City vs Palace - a few thoughts

A win is still a win. The title isn't won by winning 7-0 against Norwich, it's won on days like this when a team doesn't play well and still finds a way to win. A few observations on the game:

• The game can be summed up by the above photo. Palace set themselves up in a 4-5-1 formation with each line about 10 yards apart. The photo shows this perfectly. They were disciplined and went about the job very effectively. This is classic Tony Pulis tactics. At Stoke he would often set his side up like this away from home. The goal is to keep it tight and try and nick something from the game, and if they concede they still don't change from this tactic, saving themselves for another day.
• This very nearly worked for Palace and it was only thanks to some excellent saves from Joe Hart that they didn't nick something. It's good to have him not only looking back to his best, but also showing a lot of bravery.
• The game was one where we needed to show a lot of patience. We did this and will have more days like this before the end of the season. When the opposition sets themselves up this way an early goal usually means we'll go on to win comfortably. But the longer the game goes on without a goal, the harder it will feel.
• The best way to break down a defence in these circumstances is through movement off the ball and rapid ball movement. This should pull the defense about until the gaps appear. Palace were very disciplined and kept their shape which made off the ball movement difficult - there was no space to move into. The rapid ball movement wasn't helped by the selection of Javi Garcia. He was sat too deep and moves the ball too slowly for a game such as this. Far too often he was next to the centre backs with no Palace player within 20 yards. Eventually Kompany started bringing the ball out of defence but Garcia should not have spent the whole game so deep.
• Dzecko comes in for a lot of criticism from City fans. He isn't as good as Aguero or Negrado, but how many other teams have a third choice striker as good as him? I can't think of a Premier League team. He now has 50 goals for City and we can be thankful he took his one real chance on Saturday so well.

City demolish Norwich - were City good or Norwich rubbish?

My second visit to the Etihad of the season and a first. I'm not sure I've ever seen City score 7 before. When was the last time City scored that many? I can't recall us doing that since the 10-1 victory over Huddersfield in the 80's.

But I'm not sure how good City were. Norwich seemed to allow City to play and didn't really do anything in the game. I'm almost left asking if they actually turned up? They were awful and I've no idea what their game plan was. It wasn't to sit back and get men behind the ball, there was no attempt to use pressing and get pressure on the ball. The result was that Silva, Nasri, Aguero etc had plenty of time on the ball to do what they wanted. This inevitably meant a hammering for Norwich.

I'm not sure there's much point analysing how City played. Defensively there was little to do and in attack they showed what we know already. Given plenty of possession and time on the ball, they will score a lot of goals with the attacking firepower in the squad. I doubt they will get as much possession and time again this season.

Finally, has Yaya found his favourite place on the pitch? If City get a free kick there again, there's a good chance he'll score again.

Thoughts on City vs Everton

For a variety of reasons this was my first visit to the Etihad this season. A few thoughts on the game:

• The first half was fairly even but we dominated the second. During the first half I was worried by the amount of space Everton were getting in midfield, far too much of it.
• A reason for this was Fernandinho. I'm not convinced by him. I put his relative anonymity in the games I've seen on TV down to the type of player he is. I'd assumed he was doing lots of defensive work off the ball but from seeing him live I'm not sure of that. He seemed far too passive and always a yard away from where he should be. And as someone said to me after the game - he tackles from the wrong side. Hopefully this is just while he gets used to the Premier League.
• It was good to have Merlin back. Is there a better creative player in the Premier League? Despite his frustrating reluctance to shoot, his passing is a joy to watch and he ran the game in the second half.
• Most impressive Everton player? Lukaku in the first half. He was a handful. Why Chelsea don't seem to want him I've no idea.
• How bad was the referee? Thankfully his performance didn't affect the result but it was a bizarre performance. There were some tackles in the first half which should have been a yellow card. I'd assumed David Silva had been booked for one so thought he was going to be sent off when he eventually did get a very soft yellow. Late on in the game it seemed every foul got a yellow. There was also a 10 second spell in the first half where he gave Everton a free-kick when it wasn't a foul, allowed them to take a quick one from 10 yards away, then gave a goal kick after a Joe Hart save from Lukaku. 3 out of 3 wrong there.
• The referee's inconsistency extended to the penalty. Either both teams should have had a penalty or neither. The penalty is soft but was for me a foul, as was Nastasic's shove in the first half. See my view of it below:

• And my view of the penalty being scored (Tim Howard a bit unlucky)

 :

• Finally the attendance. Officially over 47,000 but there were never that many in the crowd. I know the attendance is tickets sold, and other clubs have worse issues with this (e.g.United), but I don't understand why some people buy tickets and don't turn up.

