How can anyone doubt the impact that these two men have had on the club?
It is five years since we were taken over, this past summer has been our most peaceful, harmonious and professional period in those five years.
For the first time we actually commanded the respect of our fellow clubs whilst conducting our business. Fiorentina, Seville, Shakhtar Donetsk and Atletico Madrid, we dealt with them quickly, quietly and professionally. Do you remember when Lazio kept increasing the asking price for Kolarov? Or when Gary Cook famously said that AC Milan had “bottled” the Kaka transfer? Whether we like it or not, the way we have acted in the past has made us a bit of a joke with other clubs thinking they can take us for a ride and publicly humiliate us.
That will never happen again with these two men at our helm.
They have extensive connections within world Football. Hence the signing of Navas for a bargain price of £14,000,000 and Jovetic for £23,000,000.
They have finally rid us of our most disruptive characters in Balotelli, Tevez and Mancini. Just one year ago today after signing Maicon, Garcia, Rodwell, Sinclair and Nastasic, there was a war of words between Mancini and Marwood/Soriano/Begiristain over who had control over the club. It was just ridiculous. Then there has been training ground bust ups and the Tevez scandal.
No, I couldn’t be happier with the club and how it has conducted itself. It actually feels like we have an identity as a club now. We are working on our infrastructure, we are building the best academy in England, are buying players who will fit in with the newly installed ethos of the Club. And for once, we are not constantly shooting ourselves in the foot and giving the press something to write about. People respect these two men, do you remember Soriano’s interview at the start of the summer? He said “We know Pep, so if he had wanted to come to the Premier League, he would have phoned us.” That shows how highly he rates himself, how high his ambition is for us as a club and how he views us already. That if the best manager in the world wanted to come, he would have rang us first, desperate to manage Manchester City. The same for Begiristain, did you see how calm and cool he looked during and after the Champions League draw?
I genuinely believe that we are on the cusp of something truly great. We didn’t handle the sacking of Mancini correctly, but that shouldn’t detract from how good these two are doing. Just look at the farce across the road, Woodward and Moyes being rejected, missing out on and played by Thiago, Fabregas, Herrera, Baines and Coentrao. Then signing Fellaini for £27,500,000. That is a joke and for the first time in a while their fans are looking on in great jealousy at us, not for the actually players we have signed (who are great in quality), but for the manner in which we are conducting ourselves compared to them.
