Damocles said:chris85mcfc said:It's an internet forum
It's a place where people come to vent, and to express their opinions
Just because some people choose to question things, doesn't mean they go to the game and spend 90 minutes screaming at Pellegrini and the performances of some of our players
We will know on Saturday whether the manager is able to help steer us in the right direction this season, he has had a couple of weeks to analyse the opening few months and try and put a finger on what has prevented us from performing in certain gamese
Anyone that thinks there is a sense of entitlement amongst us, certainly doesn't speak for me. I like watching us play good football, and seeing the players playing with a smile on their faces, fingers crossed the international break will have refreshed a few of the players
But we are more than capable of winning this league this season, so how can anyone suggest its not over, but then claim a top 3 finish will do.
My personal opinion is that finishing 2nd and having a good FA cup run will be a decent season. But bearing in mind were out the league cup, and its looking very likely that we will be out of the CL, then finishing the season with anyone else apart from Chelsea above us will be nothing short of a disaster
No, being relegated to the third tier and almost going out of business was a disaster. Finishing third would be our third highest finish for 40 years. It is absolutely NOT "a disaster"
Shaelumstash said:Damocles said:Didsbury Dave said:You see, there's an interesting conversation to be had here. Maybe even a new thread if I can be arsed:
The psychology of the City fan. Because there is one, influenced by failure, false dawns, insecurity and particularly Man United.
Not sure Bluemoon is particularly proportionally representative, though.
I agree this would be an interesting conversation. Specifically how we were willing to give Pearce time under the guise of "room to improve" but somehow after winning a league Pellegrini is under pressure after 10 games.
As dreadful as it is to say it, all of those rags and wanker pundits giving it out years ago when we were taken over eventually got their wish. We have become spoilt and just expect these trophies to appear in front of us. Winning them is no longer an achievement but instead is now an expectation, a measure of how good or bad of a season it has been.
That's the problem with City, it's the difference between a 17 year old lad who buys his first car through grafting to one whose Dad buys it for them. When they inevitably total it, one of them will scrape the barrel of their savings and take on extra shifts at a factory and the other one will go crying to their Dad about how they need a new car.
Just as through hard times now there are some who will try to be sensible about the nature of form in football and point out that even Man United during their most dominant phase ever didn't win it every year, and there are those who will immediately sack the manager and want to sell half of the squad.
If we would have achieved this success through regular means rather than a never-before-seen catapult to the top, we'd have slowly built expectation and atmosphere and a confidence that we can keep going. You can take the fans out of the relegation fight but can't take the relegation fight out of the fans it seems.
League titles now are celebrated with barely a cheer from some sections of the fan base because that is the baseline season that City should be having because we're Man City and we're The Richest Club In The World™ and it's what the Sheikh expects aswell like any of us have the faintest idea what Sheikh Mansour wants or thinks. So that makes it fine to be slagging off a Double winning manager 11 games into the season when we lie in 3rd spot, and just not bothering with that massive Champions League game against Roma.
We put 70 odd thousand in Wembley for a Division Two play off final in 1999 but can't put 40,000 in our home stadium for a Champions League game against Roma that we desperately needed to win.
It's the same entitlement over and over now. Sheikh buy us Reus is our equivalent of Daddy buy me a new car, a huge proportion of the fanbase thinks that throwing money at a problem and sacking the manager is the answer; they of course think this because its what brought us to the table. When you teach fans that you can spend your way out of a problem they will expect it again and again and again. I mean, giving the manager time to work with players and integrate a new system? Bah! Sack him, bring in Pep, sell Nasri and buy Isco. All of our problems will then be solved. Right up until the next time we have a bad run of games and then Jovetic, Clichy and even Yaya Toure ffs will have to be looking over their shoulder as the "sell our whole team brigade" will start banging their drums and find the next great Football Manager legend that they swear they've seen loads of.
There's a section of our fanbase who are starting to resemble children with their petulant demands and "now, now, now" attitude.
Superbly written, extremely eloquent, congratulations on that.
It's strange that you should use the "throwing money at it" / 'first car' analogy, because I think both of those things are relevant to the side of the argument that are questioning Pellegrini.
Firstly, he seems to have no faith in youth, certainly not our youth players, as he consistently fails to give them an opportunity. Particularly in the early rounds of cup competitions / dead rubbers when we have managed to get some of our most important players injured over the last two seasons. Surely giving youth players an opportunity is a closer analogy to saving up and buying your own car, and blindly playing Fernando no matter how horrific he is just because daddy has paid good money for him is the reverse?