Thoughts on City vs Villa

My thoughts on City's loss to Villa on Saturday can be summed up as follows - how the hell did that happen?

Demolition Derby - some thoughts

That was possibly the best 50 minutes football I've ever seen Manchester City play. 4-0 was a fair reflection of the game at that point as City simply overwhelmed and overpowered United. A few thoughts:

• Sometimes Yaya Toure is like a force of nature, just unstoppable and too powerful. Sunday was one of those days. A couple of years ago I heard a good analogy for Toure - he's like the Ents from Lord of the Rings. Slow to get going, can spend much of the time looking sleepy but once roused utterly unstoppable.
• The captain was imperious. It's strange to think that in a game we dominated by attacking, possibly the best player on the pitch was a defender. Vincent Kompany was just magnificent.
• What's wrong with Nastasic this season? Is it just me or is he not playing well? Last year it took me a while to realise how good he was. He didn't stand out because everything was done so efficiently with a minimum of fuss. He was rarely out of position, and in the end this is what stood out for me - how he quietly and efficiently did his job. This season he's stood out more and not in a good way. Arguably he should have been sent off for a second yellow on Sunday. Let's hope this is a temporary drop in form and he's soon back to his best.
• Nasri's best game for City?
• Kolorov demonstrated a perfect example of how attack is sometimes the best form of defence. By attacking he pushed Valencia back meaning he didn't need to do much defending. Kolorov's defending isn't as good as Clichy's but when he attacks like he did in the Derby, he doesn't have much defending to do.
• At times there was a simplicity to City's attacking which is hid how difficult it is to achieve. There was a lot of quick pass-and-move. Barcelona have spent the past few years becoming the masters of pass-and-move but at a slow pace, looking to keep the ball at all costs. Last year Dortmund and Bayern did it at pace. Are City heading down the Dortmund/Bayern route tactically? The team is still evolving but in a very interesting direction.
• I just love the picture of Kompany celebrating the fourth goal above. Sums up the day.

Finally, at the risk of sounding like I'm defending David Moyes, am I the only one who thought his substitution made sense tactically? It was done far too late (should have been at half-time) but it reminded me of how Mancini often used De Jong. I had thought the media had realised from that that bringing on a defensive midfielder is not necessarily a defensive substitution, yet all the reports I've read call it a damage limitation move, trying to stop more goals going in. I don't agree.

To explain this, think about the following. United had no control of the game, no decent possession. So having 4 attacking players on isn't much of a threat. 3 attacking players with the ball are more dangerous than 4 without. By bringing on Cleverley, it first gets an extra body into a central midfield area that Yaya and Fernandinho were dominating. That should get them more possession. It also allowed Fellani to get forward more (as would happen with Yaya when De Jong came on) and they could change the shape of their team to pose a different attacking threat for the defence to deal with.

After the substitution, United did play better and were more of an attacking threat although much of that could have been City relaxing with the game already won. According to much of the media, it was a defensive move though. Unfortunately they still see substitutions as a 1-for-1 change and don't bother to look at other changes that may follow such as how the shape of the team changes. This is something Mancini used to do a lot, a substitution and a change of formation at the same time. Sometimes it worked, such as the time he replaced Aguero with Kolorov at 0-0 away at Wigan and we went on to win 2-0, sometimes it didn't.

Transfer Window - how did it go?

