The Man Who Would Be King

Growing up supporting City in the 1990's, you were told tales of the great players to have previously worn the blue shirt.

When I first felt the crushing blow of relegation in 1996, 20 years had past since Dennis Tueart had scored an overhead kick at Wembley to secure City a League Cup victory. That victory would be the last great day for many years, and it signified the end of a 8 year glory period for the club where we won the league, cups and in Europe too.

For the first 15 years of me being a match going fan I had to grasp on to the temporary crop of cult heroes with the knowledge that a legitimate legend may never play for City again. I loved Rosler, Goater and Benarbia, who are rightly adored as being City's heroes of their day, but they didn't achieve the sort of things which my Dad had seen when he was my age. Doyle, Summerbee, Lee and of course Colin Bell - the King of the Kippax.

City had moved on from this era and moved away from the Kippax. I doubted that we would ever see another "King". We all know the story of the developments of September 1st 2008 - when everything changed. But it still didn't seem real, and although the names and reputations like Robinho, Bridge, Given were bigger than before we still needed to achieve or for my generation be forever celebrating players who were just great servants of the club, not players who we could remember for the moments that you will talk about forever.

The summer of 2010 was a significant one for City. Having been within touching distance of qualifying for the Champions League that May, we went out and bought the players that we hoped would take us to that next level - to not only compete, but to win.

A lot of players will be remembered fondly from that transfer window; Balotelli, Kolarov, Milner but two in particular stand out. David Silva and Yaya Toure.

Little did I know at this point how important these two players were going to be. It will be a sad day when David leaves, but that day is not upon us yet, but for Yaya, the end is nigh.

And it wasn't just myself who didn't know how important Yaya would be. If you've never read this before, check out this article from The Mirror's Brian Reade - https://www.mirror.co.uk/opinion/football-opinion/brian-reade-column-millions-squandered-3353824

There's almost too much to say about Toure. He was absolutely vital for Mancini in the 2010/11 season. He was viewed as a deep lying central midfielder but Mancini looked at his attributes and played just in front of Barry and de Jong allowed Toure to be creative on the ball with his passing, and allowed him to break forward with such pace and power that hasn't probably been seen before or since on these shores.

With some players they have attributes such as pace or shooting ability, but some players just have that ability to score important goals. David Platt once described Edin Dzeko has having the ability to score "heavy goals", and when you're in the hunt for silverware, you need someone who can provide the heavy goals.

A sunny mid-April day in the capital against our bitter rivals for the right to play in the F.A. Cup final a month later. A game that City grew into, but there was not a lot between ourselves and United on the day. It was tight, if anyone made a mistake it could have been crucial. The recently-much-lauded Michael Carrick made this mistake and Yaya pounced on the loose ball, ran past Vidic like he wasn't there before megging Van Der Sar.

It's almost easy to forget with everything that's happened since this moment of jubilation what exactly this goal meant. Trying hard not to sound patronising here but the younger generation of City fans will never know what that feels like. We may well go on to do this and that in many different competitions, but that moment where City exploded out of the shadows by beating United will probably never happen again. All eleven on the day heroes, but it was Yaya who was the difference on the day.

4 weeks later and just as the nerves of "maybe this isn't going to be our day" were just about kicking round in your head, Yaya again almost burst the net with a goal at the same end, right in front of the blue end of Wembley. The F.A. Cup was City's first piece of silverware in 35 years. Thirty five fucking years. Some people don't live that long. It was an amount of time which our neighbours reminded us of regularly, and even had a banner mocking us. Hope they made the most of it at the time.

I could be wrong and there's no way of knowing otherwise, but in the same way that we all felt that without Dickov scoring those goals and Weaver making those saves in 1999 we would have been doomed, I think we all feel that if Yaya hadn't been the difference on those two days and City hadn't won the F.A. Cup in 2011 we might not be where we are today, 7 years later just days away from lifting our 3rd league title.

The Cup was the first thing. The next step was to be the English champions. City headed to Newcastle for the penultimate game of the 2011/12 season just barely on top of the league by 8 goals and 0 points. Newcastle were flying high at the time, and they knew that if they beat us and won away at Goodison the following week they had the chance to get in to a Champions League place. Mancini made the change to push Yaya further forward in an attempt to win the tight game between us and Newcastle. There's a story that Joleon Lescott tells about Toure assuring him the day before the game that he was going to score at St James', and he did. Twice. More heavy goals. Another huge day in my life where I was watching a really tight game of football and Yaya Toure was the difference. I recall clearly walking out of St James' that day knowing that we had done it. 44 years since we last won the title and we just had QPR at home next week to lift the title. Dead simple...

It didn't quite work out for City or Mancini the following season, not to say that Toure had a poor season at all, but City just didn't seem to have the right mentality as champions it seemed at the time - a trending theme as no club has defended the title since.

A new manager and a new style of playing for the 2013/14 season, one that will be remembered more than any other due to Toure's performances. Where do you start? Dominating United home and away, ridiculous goals of all types whether long range strikes against Fulham, Plzen and Sunderland in the League Cup final - a goal which is possibly the finest the new Wembley has seen, and sparked the turn around where City ended up winning 3-1 and lifting the League Cup for the first time since 76 - or lung busting runs against West Ham, Cardiff and Aston Villa. This final goal is particularly significant as it was a rainy May night at The Etihad where City found Villa hard to break down, but eventually got our noses in front with two goals from Dzeko. It was the 90th minute at the end of an exhausting season and Yaya picked the ball up in his own half and drove at Villa's heart like someone trying to kill a vampire, before smashing the ball into the back of the net to win the game 4-0 and put City 2 points at the top of the league with one game to play.

Throughout the whole of that season he was basically untouchable. Pellegrini made everything go through Yaya and that season it worked a charm as we won our first double since 1970.

There were great moments after this; the winning penalty in the 2016 League Cup final in particular stands out as well as great goals away to Villa in 2014 and Watford in 2016. But unfortunately he never really got to the same heights in the seasons following 2013/14. He was a victim of his own success in one way, and I have always believed the Pellegrini relied on him too much and over played him. When he joined City, he had just come off a World Cup, another World Cup in 2014 as well as what seemed like AFCON every year. Add that to him being over the age of 30 and being a huge bloke and I bet his body was exhausted at times in Pellegrini's final year. Elements of our support were getting on his back, which made me love him even more, but even then it looked like at the end of the 2015/16 season with Pep about to take over it looked like it could be the end for Yaya.

