Personally, I think Ferguson is more worried than he's letting on. My own take is that he more aware than ever that while money can't guarantee success, lack of it will guarantee failure, and he still can't believe the investment we received last season, as he knows it is easily the most significant single off-the-pitch event, in terms of its long term potential and consequence, to have happened to any English club last season. And we were the recipients. I think he's more than a tad nervous that by the time he retires, he may not even be top dog in Manchester, sorry Greater Manchester. But I would prefer to draw attention, seeing as this particular thread is popular, to something written by Tim Rich today in the Observer. The piece is all about Ferguson, but one of its passages written by the author of the article got me in a big way. Goes like this.
"In Ferguson's eyes, there is only one reason why someone would swap the Premier League title holders and world club champions for a team who have gone 33 years without a trophy and finished ninth last season. Manchester City can now offer £7 million salaries."
Now, first of all, it cannot be said that anything bar the last sentence is not factual (what I mean is, that while it is true that we can now offer such salaries, it may not be the case that they are the sole or primary reason for people joining us). United are indeed the champions of England, and (ha, ha) the world (!), and City, it is true, have not won anything for 33 years and did indeed finish ninth, oh Tim you've got it wrong, we finished tenth, I'm surprised you didn't get that right! But rewind 20 years, United have just gone over 20 years without winning their "Holy grail", have won the odd FA Cup here and there, and have just finished 11th in the previous season. Now, I know that Gary Pallister, Paul Ince and Neil Webb were not joining United from the top flight champions when they signed on the dotted line, but this could be negated by the fact that Tevez was not getting regular first team football at his previous club. So a question must be put to Mr. Rich, and many of his ilk in the media - were those three players joining United back then for A. The money or B. The potential for glory? No one really knows apart from the players themselves, and subsequent events would seem to have borne out the latter theory, but the real point is that the second option was exactly that, an option. Why does this option seemingly not apply to us, right here right now? Why do so many of the hacks have to either write explicitly or implicitly that money is the sole motivation for a modern pro joining City? As I said in a thread this time last week, I would have imagined that an increase in salary to a young pro in the pre Sky era - say a £200 increase to a £1,200 weekly wage - was much more pertinent and important to him and his family than it is now, when many players are made for life. How are you supposed to get anywhere without spending?
Another thing, another hack whose name I can't remember wrote, in the week before Tevez signed, something along the lines of "and all Manchester City have been able to attract this summer are Gareth Barry and Roque Santa Cruz." I wonder what he was writing after Adebayor signed, and indeed what he'll be writing once we bring in our defensive reinforcements? In short, City, in the eyes of most though not all of the media, are "damned if they do and damned if they don't."
I would have thought that of all eras, this one in which a four-team cartel dominates proceedings, would be one where the journalists of the day would welcome a club - subject to ridicule by fans of other clubs in previous years and decades, starved of success but resolute in their backing, home to the most loyal and good natured fans any club could ask for, poor "relations" to the all-conquering United - with the funds to smash the top four. But no, they get as many digs in as they can, and in the process confirm what I've always suspected - that they lick United's bums, sneer at us, and spit out the dummy when good fortune finally smiles upon us. I really hope Hughes and the lads shove it up these stooges in the seasons to come, it would add to the joy I'd feel to see City successful again, and for the first time in my lifetime.