Also, most of the City fans I know do not necessarily want us to throw a load of money at the problem. They think we are grossly underachieving this season with the squad we have at our disposal. No City fan I know in the real world expects City to win every game, every trophy, and certainly don't have the sense of entitlement you allude to in your post. If anything, I would more agree with Dismal, more City fans have the pessimistic attitude of fearing things will go wrong and expecting the worst.
Whether the manager has been Brian Horton, Alan Ball, Frank Clarke, Kevin Keegan, Hughesless, Mancini or Pellegrini, the only thing City fans expect is that the manager gets the most out of the players / squad at his disposal, that has never changed. If the squad of players is shite, and they play shite, no one vilified the manager, it's when the manager underachieves that there have always been dissenting voices.
Look at Alan Ball, an absolute disaster of a manager. With the squad of players we had on the day he arrived, there is no way we should have been as diabolical as we were that season. That's why he is remembered as the worst manager we ever had, not for the fact we got relegated. Joe Royle got us relegated, but he was never looked at with the same contempt, because he did the best with what he had, the players were simply not good enough to stay up.
Hughes is another good example, the opportunity he had with the money he had to spend, the pathetic and naive football we were playing, it was clear he was not the man to move us forward. The fans gave him time, until it was obvious he was holding us back. Mancini came in and instantly made us much harder to beat and was setting the team up in a way that suited the players. He wasn't playing SWP in central midfield for a start! He was getting more out of the players than the previous guy, so he was well liked by the fans.
Pellegrini has the finest squad ever assembled at Manchester City at his disposal, there's no doubt about that. So of course he is expected to achieve a great deal with these players. I read someone earlier say that if we finish top 6 but not top 4 this season, it couldn't be considered a disaster. I completely disagree with that. For this squad of players in this league to finish 5th or 6th would be as big an under achievement as Ball getting us relegated.
No genuine City fan I know who has been following us for years demands we win every trophy like some spoilt child demanding a new car. What they expect is that the manager will get the very best out of the squad he has available. Whether that be by keeping their confidence sky high (early Keegan years) or being tactically astute (Mancini years) City fans love a manager that helps the squad achieve or over-achieve it's potential.
The early part of last season, and the early part of this, even his most ardent fan couldn't accuse Pellegrini of getting the most out of this squad of players. From December onwards last season he got the team playing extremely well, and deserves credit for that. But let's not be naive, winning the league last year with that squad of players was par.
I don't expect miracles from him, but I certainly don't expect a City manager in 2014 to be tactically outclassed by Sam Alladyce either. One off games are blips that can be forgotten about, but we have been nothing short of diabolical since the second half of the first Moscow game. That's 4 and a half games on the spin, which is alarming for a squad of our quality. This isn't temporary either, our form even before Moscow was patchy at best.
Questioning the manager is not a result of a feeling of entitlement to win every single trophy. It's from a feeling that City fans have always supported a manager who gets the most out of his squad, and questions managers who do not. We don't blindly support a manager who we feel is holding back the squad from achieving it's potential. Pellegrini is close to emulating Mark Hughes in that respect.
I think you are quite wrong to criticise people for not turning up to the Roma game. I was lucky enough to be able to afford a ticket, but criticising those who couldn't is rather crass.
Correct, wanting us to win every game is the baseline for being a fan, it doesn't betray a sense of entitlement or a failure to appreciate our historical perspective or a childish sense of expectation. It's about being a Blue.chris85mcfc said:Damocles said:chris85mcfc said:It's an internet forum
It's a place where people come to vent, and to express their opinions
Just because some people choose to question things, doesn't mean they go to the game and spend 90 minutes screaming at Pellegrini and the performances of some of our players
We will know on Saturday whether the manager is able to help steer us in the right direction this season, he has had a couple of weeks to analyse the opening few months and try and put a finger on what has prevented us from performing in certain gamese
Anyone that thinks there is a sense of entitlement amongst us, certainly doesn't speak for me. I like watching us play good football, and seeing the players playing with a smile on their faces, fingers crossed the international break will have refreshed a few of the players
But we are more than capable of winning this league this season, so how can anyone suggest its not over, but then claim a top 3 finish will do.