By all report he and Pep have a weird relationship. I won't get into all the tripe that Yaya's agent has spouted over the years, but he made it even worse in the autumn months of 2016. But then, when I had resigned myself to never seeing Yaya play for City again, Pep brought him back away to Crystal Palace in November 2016. Me and my mates were absolutely buzzing when we saw the team news. And after Yaya not having played for 7 months, what do you think he did? Scored 2 and again was the difference on the day. As he scored his second he ran over to the fans in the same he did when he scored there in April 2014 before our second title win, and fans ran on the pitch to celebrate with him. It was an emotional moment, something that I never thought I'd have - a true City legend - had returned and scored on his comeback. For the rest of the season he looked great, playing in a bit more of a reserved deeper role - probably something Pellegrini should have done 2 years earlier. He played that well that he was offered a 12 month contract extension.

So we get on to this season, where his appearances have been limited, but there's no telling what his winning influence would have done for the dressing room with a lot of the team being under 24.

It was announced on the 4th May, just 9 days before his 35th birthday that he will be leaving City after 8 years and that our final home game of the season against Brighton will be used as a send off to a City legend. A year ago, as Zabaleta was saying his goodbyes, I questioned whether the current crop of players had the personalities to take on the hero status' which Zabaleta had had before them and I think although no one is Zabaleta standard yet, they are doing their bit.

There's certainly players in this current squad with the ability to control games, score important trophy winning goals, and create moments like Yaya has over the years, but Yaya will always be remembered as the man that created those first moments. Without him, City wouldn't be the club they are today.

We will be lucky to witness anything like what Yaya Toure has done at Manchester City again, and for me and many others he is my Colin Bell, he is The King.

Thanks for the memories, Yaya.

Time For Heroes

Last night we saw a City great play his last game at The Etihad. Pablo Zabaleta was not just the Premier League's best right back for the 2010's though. He was a symbol of a link between the players on the pitch and the fans off it.

We all have our own stories as to where we were on the last weekend of August/start of September 2008. I woke up on the Monday morning and switched on Sky Sports News to see that Vedran Corluka was likely to make his switch to Tottenham as we had just bought a 23 year old Argentine attacking full back called Pablo Zabaleta. He, and the signing of Glauber Berti, got sorta lost in the mix of what was to come as City were taken over by new owners, reports of bids for Berbatov and David Villa being thrown around and eventually signing Chelsea-bound Brazilian play maker Robinho for over £30 million. Only 15 months earlier, City had finished a season with scoring 10 goals at home. Times were about to change significantly.

Not just on the pitch either. Garry Cook had reflected on the facilities of the club at Carrington needed a huge overhaul of improvements. Since the move away from Maine Road, the club didn't seem to have a direction apart from sell anyone of any worth. The only serious investment the club had been given until this point was the previous summer when former Thai president Dr. Thaksin Shinawatra had taken over from Wardle. We were a big PR stunt for Dr. T and despite being worth £2billion, he was actually skint. Typical City to get a skint billionaire.

Although not part of the club long before the takeover, Zabaleta walked into pre-takeover City. Not won a trophy since 1976 City. The City that I and a lot of people who will read this grew up with. I will be honest - I wasn't sure on him at first. I thought he went to ground too early and seemed like a mistake/red card waiting to happen, similar to how a lot of people view Otamendi now in a way. He moved from right back into midfield in the early part of 2009 scoring his first goal against Wigan in a 1-0 win. As time went past and the team gradually got better and better he wasn't always a starter, but you felt better when he was on the pitch. He played either side as a full back or could fill in in midfield. His work rate and determination made him able to be adaptable, and his adaptability made him popular with the fans as he never seemed to grumble about being moved around.

He and Micah Richards were battling head to head on a weekly basis for the right back position. Both loved by the fans at this point in 2012, but it wasn't clear who was ever number 1. The run-in for the 2012 title he made the position his own, and he pushed on to be City's player of the season in the 2012/13 season. From then until this season, he was first choice unless injuries played a part.

But what Zabaleta means to the fans is more than just a successful career. He embraced the club. He became a City fan. He loved Manchester. Opting to live in Didsbury over tucked away in a Cheshire mansion and often recalling how he'd go in the chippy and play pool in The Barleycorn before it shut down. He was on the pitch last night calling his son a Mancunian.

In the first half of his career he was lucky to be around people like Richard Dunne, Nedum Onouha, Joe Hart, Shaun Wright-Phillips and the aforementioned Richards as they had been part of the furniture at City for many years. But Zabaleta and Kompany, who had joined the club a few weeks earlier, became City people and the effect they had on the players purchased over the next few years is easy to see.

Seeing the faces of players like Joleon Lescott, Nigel de Jong, Mario Balotelli now warms the hearts of a lot of City fans because there seemed to be a bond between the players and with that there was a bond between them and the fans. Zabaleta mentioned the 1-0 win against United at Wembley as his highlight - when I think about that game I think about the players and staff running over to our end at Wembley and doing the Poznan in front of us. Something as simple as that goes a long way as a short term buzz and a long term love.

With Zabaleta gone, Joe Hart seemingly gone and Kompany on the edge of breakdown, the players who seemingly love the club are hard to be seen. Sometimes I watch these great players and it seems like they're at City on loan and going through the motions of a football career. I know people who really like players like Raheem Sterling, Leroy Sane and John Stones - the investment and ability of these three in particular suggest that they are players the club are pinning their hopes to for the future, but they don't have a bond with the support in the same way. They cannot have stood there last night taking it all in and not think "I want a bit of this when I go". They don't have that connection yet - and again I don't think this is anything to do with them not winning anything or ability. Now is their time to stand up.

Similarly with the manager. Find me someone who feels more positive emotions towards Guardiola than Mancini and you'll find me a liar. "This is for all of the fans" - Mancini said at about 17:00 on May 13th 2012, Pellegrini didn't say anything like that when he won the league and if we ever do with Pep, I doubt he'll say that, he'll probably say the football is amazing or something. Embracing the fans, getting the fans on side is important. Slagging off the size of the club, the atmosphere or the pressure is just bullshit excuses for your short comings.

I know some people "get it" and others don't. Frank Lampard, a legend of a rival, embraced the club more in the 12 months he was at the club more than Gael Clichy has in 6 years. It's just a fact of life and it's not for everyone - I've not mentioned my three favourite players in this whole blog because none of them are particularly like Zabaleta or Kompany but at the same time they do have a real connection due to their achievements on the pitch, hence why most games you hear chants of Sergio, Yaya or David.