Now the transfer window has slammed shut (as sky put it), how did we do? The basic changes to the squad are:

• Fernandinho replaces Gareth Barry
• Jesus Navas replaces Scott Sinclair
• Alvaro Negredo replaces Carlos Tevez
• Stevan Jovetic replaces Mario Balotelli
• Martin Demichelis replaces Kolo Toure
• Maicon was sold but not replaced

In addition, Wayne Bridge, Roque Santa Cruz and a number of youth team players have left on loan or have been released. Of the above, I'd argue Fernandinho and Navas are definite improvements. Negrado and Jovetic are different types of players to Tevez and Balotelli so it remains to be seen if that's an improvement. Demichelis should provide at least as reliable back up cover at centre back as Kolo Toure, and Maicon was probably going to be third choice right back and so we can probably cope without replacing him.

The biggest disappointment for me was the sale of Denis Saurez. Although he hadn't made the first team breakthrough yet he was a very promising talent and Barcelona clearly see something there worth investing in. The owners stated desire to see more academy players making the first team has seen a set-back with this.

Although we have a net spend of around £80 million, there will be a benefit from a reduction in the wage bill. Several high wage earners were moved on and either not replaced (e.g. Bridge and Santa Cruz) or replaced with lower wage earners (e.g. Tevez was probably on more than Negredo and Jovetic combined). This should help with FFP compliance.

Overall I think we've had a successful transfer window. Although there was no major name signed, all the new faces look to be good signings and the squad has a fresher, improved look.

Champions League draw thoughts

That's much better than last year. And the year before. That was my initial reaction after the draw but its a dangerous one. Bayern Munich are obviously the big name in the group but the trips to Moscow and the Czech Republic won't be easy. The Moscow one especially partly due to the distance, there could well be a domestic hangover from that which will need managing carefully especially as it's Chelsea away afterwards.

But it's a group we should be capable of getting through if we perform to our ability.

City v Cardiff - some thougts

A tough loss but given how well Cardiff played, not that unexpected. Before the season started I suspected playing a promoted side so early in the season was dangerous and so it proved. At half time I tweeted:

There's a big team going to lose at Cardiff this season. Hope it's not us today #mcfc
— David Lamb (@dlamb75) August 25, 2013

Sadly I was right. Cardiff is going to be a tough place to visit.

A few observations on how City played:

• Garcia isn't good enough at centre back. Sadly with Kompany injured, and Nastasic not fully fit we were down to only one fit centre back. Garcia did play there in pre-season but he lacks pace and doesn't have the experience or instincts needed to compensate for this.
• We've switched from Zonal to Man marking at corners. Is it possible that the two goals conceded from corners are due to the players still getting used to this? On Sky on Monday night, Jamie Carragher made the excellent point that had those goals been conceded when we were using zonal marking, the system would have been blamed. As it was man-marking, Hart and Zabaleta were blamed. Cardiff's delivery at the corners was superb though, so it's possible neither system would have worked.
• At times the game was a return to many games over the last couple of years. Cardiff retreated into the final third and got 10 men behind the ball. The quick passing and movement we showed against Newcastle were less effective here and its in games like this were we will need to show a lot more patience.
• We showed signs of a weakness from last season - being too narrow. Navas should be an important option in games like this but he drifted inside too much.
• Cardiff did take every opportunity to attack though. This is not something most teams do when they sit back and defend against us.

This Season's Chant?

Every season there seems to emerge a new chant or celebration. 3 seasons ago it was the Poznan, 2 seasons ago the Balotelli song, and last season the Yaya/Kolo song. Is this this seasons?

City 4 Newcastle 0 - a few thoughts

Well that was a good start wasn't it? Yes it's just one game, but City looked impressive last night and there are already noticeable differences in the style of play. Here are a few observations on last night’s game:

