City Do a Barca

Moments after signing Carlos Tevez for 25m, Man City make a 20m pound bid for Emanuel Adebayor.

This begs the question: are City trying to create the squad to run god's perfect formation--the oft referenced but rarely used 1-1-8?  City's possible formation: 

                         Given

                       Richards

                         Barry

                 Ireland        Elano

Robinho                                    Petrov

   Tevez         Adebayor         Bellamy

                     Santa Cruz

Look familiar?  That's because it bears a FRIGHTENING resemblance to Barcelona 07-08:

                        Valdes

                         Puyol

 

                         Toure

               Iniesta        Bojan

    Dos Santos                Ronaldinho

Messi          Gudjohnsen           Henry

                          Eto'o

City's is a slight variation--they'll be playing 4 TRUE strikers, plus Robinho while Barca supplemented 2 true strikers (one playing out of position on the left wing) with 2 creative players (one who used to be the best in the world, one who was on his way to becoming the best in the world) and Eidur Gudjohnsen.

What I'm trying to say is that Sheik Mansour is actually Frank Rijkaard.

I Like His Moxie

I don't care that City signed Robinho (okay, a little bit I do. I mean, come on Kenyon. That transfer could've been wrapped up for the start of the season if you'd bucked up (Bruce Buck-ed up?) and paid 30m...but whatever). I don't even care that they took my dear Shauny back. His future was never at Chelsea. And now this:

Manchester City plan audatious 135m bid for Cristiano Ronaldo

That's awesome. Their new owner went on to say, "Real Madrid were estimating his value at $160m (£90m) but for a player like that, to actually get him, will cost a lot more; I would think $240m (£135m). But why not? We are going to be the biggest club in the world, bigger than both Real Madrid and Manchester United. Ronaldo has said he wants to play for the biggest club in the world, so we will see in January if he is serious."

This guy is my new best friend. I've always said that my favorite thing in football is crazy bullshit. Not step-overs, not trophys, not goals...bullshit. But this isn't crazy. This is absolutely batshit insane and AWESOME and wow. Just wow.

Non-Sequitur/Comment of the Week

From Paul Doyle's article on the end of the transfer window madness, a comment on Manchester City.  A comment which was completely unwarranted because City aren't even mentioned in the article and are so far from the article's focus (which is, in fact, the spree that Berbs moving from Spurs to United will cause) that this comment is not only awesome but truly excellent.  From commenter bettyforddropout:

"Manchester City are the best football team I have ever seen."

It's great because it's true.

Hang on a Second.

From the Times:

"After having an offer of about £13 million accepted by Barcelona, City have been granted permission to discuss personal terms with the Brazil forward [Ronaldinho], who has twice been named World Player of the Year." (emphasis mine)

Hold on one goddamned second.

Look, I agree that Ronaldinho is past his best. He's looked slow and tired and I doubt that a move to rainy Manchester is really going to sunny up his disposition. But he's still farking Ronaldinho. He still did these things in competitive matches. I'm not saying he's going to light the world on fire. I'm not saying he's worth 200k a week (although, to his credit, Thaksin has done something absolutely ingenious in getting advertisers on board to pay part of his wages--this could be a new paradigm for football or just a really clever way to not shell out so much cash). But, as I've said before, he's still farking Ronaldinho. For 13m, I'll sign him for my imaginary team, Stowe FC and his duties will consist of playing pick up games with my friends and giving me lessons in my back yard.

The transfer market is absolute lunacy. More later.

You Must Be Kidding.

Once upon a time, there was underachieving Swedish manager at the helm of England. After a series of woeful performances at the World Cup in Germany, he was rightfully sacked. He landed on his feet nearly a year later at a quaint little club called "Manchester City." The old Swede did quite well there. Bought well (Elano, Geovanni, Martin Petrov), kept his best players (Micah Richards) and, occasionally, bought poorly (Bianchi). He won games and, for a moment, the public thought he might finish in a UEFA Cup spot or, perhaps if his players wished hard enough, in a Champions League spot. Alas, it was not to be. His team's form plummeted in the second half of the season.

Still, the old Swede's team did the double over Manchester U (their bitter and hated rivals) for the first time since 1970. And they did finish 9th in the league--their highest league finish since 2002-03. And they DID earn a UEFA Cup spot, albeit through their high finish in the Fair Play Table. And yet, bizarrely, the club's evil Kim Jong Il-like owner decided that he would fire the lonely Swede despite his success.

This story, kids, is all too true. In fact, it's just a long contrived way of saying that Thaksin Shinawatra is lining up Avram Grant as a replacement for Eriksson. What the fuck would Eriksson have had to do to keep his job? In what reasonable world does a man who takes a club from 14th to 9th (winning 13 more points along the way) and does the double over the league champions lose his job? It's like Shinawatra doesn't realize that it's MAN CITY--they're not even a real club.

Avram's a real mediocre choice (especially with the wealth of talent floating around this summer--doesn't City seem like they could be a pretty solid place for Big Sam to land?) but not a horrible one. I hope they do hire Avram and Chelsea hire Eriksson. It will be awesomely ironic when both are fired for not living up to standards again next summer.