Pablo is a legend but now a part of our past. I'm hoping last nights admiration of him and his legacy is to enthuse the current crop of players and staff to embrace the club and Manchester the way he did. If they don't they're in danger of leaving the fan base disillusioned.

R.I.P. The Deadman

Anyone that's ever read anything put out there by me is aware that my biggest interests are football and music. But I have to hold my hands up and say I have a guilty pleasure. I've had three periods of my life where I have had a love affair with professional wrestling.

Before you start, I'm very aware that the majority of 29 year old men that are still interested in this form of entertainment should probably have their hard drive examined. I know it's scripted. I know from the outside watching big guys fake fight in daft outfits for the purpose of a soap opera story line is frankly ridiculous. And it is ridiculous. I know it is. The enjoyment I get from it is something I cannot really explain in the same way I have previously explained a masterclass from David Silva or a lyric from Pete Doherty.

Similar to football and music, my awakening to wrestling began in 1994. When I think about my earliest memories, I cannot think much about starting school, but I can remember being sat with my Dad in the Main Stand when City beat Tottenham 5-2 in October 1994. I can remember hearing, "Whatever" by Oasis in December 1994. But first, I can remember Royal Rumble 1994. It was there I saw Yokozuna and many other wrestlers gang up and take out a character that I really took to. The Undertaker. In a time where most wrestlers were larger than life individuals with bright colours and over the top shout-y promos, The Undertaker was dark, mysterious and left the talking to his manager Paul Bearer. This mysteriousness is probably what attracted to me to Slipknot as a 13 year old before they took their masks off.

He was off screen for sometime, and other performers and future Hall Of Famer's Bret Hart and Razor Ramon got me further hooked on to this form of entertainment. The Undertaker returned at Summerslam in August 1994 to have a match versus an imposter Undertaker hired by The Million Dollar Man Ted Dibiase. For years I believed this to be some of the most fascinating bits of entertainment, only to watch it on the WWE Network awhile back to realise it was in essence crap. But I was young and excited. The Undertaker was my favourite and I looked at him on TV in the same way I would look at Uwe Rosler, Niall Quinn or Keith Curle. My Dad took me to the NEC in Birmingham to watch it. He hated it, but I can still remember the feeling when the lights went off and The Undertaker's spine chilling entrance began. City weren't exactly giving me plenty of thrills in 1995, so this made up for it.

I've always had a good memory when it comes to useless information. I can almost track things in the world/life because I remember who City were playing round that time - maybe not to the same extent but I can almost do that with wrestling too. I stopped watching around 1996 for reasons I'm not sure. History tells me that the WWE was at a low point around this time, as Diesel and Razor Roman, two of the biggest characters of the era defected to rival company WCW. Around this same time, the amount I went to City decreased a lot. Not because we were going into our worst point in over 120 years of history, but because I was playing football myself at a later slot in the day for my local team. As good as my memory is, no wrestling and football have left me with a void in 1997 and 1998.

The 2nd love affair started in early 1999 (ironically as City went on our great run to get into the play offs and then win the final). I'm not sure what it was that got me watching again, but it was different to the show I had stopped watching. And I was hooked. It was a bit odd to see people like The Ringmaster now being Stone Cold Steve Austin, the face of the company. Some young guy called The Rock was a big deal (although no one would have predicted how big Dwayne would become). And my favourite The Undertaker had transformed from an almost Western mortician good guy to a massive goth bad guy in his role as the Lord of Darkness amongst his group - The Ministry.

I won't go into it too deeply on here, but this was during The Attitude Era - a time where WWE had shed it's family entertainment which got a 6 year old Liam hooked into a non-PG product aimed at teenagers and young men. The language and the content went hand in hand for a generation who watched South Park. I was 11 and the WWE was the most exciting thing on TV. And loads of my mates watched it too. When I was younger I was one of the few lucky ones who had Sky TV and I watched it all on my own. But I can remember loads of my mates watching Raw on Friday nights, staying up for Pay Per Views (PPVs) if we were off school. I used to set our VHS for the PPVs that were on during term time and I'd pass the tape round my friends during the next week.

My favourite PPV of all time is Fully Loaded 1999. The card for the night had big personalities and great characters littered throughout it and the main event was the top good guy Steve Austin vs The Undertaker - the top bad guy, in a first blood match. In hindsight, an 11 watching two grown man fighting til someone bleeds isn't probably on, but of course you didn't care at that age.

The Undertaker took a further change after a bit of time off to recover from injuries. His evil massive goth character was in need of a revamp, and in May 2000 at Judgement Day he made his return, now as a Harley Davidson biker character - a character closer to the real life Mark Calloway. He interrupted the last few seconds of a 60 minute Iron Man match between The Rock and the new biggest bad guy, Triple H. He attacked Triple H and his entourage who were beating down The Rock. The Undertaker came down to the ring on a motorbike with Kid Rock's "American Badass" song playing and basically beat up about 7 guys on his own - the sort of situation which is so unlikely to happen in the real world, but it perfectly acceptable in wrestling. Even 17 years later, I don't think I've seen a crowd react to a return to the ring like this (although The Hardyz coming back at Wrestlemania 33 was huge) - if you've never seen it, check it out.

Around 2001/2002 I lost interest again. The Attitude Era effectively ended when they decided to turn Steve Austin into a bad guy at Wrestlemania 17, and the "Invasion" story which happened for the following 6 months is widely considered the worst booking (sorry to use wrestling terminology, I've tried my best to avoid it throughout!) ever in wrestling. I was 13/14, music was becoming more important to me and as I was fortunate to look about 10 years older than I was at the time, I was the guy to turn to to buy alcohol. And sitting round parks drinking £1.89 4 litre cider seemed more interesting than wrestling...

And then we fast forward a lot to January 2014. Someone on my Facebook had shared a post from Mick Foley. Mick was one of my heroes 1999/2000 as Mankind, and his book "Have A Nice Day" was and is a great read, probably the first widespread publication to acknowledge wrestling being fake and gave an insight to every aspect about wrestling. Mick had slated the company for not putting Daniel Bryan in the Royal Rumble - 20 years after I first saw The Undertaker. I found this very interesting - someone so respected slagging off the company that he's always going to be connected with. In football terms it's like reading that Steven Gerrard has called Jurgan Klopp a waste of space, or something. Why has he said this? What's happened? So I did a bit of reading and watched Raw for the first time in 13 years. It was a different show to what I was used to. The language and content was a lot safer, but the athleticism was much improved. Without watching it all the time, I was interested in it again so I stayed up and watched Wrestlemania 30.

