of our worst signings of all time) and he played a few times in our 18 wins on the spin in 2017, but generally he was a proper liability. With Bony all you need to do is look where he's been since and how many goals he's scored. Literally the only positive thing I can say about Bony is he has responded to @MikeNumber5 DM-ing him on Instagram. Says a lot when the signings of that summer were a 36 year old Frank Lampard and Bacary Sagna on a free. I tweeted a picture recently of when we beat Bayern Munich at home after Aguero had scored his hat trick and he had Lampard, Jovetic, Mangala and Fernando around him - what an odd time, and no surprise that we didn't win the title that season.
We invested a lot of money in the build up to the Centurions season, quite a few years in the making with Otamendi, Sterling and KdB in the summer of 2015, Stones, Sane and Jesus in the summer of 2016, Walker, Bernardo and Ederson in the summer of 2017. But the summer of 2018 it was the often criticised Mahrez for what was then a club record transfer, and I don't want to slag him off too much really as he's not been that bad, but then he's not been that good, has he? (EDIT - bit of a sidebar to the point but I've had to mention him missing that penalty at Anfield last year as that deserves an honourable mention regarding shit moments of the decade) Doesn't really matter as we retained the title so happy days. Then the summer just gone and I know it's early days, I like the look of Rodri but he's not there yet, Cancelo cannot get a run of games together yet and this morning I've read that he's already "open for City exit", Angelino is what he is - a £6 million full back in a team without a left back. All in all a bit underwhelming and we find ourselves without having our Christmas turkey but 14 points off top. With the money and competitiveness of football you cannot stay on top forever but where we are today feels a bit disappointing.
Not doing anything in Europe
One of my favourite things is going across Europe watching City with my mates, this decade I have travelled to loads of different countries and cities watching City. I love it about as much as I dislike home Champions League group games. The weird "not sure if these are really City fans" crowd with some stranger standing next to me, the crap flat atmosphere, the groan at having to play Donetsk again. I, like a lot of fans, are not completely taken in by the competition and as I wrote many moons again (the day after the Roma draw in 2014) I never expected City to be in the Champions League when I grew up, so it's not exactly something I've dreamt about winning.
Having said that, I have seen us win a lot of trophies and this is the last one to tick off the list. Not only have we not won a European trophy this decade, we've not even been to a final. Considering the players and managers we've had, we've let ourselves down here. "But we've had difficult group fixtures!" Yeah we did under Mancini, but in the years since we've been heavy favourites to qualify to the next round - and we have. Getting Barcelona two years in a row wasn't an easy draw for us but you've got to play the best at some point and it's not like in either game we came close to winning. Our away performance at Real Madrid in the semi final has got to rank as one of the most disappointing 90 minutes of the decade. Monaco at home was one of the games of the decade, probably one of the most dramatic games I'll ever go to - but we went out there with a 2 goal cushion and were level by half time. The last two seasons we've played English clubs both who ended up as losing finalists but the first finished 25 points behind us in the league and the second 27 points behind us in the league.
Even without winning a trophy in Europe, Liverpool and Chelsea have played in 3 finals, United have won the Europa League and Arsenal and Spurs have played in European finals. Yeah I know we laugh at the Thursday night cup playing against a bunch of Bosnian farmers but I'd still like to see us win a cup in Europe, and hopefully this will change sooner rather than later!
The Academy
We've tanned a load of money on a great facility across the road from The Etihad where we were told all about a conveyor belt of young talent coming through. No doubt there have been some talented young players play for our youth teams but that has not turned into appearances for the first team. Even right now we're clamouring for the extremely talented Phil Foden to get a game in a midfield which is lacking legs and invention at times but he cannot seem to start consecutive league games.
I know you're in danger in sounding like a bit of a prick to demand youth players being in the first team over established stars, I'm pleased we bought Kevin de Bruyne instead of trying to turn Celina into a star but as someone who grew up with a lot of academy products in the first team and someone who likes to watch the younger teams play (paedo alert) it's a bit frustrating that despite all the money invested into the CFA we haven't had a regular starter.
The one that got away was clearly Sancho. When he eventually leaves Dortmund it will be for a massive fee. Would his career taken off in the same way if he'd stayed at City? Who knows - Frimpong who has gone to Celtic is another who in my opinion we'll regret letting go. There's been a load who have looked great at their age but we've either not given them a chance or they've gone to NAC Breda or Girona for a season and hardly set the world alight. In the same way you could look at Bony's career trajectory post-City you can probably look at Brandon Barker and think "well he probably wasn't worth giving a go" - but sometimes the right chance for a player at the right time can make or break a career. There's been plenty this decade who've looked the part at their age group, we've got to loads of FAYC finals but no one has nailed down a place. Hopefully in the next decade this will change, with players like Eric Garcia, Tommy Doyle and Jayden Braaf to name 3 impressing at different ages you would hope there's a lot more to come.
Constant price increases
As a City fan that follows them all over the country one of the best things to happen this decade is the introduction of the £30 price cap for away tickets. We almost take it for granted now but only a few years ago there were away games (looking at you Arsenal and Chelsea) where we were paying over £60 per game. I even remember seeing/hearing someone say "Everton is pretty cheap at £43" those of us who went to all the games when we were crap were hit hard as all of a sudden City were a Category A game, not Category C (i.e. who the fuck wants to watch these). If it hadn't been for this league wide price cap then there's probably a lot of games I would have had to sacrifice and miss out on.
City on the other hand have year on year increased the season ticket just a little bit, a tenner here, fifteen quid there so that without realising your season ticket now is a lot more expensive than it was 10 years ago. Those out there who think the club can do no wrong will shrug their shoulders and say "oh well it's only £1.50 extra on your monthly direct debit" or "well it's only an extra £3.57 per game" or even "well this is the price of watching good football" (as if they'd give us a rebate if we ended up outside the Champions League places). Have I given up my season ticket? No, and I'm sure anyone rolling their eyes at this might be quick to point that out, but City are taking the piss and I'm sure for a lot of people they're not far off their financial breaking point. I understand that the club need to be seen to increase match day revenue but that latest increase gave the club around £750k in revenue, the clubs overall revenue was £535m.
I don't see this changing in the next few years, they will keep putting it up, people like me will keep moaning about it and do nothing about it, gradually long term fans will stop being able to afford going week in week out and the characteristics of our fan base will change, which is sad and already noticeable at the higher demand away games.
Anyway, despite this being purposely a moan it has been a great decade watching City - here's to the 2020's being our decade as well!
