Right now Rags fans, everywhere, and their Meeja allies, who LUHV to see City paraded for all to see as English Football's perennial fuck-up, are enjoying the moment.
How could anybody fail to convince a footballer to join our club at treble his wages,....(or whatever the reported respective sums are).
And for the 'new' City: the City that was going to seriously challenge the establish order: the 'Big Four' that all but Martin O'Neill, and perhaps even David Moyes has accepted as being 'set in stone'
I don't care so much that Gary Cook has been beaten by an established, and, indeed, the wiliest of political operators, like Silvio Berlusconi.
A man, after all that has had more obituaries, political or otherwise, than Mark Twain.
But I do care about the undignified way he has reacted.
I'm not being wise after the event and its perhaps being unfair to Mr Cook because I suspect he didn't receive his education in the school of hard knocks but, rather, the carefully-calculated old school espoused by the deans of America's best MBA schools.
Which is perhaps why he proved such a success at Nike.
In situations like this, whenever the situation sounds too good to be true the first rule of 'politics' is to get yourself inside the mind of your 'opponent'
What is his motivations, knowing what you do of him.
What really is in it, for him!
Or perhaps Mr Cook didn't educate himself as to what makes Signor Berlusconi tick.
I recall seeing a few posters here mention that our pursuit of Kaka was initially being promoted on Berlusconi-linked websites.
Unfortunately the penny didn't drop with Mr Cook.
Gary Cook is probably a nice man,.....perhaps even a very nice man.
And maybe he'll learn from this.
But I just question whether he really is the right man for THIS job