I could see Bray Wyatt had a big future in the company, and was really impressed with the three members of The Shield. But for me and many others the stand out moment was Brock Lesnar vs The Undertaker. Yes, him again. 20 years after I first started watching, The Undertaker was still as big and relevant as ever. His career actually started in the WWE in late 1990 and from then to 2014 he had a record of 21 victories to no losses at Wrestlemania - the biggest event of the year. The Streak as it was known had become a centrepiece match of wrestling, as big as a title match. It was thought that it would never end, but at this years event, Brock Lesnar beat The Undertaker. It was shocking, I remember feeling shocked and if you've never seen the faces of people seconds after the 3 count I encourage you to go to Google or YouTube and seek them out.

The mystery of The Undertaker had never gone away either. He spoke more than he did in the early 90's but he was still The Undertaker - he never broke character.

His performances were few in the years since I got back into it, however his appearance at Wrestlemania was always something to look forward to, despite the ending of The Streak. Fans fantasized about dream matches for him vs John Cena or Sting and now in his 50's fans speculated when he would retire.

In the build up to Wrestlemania 33 this last Sunday I scratched my head a bit about what was going to be the headline event for the night. As more matches went past I was thinking "When are they going to put on 'Taker vs Reigns?" About 2 hours into the 5 hour spectacle I wondered if they were going to go on last, and if they did, then would this mean the last match for The Undertaker? Well it looks that way.

As the match went back and forth, gradually Reigns had more control - the hinted at the Stone Cold heel turn (becoming a bad guy) vs The Rock at Wrestlemania 17 with chair shots to the grounded Undertaker and eventually Reigns pinned The Undertaker. Almost 27 years at the top in WWE over.

He took his hat, coat and gloves off and left them in the ring as he made one more walk up the entrance ramp. I wasn't emotional about it (in fact, I was bollocksed, I was on the train to Arsenal away at 10:20am and it was 5am the following morning by this point) but in the days since I've felt quite reflective that one of my first heroes has finally called it a day.

In footballing terms he's like the Buffon of wrestling; always reliable, been on top for decades and very much loved by those that respect everything they have achieved. They've been there through different eras of the sport but still maintain their popularity and relevance - probably a bigger achievement than any award, belt or cup.

Even if I fall out of love with wrestling again, I won't ever forget The Undertaker.

Cups and Quarters

I'm quite excited about tomorrow.

As we're approaching our 9th anniversary of being Moneybags City F.C. it would be quite easy to take a quarter final for granted. However, you don't have to go back too long into City's 123 years of existence to remember the days where we wouldn't get anywhere near the last 8 of a competition.

A midweek game against West Ham in March 2006 was our first quarter final for over a decade. I can remember the excitement, but not as much as I can recall the bitter misery when the Hammers, Dean Ashton in particular, wiped the floor with us. If we had won that we probably should have got to our first final in 25 years, but we didn't, and it was West Ham who became the forgotten team in the "Gerrard Final".

The disappointment continued 12 months later. Actually, I think the word "disappointment" would be more fitting for the League Cup quarters later in 2007 vs Spurs, when they, like West Ham in 2006 controlled the game and had a striker that looked head and shoulders above the rest - this time it was Berbatov.

No, it was closer to fury than disappointment 12 months after West Ham as we travelled to Ewood Park. The scene of one of the most joyous days this side of the millennium was the scene to one of the darkest days for City. The team were crap, the fans proper turned on the players and manager. In fact, I've written about this before here -> http://liamwright1987.blogspot.co.uk/2012/12/2007-year-in-life.html and I don't want to think about it again. Well for awhile, anyway.

The next quarter was the roller coaster of Hamburg in the UEFA Cup. After being binned out of both domestic cups by Brighton and Forest, we clawed our way through 78 rounds of Thursday nights and teams with a "/" in their name. 1 up after 30 seconds by Stephen Ireland, we ended up getting hammered, luckily escaping with a 3-1 loss. Back at CoMS (as it was once known) we had a night famous for atmosphere and one of Elano's famous hours as we came back from being 1 down to 2-1 up and pressing right to the end. Wasn't to be though, but we were about to buy players like Barry, Tevez and Lescott who were going to turn us into serious contenders instead of also-rans.

I don't really remember the first quarter final I saw City win. We beat Arsenal 3-0 and I can see the goals go in but I have no real recollection of this apart from having a drink in Mary D's before the game. Maybe that's something to do with the memory loss. Through to the semi's vs United - less said about it all to be honest, apart from the home leg with Tevez calling Neville a phrase in Argentinian which translated to "sock sucker" or "boot licker".

The next year was one I do remember, although the game wasn't much to talk about. For all the money we spent and how we ruin young English players allegedly (especially Sterling, obviously) it was Micah Richards who headed the ball into the Reading net just over 6 years after a header away at Aston Villa had just started his fucking career. Sorry for swearing Garth. We knew before kick off that it was going to be United in the semi's for the second year in a row. This time the Deity of The Ivory Coast slipped the ball between Van Der Sar's legs as we Poznan'd ourselves to the final when Yaya "too lazy" Toure smashed the ball into the back of the net and City won our first trophy in 35 years. 35 years eh? The banner and many tears came down as the cup went up into the air from Tevez.

Probably the best one next as we beat Arsenal 1-0. I only watched about 20 minutes as the £10 tickets seemed to be an excuse to spend the £x I would normally spend at The Emirates on beer in the concourse. Great breakaway goal though and Aguero bagged. Think Razak played that night - remember him?! Liverpool followed the in the next round, we were really poor at home, should have won away - queues to get in a joke, but de Jong's slide tackle screamer goal was a moment.

The year after was a weird one. Mancini's time was coming to an end at City, the title was seemingly out of reach and we had an easy route to the final. Can't really remember much about the game, apart from hammering Barnsley and being on the whole rather intoxicated. Think I fell asleep in a pub that night. Semi win vs Chelsea was enjoyed, knowing we had Wigan in the final. Don't want to talk about the rest of it. You all know why.

Mancini replaced by Grandma Death himself Pellegrini. Mixed year in his first season, but two quarters to mention. Leicester away was a walk over, followed by hammering West Ham 9-0 over 2 legs. 1 down to Sunderland after about 10 minutes we then turned the game around in minutes as Yaya "get him out of our club" Toure scored the best goal Wembley has ever seen before Nasri scored an incredible volley. Navas finished off a great day winning the league cup for the first time since 1976. Also that year we rolled over for the second time in 12 months to Wigan as Uwe Rosler's men beat us the day before I flew off to Barcelona for the last 16 of the Champions League. Good old Uwe.

