It’s extremely overly simplistic to lay the blame at the feet of Mark Hughes for the club’s shambolic form of the past two months or for last season’s pathetic underachievement, but at what point is the chairman left with no other option? Failure to advance past Arsenal’s kiddie corps or an end to that bitchin’ unbeaten run on the weekend will only intensify the heat on Hughes. And at some point, it’s going to become a distraction to the club.
I’m all for giving managers time, and I loathe the kneejerk stuff we see at clubs like Chelsea and Real Madrid, but Hughes’s situation at City rapidly is becoming untenable. If an awful two-month winless slump despite playing roadkill like Burnley and Hull City and playing some very, very winnable fixtures in @Wigan, Fulham, and @Brum can’t get your manager sacked, how can the club look perspective transfers in the eye and tell them they’re serious about this Best Club in the World business?
Benitez picked up some injuries to his two best players, suffered through a 1-3-5 stretch, and oddsmakers thought the man who won Europe was getting the sack. And Benitez beat United during that span.
Do you really think any of the clubs with whom City are competing would tolerate a run like the one we’ve seen the past two months at City? Even Ferguson would be in hot water with those returns.
At a certain point, City can’t legitimately claim to have ambition if they’re sitting by and accepting unacceptable results like we’ve seen the past two months. And I’m not sure sacking the goalkeeping coach or Bowen is really going to send the necessary message. I think it has to be the gaffer who goes. And while that might not be fair to Hughes, the club has to act in its own best interests.
I thought Hughes’s signings were brilliant — bringing in quality to the club while weakening rivals. I loved the tone he took with the media, and he seemed like a good guy to have in charge. I admit I’m sad to see him go, especially this way.
But the performance on the pitch the past 1.5 seasons have been so unacceptable, it’s hard to argue with ownership’s decision to part ways with Hughes.
I’m sure I don’t need to remind anyone about last season’s awful away performances– losses against two of the relegated clubs and a bunch of other poor, poor results — or how City finished below a club that needed a miraculous escape the previous season to avoid the drop. Seventh place was the absolute minimum acceptable finish for City, and they failed to achieve even that.
Going into the summer, the expectation for this season was set at a top six finish. Then City ended up embarking on a massive summer spending spree and it was acknowledged that the timeline for The Project had been accelerated. Suddenly, Hughes and Cook no longer were sharing the objective for the season with the public.
Now we’ve seen that Liverpool don’t even look like a side that will qualify for the Europa League, let alone the Champions League. Arsenal have been very, very beatable, so suddenly even third place is up for grabs. And what have City done to take advantage of this opportunity?
They showed a defensive fragility that made no lead safe. Just thinking about some of the results in the past few months makes the head explode.
Burnley have lost all seven other away matches this season, with a -19 goal difference in those matches. Their only away point of the season? At CoMS, naturally.
Hull City are soon to be 0-1-7 in their other eight away matches this season, with a -18 goal difference. Yet they came to Eastlands and left with a point.
Then there was the 0-0 at Brum, the squandered two-goal lead at home against Fulham, and last weekend’s 3-3 draw at hapless Bolton.
But none of this compares to the insipid performance City turned in midweek. Facing a Spurs club coming off a home loss to lowly Wolves and with internal problems stemming from the players’ holiday party, City went to White Hart Lane and proceeded to crap on the club badge for 90 minutes. It was an absolutely shocking combination of apathy and ineptitude that convinced me Mark Hughes was no longer the man for the job.
City have — at worst — the third-best roster of talent in the Premier League. (You could make a strong argument for them being second only to Chelsea.) The results of the past few months have fallen so far below any reasonable expectation of performance, ownership would have had trouble telling any future transfer targets of their lofty aims if they allowed Hughes to stay on.
It’s a shame, but in the end, Hughes only has himself to blame. Not good enough. No longer employed.
——————Given——————
Richards*—-Boyata—-Kompany—-Garrido
Zabaleta———–de Jong———–Barry
Petrov———–Tévez———–Bellamy
*if fit
Subs: Taylor, Sylvinho, Weiss, Robinho, Benjani, plus two Academy grads
I still think that team gets burned by Valencia down the right side for United, but I don’t know what solutions Mancini has at his disposal for that. Barry can help out Garrido, who frightens me marking Valencia, but I’m not sure Sylvinho is any better at LB at this point.
1. Chelsea – very curious slump right now, should get it turned around soon and roll to the title
2. United – will finish a distant second unless Vidic and Ferdinand return very soon, just missing something in midfield
3. Arsenal – don’t have strike force or keeper to make a real title challenge
4. City – really favorable schedule (only two of top seven away remaining) plus injured players will be back soon
5. Spurs – overachievers have looked great going forward, but lack true depth and will wear down as the season goes on
6. Villa – better squad depth than last season and well organized, but they’re not as good as they played in the first half
7. Liverpool – the talent is shockingly average once you get beyond Gerrard, Torres, Reina, and Mascherano
The final 30 minutes of that half were just as poor as the “effort” at White Hart Lane and on par with the worst performances of the Hughes Era. Watching your midfield get bossed around by Everton is one of the saddest sights a Premier League fan can see. When you’re making the likes of Fellaini look good in the midfield, you should be ashamed.
