Robbie Savage is a Blue!
"If you think Man City missing out on the Champions League means them missing out on the world's top players, you're having a laugh. The lure of the Champions League might be huge, but the lure of the Abu Dhabi millions is even greater.
And that is why City's narrow failure to finish in the big four won't put top players off from playing Thursday nights on Channel Five.
It's a sad fact that money talks in football, but then it does in any walk of life. You might love your job but if you were offered a 50% pay rise elsewhere I bet you'd walk.
And even if you're on £100,000 a week in the Champions League, I reckon you might just drop down to the Europa if the terms were £200,000 every seven days.
City are doing the right thing by backing my friend Roberto Mancini to stay as manager. He might have come up short against a stronger Spurs side but he's been a success at Eastlands, building on the good work done by Mark Hughes and settling the defence.
He's told me how much he loves the club, the fans and English football and now I think City will bankroll him to build his own side over the summer.
The areas to work on are obvious. City need two full backs and a central defender to either replace the incumbents or push them for their places. Hamburg's Jerome Boateng is a good choice in the middle of defence.
More important is a creative midfielder to sit alongside the excellent destroyer Nigel De Jong, making incisive passes towards Carlos Tevez and either driving towards the box with the ball or arriving late on the edge. A Xavi or Gerrard type, and maybe James Milner fits the bill. I also think they could do with a Midfielder with blonde hair and a big nose who cannot pass, shoot or tackle and just generally runs round the pitch giving fouls away and winding every fucker up.
Most important of all is a striker who can play in the penalty area and I would do anything to sign the deadly David Villa from Valencia.
Of course, Roberto will have his own ideas and I'll only give him one piece of advice.
Mate, enjoy your summer back home in Italy - but you're going to look daft on the beach in that scarf.
**
Roberto Mancini was so humble in defeat on Wednesday night - clearly gutted but shaking Spurs players' hands at the final whistle.
I hope Arsene Wenger was watching. The Arsenal boss is one of the greatest managers of all time yet again he was carping without any good reason after the Gunners lost at Blackburn.
Neither of Rovers' goals were in any way a foul on the goalkeeper and I just wish Wenger would learn to lose with the same class his brilliant teams show on the field."