2014-15 was a bad year for City. Nothing to report in way of quarters.

Last season had two quarters as well. Hull at home was a walkover despite it being 1-0 for ages. The two legged affair at Everton was overall fun. The 3-1 win at home being a lot more enjoyable than the 2-1 away loss, especially when we were chasing the game and Pellers took off De Bruyne and brought on Fernando. I watched the highlights of the final last weekend. We hammered them, but somehow it all ended up going to penalties. Unlikely hero, William Cabby made a string of penalty saves before Yaya "he's finished" Toure scored the winning penalty. There's something about that chap and us winning things, isn't there? Perhaps if wasn't being asked at 33 to play 4 different positions at once by Pellegrini every week for 3 years then he wouldn't have slagged him off so much by large parts of our fanbase. Just a thought.

Then we had two memorable nights vs PSG in the Champions League. City finally stepped up to where we should have been a few years earlier considering the investment. Paris was a cracking trip, and I'm gutted we won't be able to play them again this season. Cup final apart, De Bruyne putting us 1 up away was the most our end went last season. Kevin scored against them again at the home leg ensuring our first ever semi final in the Champions League. Underwhelming might be the understatement, but I guess there's no shame in going out to the eventual winners - but to be honest we barely laid a glove on them.

Which leads us on to tomorrow against Boro, with Monaco soon to follow. Perhaps I'll have to update this in a few months with further tales of quarters, semi's and finals.

Txiki Swine

You know things aren’t all good when I’m piping up.

The season’s far from over, we’re two  points off 2^nd still in two cup competitions and although I cannot see us winning the title, we have come from 8 points behind with 6 games to go (have I mentioned that before?) to win the title against seasoned winners in Ferguson’s United.

However, there’s a lot that I’m frustrated with at City at the moment, and perhaps taking a pasting off Everton is the straw that broke the camels back.

We’ll get on to the main contributor in good time (guess who that might be). A few other issues:

Going to The Etihad. I tweeted soon after the Burnley game that it’s been some time since I last looked forward to going to the stadium and that apart from the Arsenal and Barcelona home games, there’s not been much positive about going to that place. It’s becoming somewhere I go between exiting and entering the door of one of the establishments on Oldham Street. Maybe it’s an age thing, but I remember loving being in the ground around 2011. Admittedly that could be with looking back with rose tinted specs on too. The atmosphere just isn’t the same anymore, and I don’t mean “the noise we create”, I think after the initial rush of the football being back faded after a few games, people are just going through the motions for being at the game. I do it, you do it. Maybe the rush went, but coincidentally this was at a time where the standard of football started going to rat shit.

The football is very smart between the two centre halves and goalkeeper, but I’d struggle to think of many times where we’ve dragged their team out of position by playing pass the parcel in our area and then hit the opposition on the counter attack to create a goal scoring opportunity. Aguero looks like the only player in the squad capable of scoring more than 15 goals a season. Only three years ago we had 4 players who scored more than this, and if Jovetic hadn’t been injured for large portions of the season then I’m sure he would have scored a lot more.

There’s loads of issues all over the pitch though. Full backs – 3 out of the 4 have been at the club for 6 years and the lot of them are over 30. Reliance on Kompany being fit (here’s a clue – he isn’t ever fit). Stones and Otamendi incapable of playing together. Aguero and Fernandinho discipline – 5 bans between 2 players, Fernandinho having been sent off 3 times in his last 6 games in all comps. No one else can play like Fernandinho either. I love Toure but it says a lot that we’ve had to turn to him, when most fans claimed that we had out grown him. Silva and de Bruyne can look incredible at times, ineffectual other times. Sterling shows glimpses of being a world beater but he doesn’t do the things he’s good at enough i.e. tough game away at Hull with 10 men behind the ball. He runs at a defender to create space and his skill and pace wins us a penalty – this skill and pace could be the difference every week. With that in mind, Sane needs to have a proper run in the team. Kelechi gone backwards. Doesn’t seem to want to trust in Nolito.

We spent close to £30m on a Brazilian wonderkid who apparently can’t get all his documents sorted – only at City.

And then there’s the fucking goal keeper. Take away the view that Joe Hart’s never coming back, and take away the view that Bravo plays the way our manager wants. We have let Charles Joseph Hart, City and England’s number 1 leave the club and replace him by a guy who poses no threat to the opposition at corners, someone who doesn’t seem to be any quicker at shifting the ball with his hands than Hart did, and more important than anything CANNOT STOP THE BALL FROM GOING IN THE NET. I’m not one of these who lays into Stones as he’s a footballer playing in defence, however, your goalkeeper should be winning you points. I don’t want to kick Bravo when he’s down, and he’s certainly not being helped by the attacking players who are not taking their opportunities, but the guy is just not suited to playing in the Premier League. He brings a nervousness to an on-edge centre half pairing and you never see the guy screaming out instructions, which would be helpful for a team devoid of organisation and leadership. You know, all the attributes of Joe Hart.

I’ve said before that Joe Hart isn’t exactly my cup of tea off the pitch before; when I’m drinking Guinness in The Temple putting something of Revolver on the jukebox, he’s having Jagerbomb’s in Tiger Tiger jumping round to Calvin Harris. But that doesn’t stop him from being a legend of Manchester City. If there was a Mount Rushmore of City players in this current era, the most successful era of the clubs history there’s no doubt that his face would be on it. At the beginning of the summer 2016 I said there were only 3 players for me which were untouchable this summer: de Bruyne, Aguero and Hart. Since Pellegrini dropped him in Autumn 2013 he came back and became the most consistent performer for the club for over 2 years. Yeah Aguero scored a lot of goals and de Bruyne had a great first season, but Hart for a substantial period of time became our most consistent performer. Fuck me, anyone reading this will know exactly what I mean when you think about that Barcelona away game.

So we shift him on to Torino. Torino? Yeah, Torino.

And did you know that Samir Nasri, you know the guy who helped us win two titles and had the knack of scoring some of the more important goals for City, was allowed to go on loan to Seville for a year with a £16m buy clause.

At work a few months ago we had a coffee machine come back from a customer. A really great coffee solution for an office, which, brand new including installation would set you back somewhere between £6-6,500. On our books, a 2^nd hand machine registers as about £1,300 as a cost price. Now, I’m not the greatest salesperson in the world, but I sold that machine for £3,600. I was happy that I got £2,300 profit on the machine, and this guy was buzzing that he got a machine not new for almost half the price.