My personal opinion is that finishing 2nd and having a good FA cup run will be a decent season. But bearing in mind were out the league cup, and its looking very likely that we will be out of the CL, then finishing the season with anyone else apart from Chelsea above us will be nothing short of a disaster
No, being relegated to the third tier and almost going out of business was a disaster. Finishing third would be our third highest finish for 40 years. It is absolutely NOT "a disaster"
OK mate, perhaps some of us would see finishing 3rd and putting up a mediocre title challenge, given the money we have 'thrown about' would be not far short of a disaster
Given that we are all but out of 2 competitions already, finishing 3rd would be regression in every sense of the word
Clearly I have higher expectations than you as a fan, which is fine
Damocles said:Didsbury Dave said:You see, there's an interesting conversation to be had here. Maybe even a new thread if I can be arsed:
The psychology of the City fan. Because there is one, influenced by failure, false dawns, insecurity and particularly Man United.
Not sure Bluemoon is particularly proportionally representative, though.
I agree this would be an interesting conversation. Specifically how we were willing to give Pearce time under the guise of "room to improve" but somehow after winning a league Pellegrini is under pressure after 10 games.
As dreadful as it is to say it, all of those rags and wanker pundits giving it out years ago when we were taken over eventually got their wish. We have become spoilt and just expect these trophies to appear in front of us. Winning them is no longer an achievement but instead is now an expectation, a measure of how good or bad of a season it has been.
That's the problem with City, it's the difference between a 17 year old lad who buys his first car through grafting to one whose Dad buys it for them. When they inevitably total it, one of them will scrape the barrel of their savings and take on extra shifts at a factory and the other one will go crying to their Dad about how they need a new car.
Just as through hard times now there are some who will try to be sensible about the nature of form in football and point out that even Man United during their most dominant phase ever didn't win it every year, and there are those who will immediately sack the manager and want to sell half of the squad.
If we would have achieved this success through regular means rather than a never-before-seen catapult to the top, we'd have slowly built expectation and atmosphere and a confidence that we can keep going. You can take the fans out of the relegation fight but can't take the relegation fight out of the fans it seems.
League titles now are celebrated with barely a cheer from some sections of the fan base because that is the baseline season that City should be having because we're Man City and we're The Richest Club In The World™ and it's what the Sheikh expects aswell like any of us have the faintest idea what Sheikh Mansour wants or thinks. So that makes it fine to be slagging off a Double winning manager 11 games into the season when we lie in 3rd spot, and just not bothering with that massive Champions League game against Roma.
We put 70 odd thousand in Wembley for a Division Two play off final in 1999 but can't put 40,000 in our home stadium for a Champions League game against Roma that we desperately needed to win.
It's the same entitlement over and over now. Sheikh buy us Reus is our equivalent of Daddy buy me a new car, a huge proportion of the fanbase thinks that throwing money at a problem and sacking the manager is the answer; they of course think this because its what brought us to the table. When you teach fans that you can spend your way out of a problem they will expect it again and again and again. I mean, giving the manager time to work with players and integrate a new system? Bah! Sack him, bring in Pep, sell Nasri and buy Isco. All of our problems will then be solved. Right up until the next time we have a bad run of games and then Jovetic, Clichy and even Yaya Toure ffs will have to be looking over their shoulder as the "sell our whole team brigade" will start banging their drums and find the next great Football Manager legend that they swear they've seen loads of.
There's a section of our fanbase who are starting to resemble children with their petulant demands and "now, now, now" attitude.
Lavinda Past said:Damocles said:Didsbury Dave said:You see, there's an interesting conversation to be had here. Maybe even a new thread if I can be arsed:
The psychology of the City fan. Because there is one, influenced by failure, false dawns, insecurity and particularly Man United.
Not sure Bluemoon is particularly proportionally representative, though.
I agree this would be an interesting conversation. Specifically how we were willing to give Pearce time under the guise of "room to improve" but somehow after winning a league Pellegrini is under pressure after 10 games.
As dreadful as it is to say it, all of those rags and wanker pundits giving it out years ago when we were taken over eventually got their wish. We have become spoilt and just expect these trophies to appear in front of us. Winning them is no longer an achievement but instead is now an expectation, a measure of how good or bad of a season it has been.
That's the problem with City, it's the difference between a 17 year old lad who buys his first car through grafting to one whose Dad buys it for them. When they inevitably total it, one of them will scrape the barrel of their savings and take on extra shifts at a factory and the other one will go crying to their Dad about how they need a new car.
Just as through hard times now there are some who will try to be sensible about the nature of form in football and point out that even Man United during their most dominant phase ever didn't win it every year, and there are those who will immediately sack the manager and want to sell half of the squad.
If we would have achieved this success through regular means rather than a never-before-seen catapult to the top, we'd have slowly built expectation and atmosphere and a confidence that we can keep going. You can take the fans out of the relegation fight but can't take the relegation fight out of the fans it seems.