• City moved the ball much quicker. There was a 'directness' about the ball movement. Not directness in the style of the long-ball game. More a sense of move the ball quickly forward through quick sharp and short passing. The long, slow patient build-up play that characterised City under Mancini looks to have been replaced by something much more aggressive.
• Off the ball there was more aggression when it came to pressing. There was almost a Barcelona style of aggression to it at times.
• Early in the game I felt this meant we weren't controlling possession as much as we used to. This is reflected in stats showing we only had 55% possession, despite Newcastle going into damage limitation mode and sitting back for the second half. This is probably a result of the more aggressive, quicker passing.
• If we will allow the opposition more possession this season, then the defence is going to come under more pressure. There was little to learn from this game about how the defence will be organised under Pellegrini as Newcastle offered little attacking threat. In fact, at half time I realised I wasn't even sure if we were still using zonal marking at corners or not. Even now I'm not sure.
• Sky's commentators tried to pin down City as playing a 4-4-2 formation. This was a very simplistic view of the formation. The fluidity of the front 6 was such that the shape of the team was constantly changing. There's an excellent analysis of a key feature that makes this fluidity work by Michael Cox at the Guardian.

We will have much bigger tests, but this is a promising start. One word I've used frequently above is aggressive. There was a general aggression about City's attacking play, both with and without the ball. For me this is a welcome development although it remains to be seen what the implications are defensively from this.

A few thoughts and predictions on the new season

The new season starts this weekend. This is always the time for maximum optimism, though as a City fan I still fear the worst. So maybe it's time to take a step back and look at what would be realistically a good season.

Before last season I felt we'd have had a successful season if we:

• finished 2nd or better in the Premier League
• won a trophy
• got past the group stage of the Champions League

Of those 3, 1 was achieved (2nd in the league), 1 was close (losing the FA Cup Final) and not getting past the group stage of the Champions League could be excused as the draw put us in the group of death. On that basis, an argument could be made that last season was okay. And yet it all felt so disappointing. The team seemed to go backward.

So to this season, and the most important thing for me is a feeling that the team is moving forwards. If we achieve that and finish in the top 3 of the League than that would be a satisfactory season. For a successful season, if the team feels like it's moved forward and we achieve at least 2 of the above criteria from last season then I will be happy.

Finally to put my neck on the line a few predictions:

In the Premier League, the top 2 will be City and Chelsea (though I'm not sure of the order), United will be 3rd, and Spurs 4th. Hull, Palace and Sunderland will be relegated. In the Champions League, City will get to the Quarter Finals, but will be out early in both cups. One of the cups will be won by Chelsea.

The Transfer Window so far....

Now we are almost half-way through the (official) transfer window and City have made several signings, it seems a good time to assess the changes made. There is a good assessment here, although it does lose some credibility by suggesting that Kolorov would start at right back if the season started today. Here are my thoughts.

Firstly, there have been the following transfers out

• Wayne Bridge, Kolo Toure, Carlos Tevez, Roque Santa Cruz, Maicon

Along with the release or sale of some academy players who hadn't made the first team (e.g. Ryan McGivern, Jeremy Helan), the departures of Wayne Bridge and Roque Santa Cruz are not significant from a first team point of view. Both were clearly not wanted having not played a league game for City in more than two years, The main impact of their departure is to reduce the wage bill.

Kolo Toure's departure may be in a similar category. It is likely that he was earning large wages and as fourth choice centre back there is probably better value to be gained from replacing him.

The only two players sold so far are Maicon and Tevez. Maicon was always a puzzling signing. I was never sure why we'd signed another right-back when we already had two excellent ones in Micah Richards and Pablo Zabeleta. He was possibly bought for Mancini with a view to using him as a wing-back in the back-3 system that was tried early last season. A combination of the excellent form of Zabeleta, injuries and the fact that the back-3 was largely unsuccessful, meant Maicon didn't have a successful season and so this sale makes sense.

The sale of Carlos Tevez makes sense from a financial perspective, although it would have been good to keep him in the team as he's a genuinely world-class player. Unfortunately in football today, once a player enters the final year of their contract their value diminishes rapidly. Most clubs don't let players enter the final year of their contract without either trying to negotiate a new contract or attempting to sell the player. Given the high wages Tevez was on, selling him was a sensible move financially.

The net result of the above is that we have reduced the wage bill significantly, but need to replace a central defender and a striker (I don't believe Maicon needs replacing as we have two right backs in the squad already). Added to the above should probably be Mario Ballotelli. While he was sold in January, he wasn't replaced. So if we were to keep a similar balance to the squad we should be looking for a central defender and two strikers.