Why am I telling you about sales and my job in particular? Because I’m telling you right now, Txiki Begiristain would have sold that machine for £1,500. I would love to see Txiki do my job for a month and to see how far off his target he’d be. I don’t do any buying, but I realise what the value is in an asset. If I tried to sell that machine for less than £2k then as far as I’m concerned I’d be telling that customer that what you are trying to purchase is a load of shit and it’s used so much that it’s barely above scrapping all together.

I don’t know how everything works at City but as a guess, Txiki looks at the amortisation of a player regarding FFP and looks at what we price we could do it at. Now you look at Chelsea. They’ve sold Oscar for £52m, I realise that Oscar has 4 years on Nasri but as far as ability goes, is Oscar over three times the player Nasri is? Of course not. But the difference is they value their players. Safe to say that the day that Mangala is no longer associated with the club the media and fans from all over the world will piss their sides at the frighteningly bad scouting that went into discovering him and the ridiculous discrepancy between the money we spent on him and the amount he will be leaving the club for. Tell you what, I remember watching City hammer Porto at home in 2012 with David Pizzarro in midfield and they had Otamendi, Mangala and Fernando in their team that day. I’ll leave you to think about that for a minute.

I remember writing once about the “ghosts” of certain players. The ghosts of Joleon Lescott, Gareth Barry, Nigel de Jong, Carlos Tevez, Mario Balotelli, Edin Dzeko and dare I even say it Adam Johnson hang over this current crop and are forever growing as they would all chip in with match winning performances, goals or generally be that difference between winning titles and struggling to get in the top 4, like we are right now. None of these players have been sufficiently replaced. Only Fernandinho and Kevin de Bruyne can be referred to as success’ since the day we signed Aguero in July 2011. That’s almost 6 years. I’m hoping in 3 years I’ll be adding Sane, Sterling, Jesus and Stones to this list as well as many others, but why should I believe in a director of football who has so little to show since he walked through the door?

Txiki has overseen this clusterfuck. I’m getting bored of mentioning Martin Tyler speculating about how the happenings of 13^th May 2012 could be the start of a dynasty.

His defence will always be fire fighting the FFP issues laid before him by Garry Cook, and he got Pep to manage the club. People will probably let him get away with it all due to these reasons, after all, David Cameron got in again by finger pointing the previous regime for any problems, and some people are so besotted with Guardiola that he could call Kinkladze an overrated fat Russian and no one would blink an eye.

No doubt if we win the Champions League and Guardiola super kicks Mourinho in the FA Cup final just after Gabriel Jesus scores an overhead kick then all of the above will be irrelevant. But I’m more sure in 10 months time we’ll be back to where we are now. Potless, squandered loads of money on unproven players, Joe Hart captaining Liverpool and kept 7 clean sheets in 9 games and Bravo playing upfront.

Points

"I see you've still got that blog slagging Pellegrini off as your pinned tweet" says a friend of mine in Glasgow hours before our Champions League tie against Celtic. As he points out that I haven't said anything relevant for 6 months, many supporters are stood outside in the cold and wet queuing up trying to get their tickets for that evenings match.

Fortunately for me, the coach I got up to Glasgow landed outside the Old Fruitmarket at about 12, just before another few coaches and trains rocked up to the city to get our tickets for the match. I queued for about 15 minutes in total and within about 30 minutes of parking up on the coach I was sipping a pint of Guinness. I was lucky compared to a lot of City fans. I was unlucky in Madrid back in May when a large chunk of our travelling allocation turned up at the same time for the same reason - but as frustrating as it was to waste an hour or so out of a bar, at least the weather was alright.

These measures that the club have put in place for the picking up of away tickets for a European fixture started earlier in the competition. The first time I came across it was in Paris, which I thought was down to the fact that Paris is a bit bait at the time, only months after the terrorist attacks. But obviously not. This afternoon the club have posted the reasons why these measures were put into place:

• Supporter feedback that the current ticket sales process does not work and access to tickets is becoming more difficult
• Supporters that qualify are buying tickets with no intention of attending the respective match and selling them on
• Inappropriate behaviour of a small number of supporters when at the away ground

The first two points are kind of interlinked so I'll have a look at the third point first. I'm unsure what they're referring to here. I think the club are being really unspecific because it's a given within football club support that, "there's always a few trouble makers" or words to that effect. There isn't anything that stands out in my mind which has increased the the 5/6 years of continued appearances by City in Europe and as far as I'm aware there is not an increase in bans to our supporters. (I could be well off the mark here as I rarely visit the scaremongerfest of football forum's anymore.) Putting a system in place where people have to queue up for an hour in a hotel 5 hours before kick off will not effect supporters from acting like Brits abroad. There will be people heading out to Barcelona next week looking forward to drinking excessively and generally acting up - I'm not condoning it, but how on earth is picking up tickets as opposed to receiving them in the post going to change a persons behaviour? If you want to go abroad and act like a dick because of St. George or whatever then you're going to do that ticket in bag or ticket in hotel lobby.

So to the first two bullet points. As it stands the format for obtaining away tickets are the following:

• You have a customer number which is linked to your membership with the club.
• On this customer number you have points which are gained by buying tickets to football matches.
• When tickets go on sale for a new game, the criteria is broken down by those with x amount of points being able to purchase a ticket on a particular day. e.g. Supporters with 10,000 points can buy a ticket on Monday, supporters with 9,000 points can buy a ticket on Tuesday, supporters with 8,000 points can buy a ticket on Wednesday and so on.

Quite straight forward, really.

Before I go into detail about the negatives of the system, the biggest negative of all is these points being called "Loyalty Points". What is loyalty? How do you define loyalty? Is one guy more loyal to the club than someone else because he can afford to go more? Is Liam Wright of 2010 more loyal than Liam Wright of 2016 more loyal because I've gone from living 160 miles away from the ground to 1.6 miles away from the ground? And what's worse, the club introduced a £50 charge to double your points per game a.k.a. Platinum Membership. 

The club's golden period has come at a time where a lot of people are hard up, to the people at the top of the club £50 is loose change, but to a lot of people £50 is a lot of money which you can't just part with. People have families to feed. A season ticket at a football club is expensive enough considering coming bottom of the Premier League means the club are given more money than I could possibly comprehend. Where does that extra £50 go? It certainly doesn't keep out City's latest official Asian tyre sponsor from getting a handful of tickets at Anfield. That extra £50 gives you the piece of mind that some poor sod has to go to double the amount of games you do to creep ahead of you in the points system. 