League titles now are celebrated with barely a cheer from some sections of the fan base because that is the baseline season that City should be having because we're Man City and we're The Richest Club In The World™ and it's what the Sheikh expects aswell like any of us have the faintest idea what Sheikh Mansour wants or thinks. So that makes it fine to be slagging off a Double winning manager 11 games into the season when we lie in 3rd spot, and just not bothering with that massive Champions League game against Roma.
We put 70 odd thousand in Wembley for a Division Two play off final in 1999 but can't put 40,000 in our home stadium for a Champions League game against Roma that we desperately needed to win.
It's the same entitlement over and over now. Sheikh buy us Reus is our equivalent of Daddy buy me a new car, a huge proportion of the fanbase thinks that throwing money at a problem and sacking the manager is the answer; they of course think this because its what brought us to the table. When you teach fans that you can spend your way out of a problem they will expect it again and again and again. I mean, giving the manager time to work with players and integrate a new system? Bah! Sack him, bring in Pep, sell Nasri and buy Isco. All of our problems will then be solved. Right up until the next time we have a bad run of games and then Jovetic, Clichy and even Yaya Toure ffs will have to be looking over their shoulder as the "sell our whole team brigade" will start banging their drums and find the next great Football Manager legend that they swear they've seen loads of.
There's a section of our fanbase who are starting to resemble children with their petulant demands and "now, now, now" attitude.
Good post.
Unfortunately Damo, you're writing from the heart and not from the head. Society has changed, football has changed, and expectations are higher. If the club sits back and accepts a few periods of 'mediocrity', there is no way that we'll increase / maintain our fan base over the next 20 years or so.
Everything at the club screams 'progress' - The owners crave success - Their aim is to dominate English, and possibly European, football as soon as possible, for the long term. The owners are looking to emulate the long term domination / success of Barcelona and Real Madrid. If it means changing the 'coach' every season, they'll do it. Why should they tolerate failure?
Regardless of all the blue tinters thoughts, Pellegrini got lucky last season - We could / should have had the league wrapped up with three games to go. We nearly blew it, but we won it. Then the expectation increases...
Pellegrini has had another 'lucky break' with FFP - If we don't meet high expectations, he can blame restrictions on buying new players / CL squad limit. He's now got a few injuries he can refer to at his end of year interview.
The squad has barely changed from last season, but we look a shadow of the team. Mansour / Khaldoon etc are seeing the same as us and I can't for one second think that their expectations for this season would have been any different from most fans: Progress beyond the group stage in the CL - possibly reaching the quarter / semi final stage; put up a credible defence of our PL title, playing open attractive attacking football; and possibly win a domestic cup.
We're still potentially on course to meet all those expectations, and I would expect us to achieve at least one. The problem is that it's not been very convincing to date. We're limping along in a very average PL and have failed to demonstrate any sign of genuine dominance in CL group games other than half an hour or so in Moscow, and a solid bit of rearguard action in Munich. In terms of 'entertainment', we ain't seen too much of that from our multi-millionaire superstars this season.
New fans are going to expect much more than we old timers ever dreamed of. They are the future - that's the market that the club is aiming for. They want youngsters worldwide to follow City, buy shirts etc, in the same way that kids 'followed' Liverpool, the rags, Arsenal , Chelsea etc.
Success on the pitch breeds success off the pitch - Expectations are high - Higher than ever. Don't kid yourself for one second that Mansour / Khaldoon etc are bothered whether the new City fans (customers) come from Manchester or Melbourne - Success for them doesn't mean a stadium full of die-hard Mancunians - it doesn't matter where people come from, how long they've supported City, or how many matches they've been to. It's supply and demand - If they can get 60,000 day trippers in the ground spending more than 60,000 'locals', they'll do it.
Times have changed. We can look back on the past with fondness, but it's another country now. Mansour and Co will not tolerate underachievement as readily as us old timers - they'll get more ruthless as time goes on. They've not invested so much in the Academy for nothing... They'll expect success / improvement year on year. As paying supporters, it is perfectly reasonable for all of us to have much higher expectations than we did pre-2008.
As someone else said in an earlier post, Pellegrini is a stop gap manager. He was a stop gap last season because the Barca Boys didn't get Guardiola. He got lucky last season but we're now seeing that tactically he is very limited, and his general demeanour on the touchline suggests that he's clean out of ideas. He's not good enough for Manchester City. He lacks the ability / nous to do what is necessary to take City to the next level. He is a stop gap who seems to have learned little about the PL and who flattered to deceive as a manager in Spain - In my opinion he would have been a downgrade on Mark Hughes.