City looked the better side early on, with Everton sitting back and letting the visitors dominate the game. But as soon as Moyes cranked up the defensive pressure, City looked panicked and lost all composure. It was as though they thought they were playing away at Chelsea, not a side in the bottom half of the table with one win in their last nine.
Robinho and Petrov never should be on the pitch at the same time. There’s enough work rate in the side that City can afford to have one guy pulling out of tackles and getting pushed around by opponents — but two such players in the team is too many.
And that Everton opener was an absolute joke. Why de Jong was separating from the wall I’ll never understand. The relatively poor free kick went right where he should’ve been.
And Richards’s foul in the box was as stupid a penalty as has been given away in the league this season.
Definitely a strange feeling getting three points from what was technically a “comfortable” 2-0 win from what was one of City’s poorer performances this season. Whether it was fatigue or just a hangover from the midweek defeat, it was pretty shocking to see the general sluggishness pervasive in the team today.
While Adebayor was out, I was on board with playing Petrov on the right side. They didn’t really have much height in the box, so the team was much better off having Petrov cutting in and shooting with his left foot than with him running down the wing and pumping in crosses. But with Adebayor back, it’s just a waste of Petrov’s talents playing him on the right side. Move him back to the left, please.
Barry may as well go get that surgery, because he’s not really doing much out there. We all saw how influential he can be on a match in the first couple of months of the season, but he’s a shell of what himself right now. He’s been nearly invisible on the pitch for months now, to the point his starting spot on the England squad has to be in serious jeopardy. Just go get him fixed up and maybe he’ll be back by April and can contribute something.
If Kompany hadn’t injured his groin today, this would be an absolute no-brainer. Between Kompany, Vieira, and Ibrahim, there’s plenty of cover for Barry’s midfield position while he’s out. Hopefully Kompany isn’t out too long.
I wasn’t very fond of Bridge when he went down with his knee injury, but I’d love to see him back in the side right about now after watching Garrido try to defend today. He’s just not Top Four material.
On top of those points dropped at home from winning positions against three of the worst away sides in the Prem (Fulham, Burnley, and Hull), City have really failed to boost their goal difference against the bottom sides in the table. If I had to put money on three clubs to go down this season, I’d say Pompey (nailed on), Hull (a near certainty), and Burnley (this season’s Hull, only they won’t be as lucky). City now have played four of their six matches against this trio, and are just +3 GD in those four matches. If goal difference ends up being a major factor at the end of the season, look no further than those matches.
The exact fee is undisclosed, with reports varying from £22 to 25 million, but MCFC.co.uk has confirmed that City and Everton have reached an agreement for compensation paid to Goodison Park for Joleon Lescott.
City have denied seemingly credible reports of a medical on Sunday, though that should be out of the way by Monday.
City’s home runout ended up being a very mixed bag — alternately impressive and maddening, encouraging and worrying. In front of a sold-out crowd eager for any excuse to celebrate, Mark Hughes’s high-end team came out and looked every bit the elite side hosting a relegation candidate for the first 60 minutes.
When Carlos Tévez neatly played in Emmanuel Adebayor and the Togolese quickly struck to beat Wolves keeper Wayne Hennessey at his near post, it looked like this was destined to be an enjoyable romp for the home side. However, the second goal that would allow the crowd to relax and enjoy the rest of the match proved elusive.
It wasn’t for lack of opportunities, as City generated plenty of scoring chances. Rather, the word of the day was certainly “profligacy,” as Wolves manager Mick McCarthy made clear in his postgame comments. Even the normally sure-finishing Ireland was misfiring, as the sell-out crowd was forced to sit through a final 30 minutes that were far more tense than they should have been, with the crossbar playing a crucial role in the match’s outcome.
It says a great deal about the position City find themselves in that the dominant feeling amongst fans exiting the ground was a combination of frustration and relief. The defense certainly had its shaky moments, yet maintained its 100-percent record of clean sheets on the young season and kept alive City’s status as the only club in the Premier League yet to concede.
Gareth Barry produced another remarkable performance in the midfield for City. He’s not showing up in the highlights like fellow new boys Adebayor and Tévez, but the chorus of voices hailing Barry as Hughes’s most important summer signing continues to grow louder and louder.
Last season, City were capable of very stylish play, but had a real fragility to them. So far this season, we’ve seen much more resiliency out of the squad — particularly in defense. The defenders have been left scrambling at times in the first two matches, but the imminent signing of another top-shelf defender or two should solve that.
The big concern was whether all the new faces would be able to quickly jell and get on the same page, but that doesn’t seem to be an issue at all now. The big problem on Saturday was finishing, and that’s simply not going to be a concern for this group of players going forward.