Where the loyalty points system falls down is the following:

An away allocation of, lets say 3,000, will not be solely sold through this system. 

Why? 

Corporate tickets i.e. freebies players get and sponsors get a slice. How big this slice is is unknown but for anyone who has stood in the corner of The Emirates or Stamford Bridge will know that these 'types' seem to be everywhere. 

Supporters Clubs. I have run a supporters club before and unless things have changed in the past two years there was nothing in place to say that I had to give the tickets we were given as a branch to supporters over a certain number of points. i.e. my branch were given 10 tickets for Liverpool away and the points sold out at 10,000, I could distribute these tickets to people 10 people who didn't even have a season ticket, just a "Blue Membership" because they were members of the supporters branch. Again, I would only be guessing the % of the allocation which is given out this way.

The second point on the clubs statement is an issue. The "points whores" as we call them, live amongst us. People have bought tickets with no intention of going to the game. I don't think anyone is completely innocent when it comes to this, though. "Liam, are you going to West Ham away? I'm desperate for a ticket as I'm meeting up with my mate from uni and I'm going to a party in London that night, I don't have enough points for a ticket but can I use yours if you're not going?" - this is an example of a message I might receive off someone. If I'm not going to the match I can't really say to him "Sorry mate, but I think you should respect City's loyalty points system" - I'm doing my mate a favour, the points don't really come into it. I'm not whoring myself out for the points, but I'm letting someone queue jump.

The points system has been in place for approx 15 years. So if you went all the time between 2004-2009 that is just as relevant as going from 2011 onwards. Now you could argue this either way here - if you went all the time when Musampa was the man then that could make you seem more 'deserving' than going in days of David Silva. But, so what if you went all the time under Keegan? You've basically fucked it off for a decade. 

Another issue is the younger fans. I was chatting to a mate in Glasgow who had gone up to the match on the chance he could pick up a ticket. I see this lad everywhere but he's in his early twenties and had to get a ticket on other peoples membership for years. This is something which has been an issue. A lot of my best mates don't want to take risks on tickets for certain games going down to their points when two of our mates who used to go all the time but now have other priorities have higher points. Lad who has gone to 50-70% of away games for the past 8 seasons will use someones ticket who went to 90% for 4 seasons but now doesn't bother with it. Your Dad's mate who's got 17,000 points is moving to Majorca but keeping his season ticket, you're free to use his ticket for away games - do you use the easy way and beef up his points or do you concentrate on the 8,590 you've got?

From my point of view, despite their being flaws, I'm all for keeping the system as it is. This will sound very selfish, but it is what it is. Watching City away and being in different towns and cities with my mates is not a chore, but I have put a lot of work into getting into the position I'm in. For every 6-1 at Old Trafford there's been a 2-0 loss at Portsmouth, 1-0 loss at Charlton, going to West Ham, Moscow, Chelsea and Newcastle in the space of 10 days. Enjoyed all these days, but there's reasons why some of us at the top of the pile don't want to surrender our position. I know I'm not alone in fearing the alternatives like Chelsea's points system restarting at the start of every season, or United's dreaded ballot. If anyone from the club reads this; please do not do a ballot. The club is struggling enough at losing it's fan identity without you making it worse.

I believe a rolling 10 year format would be more beneficial for younger fans and for fans who may only now be able to afford to go to our former working class passion. The club have the information at their finger tips and to be honest, why should going to Reading for a 1-0 loss on a Monday night in September 2006 bare anything on whether I get a ticket for West Brom in a few weeks? For the points whores; it's going to be hard to eradicate them, especially with the new £30 away ticket rule, but would a ballot or a fresh points system stop that? Most away tickets go on sale 4 weeks before the match, out of 20 people that buy it a month in advance 1 is more than likely to either get the curly finger treatment from their partner, get too pissed the night before the match or something else unforeseen come up. 

For those that want to get up the chain; don't buy your ticket off someone else. Use your own points. You won't get a ticket for everything, but more often than not away games do go down a lot to achievable points. You've just got to do a few Swansea and Crystal Palace's away before you can get Liverpool or United away. That's the way that anyone with a lot of points has had to do it.

An ending fitting for the start

11th May 2013. It seems like a very long time ago now, but on that morning City fans woke up to the news that regardless of whether we won that days F.A. Cup final we would be dismissing our manager Roberto Mancini. It was two days off the first anniversary of Mancini and City's greatest triumph, and possibly the most iconic moment in English football. 

Like most, I loved and still think the world about Roberto Mancini. He picked up a squad which was struggling under Mark Hughes and gave them organisation. We may have missed out on some initial goals in his first season, but the board gave him time to continue building. The summer of 2010 should always be remembered as one of the greatest as far as acquisitions go. Ask most City fans and it would be a toss up between Yaya Toure and David Silva as to who their favourite ever player is, and we bought both of them in the summer window. Add to them players like James Milner, Aleksander Kolarov, Mario Balotelli and you've got a decent chunk of the make up of those that delivered us our first trophies in 35 years. 

But it wasn't just about winning things which made Mancini our man, and it was certainly a lot more than simply wearing a City scarf on the sidelines, although that was a good first step to at least getting on the fans side. It was the way he spoke, the way he acted and his whole passion and ambition for the club. The way that he punched the air when we scored that last minute winner against Villarreal, the way which he gave it to Ferguson on the touchline, and the way that although in the moments of madness on a sunny mid May afternoon in 2012 he didn't accept the thanks or congratulations from the press' questions, he first and foremost said "this is for all of our supporters".

Back to 2013 and things had turned a bit grey. Mancini was still strongly backed by the majority of our supporters and there was a big feeling that the new guys at board level were not giving him the backing he deserved, despite offering him a five year contract. The summer following the title win Mancini made it clear that he wanted Van Persie and De Rossi but instead we got Scott Sinclair and Maicon. Public spats with Balotelli was bad for the clubs PR. And unfortunately as much as you do not want to admit it, we are a public face of our owners and we must be seen to be a success but also approachable. Lots of rumours about players turning against Mancini also came out, and the much publicized view of kitman Les Chapman that he wouldn't even say 'hello' when he came in.

The word was that Mancini was going to be sacked and replaced with Manuel Pellegrini. I honestly had no idea who the guy was. I'm incredibly ignorant of continental football, and I don't have Sky/watch Match of the Day - Danny Drinkwater could be in the room with me right now and I wouldn't know who he is. So when I found out he was the Malaga manager I, and I'm sure a lot of others were underwhelmed. If we're getting rid of our manager that we love then it should be for someone that is clearly a lot more qualified. 