The transfers in so far are

• Jesus Navas, Fernandinho, Stefan Jovetic, Alvaro Negredo

All of the above are excellent players, and all are internationals. Individually they look good signings. But I'm more interested in how they fit into the first team squad. Firstly, we have signed two strikers, a winger and a midfielder. Given the needs based on who was sold, we still need a central defender and didn't need the winger or midfielder. However, that ignores a couple of basic questions: what were the existing weaknesses in the squad, and how does the squad need to evolve in order to play the tactics the new manager will use?

One of the most glaring weaknesses in the team last season was a lack of width. The nominal wide players such as Silva and Nasri like to drift inside and get involved in central areas. Overlapping full-backs were supposed to provide some width, but the majority of the team was very narrow. During the Championship winning 2011-12 season, Adam Johnson often came off the bench to change things and provide width. Last season he was replaced with Scott Sinclair, but he had a poor season making little impact. The signing of Jesus Navas, a winger with genuine pace, should address this weakness.

Fernandinho may address another weakness in the squad, the lack of cover for Yaya Toure. The other midfielders are just not the same type of player as Yaya and we have missed him when he's been absent. But I'm not sure we are wise paying £30million for a back-up midfielder. This transfer, and the absence of a new centre back, may be a clue as to how the team will evolve tactically.

It has been widely rumoured that the director of football, Txiki Begiristan, wishes to implement a 4-3-3 system similar to that used when he was at Barcelona. If this were the case, then by playing with 3 midfielders instead of 2 (in the 4-2-3-1 system used last season) means more players are needed in this area. However, another feature of the Barcelona team in recent years has been defensive midfielders playing as a ball-playing centre back. This has usually been Mascherano, although others have played there as well. Could Javier Garcia starting the first pre-season friendly at centre-back be a sign of this? If so, then it wasn't a centre back that was needed to replace Kolo Toure, it was a midfielder.

Of course, all the above could be missing key information, and ignores any academy players who may join the squad. There could well be further transfers in and out. Manuel Pellegrini hasn't been at the club long and so may want to make further changes when he has assessed the squad. But if this turns out to be all the transfers we do then it looks to have been a good transfer window. Players leaving have been replaced, obvious weaknesses in the squad have been addressed and it is likely the overall wage bill will have been reduced as well.

The Fixture List is Out!

Next season's Premier League fixture list is now out, and the shock is we play everyone twice! Home and away! More seriously, here are a few observations:

• Two of the newly promoted sides in the first 3 games could be tricky. The promoted teams are often more dangerous early in the season while confidence is still high and before the reality of the struggle ahead sets in. So this could be a tricky time to play them.
• The games against United and Chelsea are relatively early in the season. I expect these two, and ourselves, to be the main title challengers but the fact the games are early means they are unlikely to be decisive.
• Everton away as the second to last game. Lets hope we don't need a result as we have a shocking record there.
• The fixture list looks fairly balanced. There's no obvious run of tricky games. The worst is playing Spurs away followed 3 days later by Chelsea at home at the end on January and beginning of February.
• Swansea away on New Year's Day - good luck to those travelling with the hangover.

Welcome the Manchester City, Manuel Pellegrini

No sooner had I asked where the new manager was than he was announced. By a coincidence, his former club Malaga appointed a new manager today. Or maybe it wasn't a coincidence if some of the rumours circulating online are to be believed.

If all the many profiles of Pellegrini that have been published over the last few weeks are to be believed, then this is an excellent appointment. His record is also excellent, getting the best out of whatever resources he has. The only thing lacking is trophies, but his teams always seem to over-achieve.

Hopefully this does turn out to be the excellent appointment it appears. Welcome to Manchester.

Where is the new manager?

This is starting to get a little worrying. Where is the new manager for Manchester City? It is now:

• 31 days since Roberto Mancini was sacked
• 25 days since the end of the season
• 12 days since the end of the La Liga season

and still now manager has been appointed. If all the rumours are true, a deal with Manuel Pelligrini was agreed some time ago. If true, then surely the appointment should have been finalised by now? The longer this drags on the more likely something will stop him being appointed. I've already seen one report mention a 'minor technicality' holding things up. Is this code for something else?

