If you think I’m that dopey that I don’t know that clickbait is about money, then heaven fucking help us. Of course I know a lot of it’s about money rather than an inbuilt loathing of all things City, but the upshot is the same whether the bias is by design or accidental. These last 2 weeks notwithstanding - when the media appears to have offered up a complete volte face - it’s us on the receiving end far more often than not.
As to who I’d want as a pundit, I’m not even bothered if it’s an ex-City player, just as long as they’re fair, and indeed being an ex-Blue is no guarantee of impartiality one way or the other. Trevor Sinclair, the Dunney Monster and the criminally underused Paul Lake, are clearly in our camp, whereas Trevor Francis and Danny Mills are two of the bitterest anti-City bastards ever to have held a mike.
As to non-City commentators I’ve no real beef with Lineker & Co on MOTD, and most of Sky’s pundits provide decent insight, most notably Souness, Carragher and, yes, Neville. Same goes for the papers. If Martin Samuel or Henry Winter, neither of whom is a City fan, writes an article about us then I’ll read it knowing that whether I agree with it or not, the author is worth listening to. What I can’t bear are the “cor blimey” merchants, old skool pros too thick to do anything other than regurgitate the ill informed opinions they hear on the Stretford End or at Klanfield or the Emirates. Cnutymore, Groves, Gale, Nicholas, Cow Pat (Crerand), Aldridge, Camelgob and the rest of the “not like in my day” crew. I also detest those organisations who eschew fair and credible reporting in favour of pandering to what they perceive to be the largest demographic, from the drip drip drip of snide digs courtesy of the BBC social media feed (the bulk of that particular team having been recruited from the rags PR department - literally), to the absolute mother lode, which was BT Sport actively setting up its 2015/2016 coverage of the Chimps League in the hope that City would lose, on the basis that there would be more gloating rags tuning in than disgruntled Blues - an incredible state of affairs given that they were a British broadcaster ostensibly covering a British team.
Just to help you get a flavour of the shit we’ve had to put up with since we started to impact the income streams of the old Sky 4, here’s a couple of bitter Chavski and Gooner journalists pedalling the lie that Mancini was hidden in the ground before we’d even told Mark Hughes he was being sacked, and using that as a starting point for slagging the club off on a myriad of fronts.....