I admit that I do sometimes miss the old days when we were really shit, but I am more disappointed when I see our current stellar squad struggling to match QPR etc. My expectations are infinitely higher now than at any point during the 53 years that I've followed City.
If any fan's expectations are not significantly higher than they were pre-2008, then they are out of touch with the club's ambitions. If the majority of fans (old and new) would be happy to win something 'every now and then', the takeover and subsequent investment has been a waste of time. Mansour wants City to dominate football - we should expect no less.
Lavinda Past said:Pellegrini has had another 'lucky break' with FFP - If we don't meet high expectations, he can blame restrictions on buying new players / CL squad limit. He's now got a few injuries he can refer to at his end of year interview.
Shaelumstash said:Firstly, he seems to have no faith in youth, certainly not our youth players, as he consistently fails to give them an opportunity. Particularly in the early rounds of cup competitions / dead rubbers when we have managed to get some of our most important players injured over the last two seasons. Surely giving youth players an opportunity is a closer analogy to saving up and buying your own car, and blindly playing Fernando no matter how horrific he is just because daddy has paid good money for him is the reverse?
Whether the manager has been Brian Horton, Alan Ball, Frank Clarke, Kevin Keegan, Hughesless, Mancini or Pellegrini, the only thing City fans expect is that the manager gets the most out of the players / squad at his disposal, that has never changed. If the squad of players is shite, and they play shite, no one vilified the manager, it's when the manager underachieves that there have always been dissenting voices.
Look at Alan Ball, an absolute disaster of a manager. With the squad of players we had on the day he arrived, there is no way we should have been as diabolical as we were that season. That's why he is remembered as the worst manager we ever had, not for the fact we got relegated. Joe Royle got us relegated, but he was never looked at with the same contempt, because he did the best with what he had, the players were simply not good enough to stay up.
Hughes is another good example, the opportunity he had with the money he had to spend, the pathetic and naive football we were playing, it was clear he was not the man to move us forward. The fans gave him time, until it was obvious he was holding us back. Mancini came in and instantly made us much harder to beat and was setting the team up in a way that suited the players. He wasn't playing SWP in central midfield for a start! He was getting more out of the players than the previous guy, so he was well liked by the fans.
Pellegrini has the finest squad ever assembled at Manchester City at his disposal, there's no doubt about that.
So of course he is expected to achieve a great deal with these players. I read someone earlier say that if we finish top 6 but not top 4 this season, it couldn't be considered a disaster. I What they expect is that the manager will get the very best out of the squad he has available. Whether that be by keeping their confidence sky high (early Keegan years) or being tactically astute (Mancini years) City fans love a manager that helps the squad achieve or over-achieve it's potential.
The early part of last season, and the early part of this, even his most ardent fan couldn't accuse Pellegrini of getting the most out of this squad of players. From December onwards last season he got the team playing extremely well, and deserves credit for that. But let's not be naive, winning the league last year with that squad of players was par.
I don't expect miracles from him, but I certainly don't expect a City manager in 2014 to be tactically outclassed by Sam Alladyce either. One off games are blips that can be forgotten about, but we have been nothing short of diabolical since the second half of the first Moscow game. That's 4 and a half games on the spin, which is alarming for a squad of our quality. This isn't temporary either, our form even before Moscow was patchy at best.
Questioning the manager is not a result of a feeling of entitlement to win every single trophy. It's from a feeling that City fans have always supported a manager who gets the most out of his squad, and questions managers who do not. We don't blindly support a manager who we feel is holding back the squad from achieving it's potential. Pellegrini is close to emulating Mark Hughes in that respect.
I think you are quite wrong to criticise people for not turning up to the Roma game. I was lucky enough to be able to afford a ticket, but criticising those who couldn't is rather crass.
chris85mcfc said:Doff my cap :)
hgblue said:I wonder. It wasn't the fans who sacked Hughes and replaced him with Mancini. It wasn't the fans who ditched a title winning manager and replaced him with Pellegrini. Fair enough in both cases there were compelling arguments for both sackings, and maybe you're right and Pellegrini will be different in that he'll survive a prolonged period without success, but I doubt it.
Didsbury Dave said:Lavinda Past said:Pellegrini has had another 'lucky break' with FFP - If we don't meet high expectations, he can blame restrictions on buying new players / CL squad limit. He's now got a few injuries he can refer to at his end of year interview.
I definitely vote this as Bluemoon's silliest comment of 2014.
Undeniably funny, but also makes you go a bit dizzy that people can exist so divorced from reality.
"A lucky break with FFP". Occasionally in life I feel surprised that some people can get past working the toaster in the morning. Sweet Jesus. Head-spinningly surreal.