Does he mean bad reputation off the pitch like sneaking girls into a covid bubbled hotel and getting sent home from international duty as a result or going out on the lash with another player a few days before Xmas after a game?
Fair point, but ask yourself this: does Phil ever not deliver on the pitch? Does he ever go completely missing in matches?
I'm not saying that I admire those off-pitch antics but, ultimately, you want a City player to deliver where it counts. On that rectangle of green. Mario's form fell off a cliff with us. When he stopped delivering on the pitch, all that stuff that had seemed quite amusing took on a different light. We'll never really know what Mario's talent was. How far he could have taken it. I guarantee you that Phil won't fritter his away. On the contrary, ten years up the road, nobody will remember those foolish things. They'll just think of him as one of the best players City's ever had.
Mario was
exactly the right thing for us in that 2011-12 season. We needed someone to give a big “fuck you!” to the rags. Along with Tevez, he did that. I'll remember him fondly for “Why always me?”, for that ridiculously casual shoulder goal against Norwich, for the way he stepped up nonchalantly to put that penalty away and take the three points against Spurs in a game that they should by rights have at least drawn, and at a point when by rights he shouldn't even have been on the pitch. I'll remember him much less fondly for not even having the discipline to stay on the pitch against Arsenal, in a crucial game — at that point, I thought we'd fucked up our first title in forty-four years, and I hated him, as being at least partly responsible.
He was good fun while it lasted. It didn't last very long.