I was stood outside my entrance at Wembley before the Wigan game and there was confusion, frustration and anger in the air. The Mancini song rung out outside and inside the ground, and "you can stick your Pellegrini up your arse". We all know how the rest of the day went, Ben Watson scored, we left the ground and it pissed it down. The next day Mancini was sacked.

Why am I writing about Mancini if this is a blog about Pellegrini? Because it is really important to the context of his story. I'm not for one minute suggesting that people were against Pellegrini from day one because of Mancini, however it's hard to argue that with a lot of fans the ghost of Roberto has been over Manuel, in the same way that the ghosts of de Jong and Barry will continue to circle over the heads of the players that have allowed the Etihad go from fortress to just another place where you'll probably score if you have a go. 

Fast forward to 8th May 2016 and the sun may have been shining in east Manchester but the air was full of desperate emotions. Despite one of our best performances of the season, we couldn't see off Arsenal. Similarly how we performed well against Tottenham but ended up on the losing side back in February. This isn't about the Arsenal game, the damage has been done elsewhere in the season, but this day was for the majority of match going fans the last time to see some players and the manager in the flesh. The final whistle blew and the apathy shown to the players and staff from the supporters was just as strong as any chant screamed in passion outside Wembley in 2013.

On May 13th 2012 Martin Tyler said a few sound bites which are imprinted on a City fans memory, but the ones which still ring in my ear are "is this the start of a dynasty?" and "is winning things the new 'Typical City'?" We should have been at the start of a period of domination seconds after Aguero fired the ball past Paddy Kenny, but instead we're sat here clinging at the threads of Champions League football with only one more title to our cabinet plus a couple of League Cups. How has this happened? 

We are all aware where we came from; I'm not going to go on about the "remember York away" aspect of our support as it's been done to death. We should be expecting a lot more than what we've achieved.

Is our current situation solely down to Pellegrini? Of course not. Financial Fair Play restrictions have hindered City somewhat, but that doesn't excuse how the money which was available has been spent. The aforementioned summer in 2012 was a sign of City standing still. The summer of 2014 again was City standing still. But £40 million on Mangala; he's recently had a handful of decent games but surely that money could have been spent better? Possibly an understatement there.

The summer just gone was the first time in years where we've bought players who have clearly been identified as first team starters, not just squad players but we have gone backwards. To be honest when you look at the squad on paper it still reads as a very strong squad apart from one area in particular - up front. Which bright spark had the idea that we should enter the season with 3 strikers? And when you look at those three strikers you have one which is without doubt one of the greatest in the world, however is constantly on the verge of injury. Then you have an untried 19 year old who has turned out to be one of the few success stories of the year. And then there's Bony. People boo'd Bony when he came on yesterday, which was a very disappointing thing to hear. I do not rate him one bit, I hope he doesn't play for City again but to boo him? Nah. It's not his fault that he's playing in the wrong team, and who wouldn't have wanted to join City from Swansea?

Back to Pellegrini. 

His first season was overall a success. He came through a dodgy start to go on one of the best runs City have ever been on. The winter of 2013/14 was one of the best City have ever played and every week we looked to smash teams off the pitch. The squad was rotated well and Manuel got the best out of Kolarov, Nasri and Dzeko whilst Negredo seemed to be a great signing, this coincided with Yaya having the best season of his career. 

After a rocky patch, we became strong again as the season finished and we won the Premier League. We broke records and at times were incredible, however there were a fair few moments where you wondered what game Pellers was watching. Wigan at home in the F.A. Cup and the two big Champions League games vs Bayern and Barca at home made him look naive.

The 2014/15 season wasn't the worst, but there were some pretty grim moments. Losing to Newcastle at home in the League Cup and Middlesbrough in the F.A. Cup too stick out in my mind. The Arsenal game at the end of January was bad. I think for a lot of people the biggest turning point with the fans and Pellegrini came away at Burnley. We lost and looked utterly toothless and out of ideas. The 4-4-2 system had been sussed out and he wasn't learning. Add this to walking straight past the away end and not acknowledging the fans at all. We don't ask for much in the way of recognition, just a wave or a clap for 10 seconds at the end of the game is good enough. Suppose when you're a multimillionaire you can't really relate to people have to put off other areas of their life to try and scrape together that £50 away ticket.

One thing that we rarely had between 2010-2014 was taking an absolute pasting. United at Old Trafford was the first time in years where we looked like we were going to concede every time they went forward. In past 13 months these occasions have happened time and time again. Spurs away, Liverpool home and away, Leicester at home, Southampton away, Stoke away. 20 goals conceded in those 6 games. I remember writing in December 2009 that Hughes didn't sort out the defensive unit from conceding 4 away at United in September til he eventually got sacked in December during a week where we conceded 9 goals in 3 games. 

Hughes got sacked for less, Mancini certainly got sacked for a lot less. Although I can see why they were sacked - the sacking of Hughes for Mancini was completely justified. Because of Pellegrini's nice guy attitude and basically knowing he's been a caretaker manager since day 1 he's been allowed to overstay his welcome by over a year and having banners held up at the ground for his farewell speech.

Now I don't dislike Pellegrini. I follow people on Twitter who say some ridiculous things about him like they want him to die etc. which is probably the best way of showing how the internet has allowed people to showcase their psychological issues. Similar to his press conferences, to his passion towards the fans, I have no real emotion towards him. I don't wish anything bad on him, if anything I wish him well in the future. As I've said in the past, he's just out of his depth as a top level football manager. He wasn't trying to make the team lose. And you're a bit of a mental if you think otherwise. 

The way in which the board has allowed him to be in charge of the club for this period of time just to set up everything for Pep screams of putting all your eggs in a basket. Pep might turn out to win us everything over the next few years, and that is what we're all hoping for. But the club see us as customers, and they've treated their customers without a lot of respect over the past year.  I know this is a really short term way of looking at it, but we could have brought someone (anyone) in in November and probably saved this season. Look at what Real Madrid have done. They could potentially win the La Liga and Champions League because they got rid of someone who wasn't up to the task and despite him being one of the greatest players in the history of football, he had zero managerial experience.

Of course, there is excitement surrounding change. We're getting a much better manager with a fantastic CV and one that will hopefully create a bond with the supporters.

The first era of Mansour is ending. As well as the manager, some of the key players of our recent history and the badge of 19 years are to become part of the past. But maybe that's something to talk about another time.

It is fitting for Pellegrini's time to end in the similar shambles in which he took the job 3 years ago. 

Roll on August...