The Danger Of Football Snobbery
Watching your team seemingly slide out of the Champions League in only their second attempt at the competition is clearly not a sight that is to be relished and it will definitely bring rise to a lot of frustrations, but I'm beginning to wonder if rational thought has given way to sheer unadulterated rage and, subsequently, lots of shouting and over-reactions. Now, I was exactly thrilled to see City make a dog's dinner of a 0-1 lead in Ajax, but we all deal with defeats in different ways: Some take to Twitter and call for the manager's head, while I demolish three-quarters of a pack of McVitie's Chocolate Digestives.
To give some wider context to this blog, I'm going to take you back to the 2006-07 season. If you recall it – you might not, it was one of them you might wish to have blocked from your memory – City managed just 10 Premier League goals at home all season. The reason, putting aside the grander picture of the amount of red rather than black ink that was being used in the finances, quite simply was that City weren't good enough. We had a poor team, created few chances and scored even less.
It's no wonder, in that case, that a lot of matches during that final season of Stuart Pearce's management merge into one and the performances we so painfully sat through aren't in the forefront of everybody's mind, even if there were a couple of memorable results. Arsenal, West Ham, Middlesbrough, Fulham and Everton all came to Eastlands and lost, yet they were all fairly drab games. And, with the lack of quality on the pitch, they had to be; City would never have beaten Arsenal by getting the ball down and passing it through them. It had to be gritty, ugly and decided by a single goal.
Now this isn't a “look how far we've come, we should be proud to just be competing in the Champions League let alone expecting to win games against Europe's best” blog because that's rubbish. We've come a long way, sure, but that Division Two team of 1999 isn't a patch on the team we have now, thanks in no small part to staying in the Premier League in 2006-07 and to the financial investment that followed. The situations are incomparable; we don't have to settle for just playing these fixtures.
But the 2006-07 season is a perfect example of a time when City weren't entering matches as the best team in the country. That year, we, as fans, knew the club's limitations and we knew we had to pick our fights – we couldn't pass Arsenal off the pitch and we weren't going to open the game up at Old Trafford in order to get a result. We had to play a different style.
So, when we have been crowned Premier League champions and rock up to play the mid-to-low table teams, we shouldn't expect the opposition to play us at our own game. These days, City keep possession and put in performances we all dreamed of as we snoozed our way through those defeats to Blackburn, Reading or Wigan in 2007. It's a form of snobbery for fans to cry 'anti-football' when they witness teams try to beat City through a battling display, or by playing long balls over the top, or by playing for set pieces.
Both they and City circa 2007 play to their strengths. One of the biggest reasons tactics come into play is because football isn't a level playing field and it isn't the opposition's job to let us play how we want to. That would be barmy. But there's an attitude that's creeping in with an increasing number of City fans, recently. It's not anti-football when a team doesn't emulate Barcelona; it's well within the laws of the game to go long and play a direct style. It's just different-football-that-isn't-like-the-football-you-like-to-see-your-team-playing.
Granted, that's not as catchy.
But this attitude has been spreading. On seeing City lose to Ajax, I logged on to Twitter (@DavidMooney, since you were asking) to find an alarming number of fans hoping that, with the odds of qualifying for the Champions League knock-out stages being now slim-to-nil, their team finishes bottom of the group, thus avoiding the Europa League. Seemingly, it's a competition that is too far beneath the champions of England.
It wasn't too far beneath City in 2010-11, when we moved through the group stage – with a cough and splutter against Lech Poznan and Juventus – and eventually went out to Dynamo Kiev in the Round of 16. It wasn't too far beneath City in 2011-12, when we fought back from 0-3 down to be level at 3-3 against Sporting Lisbon, with Joe Hart heading just wide of the far post in stoppage time and leaving City to lose on the away goals rule. But now it is?
How very arrogant!
We deserve to be playing in the Champions League for having won the Premier League last season. However, we have not performed well in the competition this season and, on the displays so far, we do not deserve to qualify from the group. We have entered on equal footing with Real Madrid, Borussia Dortmund and Ajax, yet haven't played anywhere near well enough to win one of our three matches. Should we finish third, the Europa League is exactly where we should be playing; we can't simply shun it as below us, when we haven't shown why we are above it.
I have read so many tweets suggesting that it would be better to go out completely and not face the “unwelcome extra fixtures” the Europa League would provide. I don't understand how the extra fixtures that come from the Champions League wouldn't affect the team, while the Europa League ones would. If nobody takes the secondary continental competition seriously or we're better than the other teams in it, then its fixtures should be a doddle, right? Shouldn't those Europa League fixtures have less of an impact on our Premier League campaign than any additional Champions League fixtures? And it's another cup that would be available for City to win – hardly unwelcome.
Equally ridiculous is the number of fans who are beginning to get twitchy, edging towards wanting to see the manager's head on a plate for his failures in Europe. Ok, so historically, Roberto Mancini doesn't have the best record when it comes to the Champions League. However, domestically, his managerial performances have been top notch – we've already seen the value of continuity and backing the manager has had in the Premier League. Each year, Mancini has improved on the last's performance and it's the domestic performances that we need to focus on first.
This Saturday, when Roberto Mancini sits in the dugout for the home match with Swansea, he'll be taking charge of City in his 106th Premier League game. This makes him City's longest serving manager in the Premier League. And most successful, too – at a time when the blues need to continue to improve domestically, how many fans could seriously consider risking it to bring in somebody who might be better on the continent?
Let's not forget, copious amounts of money backed Manchester United and Chelsea's Champions League efforts; Sir Alex Ferguson has won the European Cup three times in his 26 years at United. Chelsea went through numerous managers trying to win it and ended up in the rocking the boat too much when it came to the Premier League. And Roberto Di Matteo did get some monumentally good fortune along the way, last season.
Roberto Mancini has faced the well documented tough draws in his two Champions League campaigns with City and his team has underperformed. But, so far, that's nothing more than a minor footnote on his 34-and-a-bit months at the helm, which has, so far, provided great grounds for him, his squad and his backroom staff to build on. I'm not saying that Mancini is above criticism, because he most certainly isn't. But there has to be a degree of thought and control to it.
So far this season, the manager has come under fairly heavy criticism for changing a winning formula, switching from last year's successful 4-2-2-2 formation to, at times, a variant of 3-5-2. Perhaps the timing of the switch – when it has happened – has been ill judged, but there's nothing wrong with the three-at-the-back system. In fact, it's somewhat more offensive than last season's set-up, providing the players are in their correct position and are comfortable with it. The system provides the width that City were crying out for on numerous occasions last season, while keeping the central stability.
At least, that's the theory. But this is where Mancini's tactics have been somewhat unsuccessful: Clichy and Zabaleta aren't centre-backs, Milner isn't a wing-back, Silva and Nasri aren't holding midfielders. The back-three system needs a trio of players who are comfortable central defenders (for me: Richards/Nastasic, Lescott, Kompany), plus two who are attacking full-backs (Kolarov, Richards/Maicon). It doesn't work when players are asked to fill in positions that aren't natural to them, one of the biggest problems City have had when switching systems this season.
Mancini shouldn't be attacked for trying something different. Change is the enemy of complacency and the manager is right to keep things fresh. A switch in formation was never intended to be change just for the sake of it, but rather an attempt to keep City as difficult to play against as possible.
Three poor performances in Europe can do a lot to a fan, especially when added to a couple of unconvincing domestic displays (without defeat, mind you). Everything is still heading in the right direction and there's still time for Mancini to learn (occasionally harsh) lessons on the continent.
Let's not act too hastily.