I can remember a previous occasion when a chairman thought he had his man but it dragged on, then fell through. The chairman? Francis Lee. Who did he think had agreed to be manager? Brian Kidd. Who did we end up with? Alan Ball. I hope history isn't repeating itself.

Why Falcao was never moving to the Premier League

In an excellent article by Michael Berlin on Grantland, there is a good description of the strange background to Falcao's move to Monaco. It is essentially a story about the third-party ownership of players and how it impacts the players career. For me a small detail within the story stood out. In a section describing how the club Falcao was transferred to was chosen is the following:

"There are only a few potential buyers ....... Manchester City, Chelsea, and even United are out because ....... the Premier League doesn't allow for the transfer of third-party owned players."

While playing for Atlético Madrid, Falcao was part owned by the club, and part owned by a company called Doyen Sports. Under Premier League rules, if Falcao was to move to a club in the Premier League then the club would have to fully own him. Part ownership, with the rest owned by a third party, is banned.

I'm not going to go into the details of why it's banned here (the article covers many of the issues) but the press have been covering rumours of Falcao being signed by a Premier League club for months (see here and here for example) without ever once mentioning the fact he was part-owned by a third party, as far as I can recall.

This is a huge piece of information to leave out of the story as it has a huge impact on any potential transfer. The third-party interest in the player is there to make money. As the article explains in more detail, young players are funded early in their career as an investment and the third-party then looks to make money over the course of the career as the player becomes more successful. One way this happens is through lucrative transfers.

If the player was to move to a Premier League club then the third-party would have to sell their stake in the player. Doing so, they would be giving up all future returns on their investment. Even if they were willing to do so, the least they would do is demand a much higher transfer fee from a Premier League club than from a club that allowed them to retain their involvement. This would be to compensate them for future earnings they would be giving up.

The effect of this is to make players who have third-party involvement either off-limits, or considerably more expensive for Premier League clubs. Yet from the press reports over the last few months you would not have guessed that Falcao was subject to this restriction and given how common the practise is in certain parts of the world, gives me another reason to doubt the accuracy of transfer rumours reported in the press.

Some thoughts on the first signing of the summer

According to several reports (such as here and here), Manchester City's first signing of the summer will be Jesús Navas for £17 million plus add-ons from Sevilla. On the face of it signing a pacy winger who has 23 caps for Spain is a good move. Last season City were very narrow, with the width provided by full-backs pushing forward. The only option to change this was Scott Sinclair, who hardly played and barely made an impact when he did.

It's also a good sign that the transfer business is starting early. Last summer City didn't get much done in the transfer window until vary late. When they did make signings it gave the impression that a lot of second choices were being picked up to get something done. This impression was backed up by the fact that of the players signed last summer, only Matija Nastasić could claim to be a first team regular. It was also frequently blamed by Roberto Mancini for the relatively poor season.

With any transfer there are risks, but this one does come with a big risk. Navas has a history of problems with homesickness (see this report for example). While there are reports this has been overcome, citing his recent involvement in Spain's successful World Cup and Euro 2012, a trip for a few weeks is very different from living permanently in another country. City do in depth research on all signings and will no doubt have plans in place to help him settle in but it does remain a significant risk.

Overall this looks a good signing, although one with a significant risk.

14 Years Ago Today - The Most Important Game in Manchester City's History?

Today is the 14th anniversary of arguably the most important game in Manchester City's history - the 1999 Division 2 Play-off Final. Most clubs would claim their most important game was a title or cup winning game. But for Manchester City I'd argue this play-off final is the clubs most important game ever.

Why? Because without it there probably would be no Aguero scoring a last minute goal to win the Premier League. Instead Manchester City could well be still down there alongside Leeds United and Sheffield Wednesday - big clubs struggling to recover from disastrous relegation's. City may well still be at Maine Road as well. This game occurred before construction had started on the Etihad Stadium. Would a Manchester City in Division 2 have been able to afford the conversion costs for the stadium after the Commonwealth Games? And the new stadium was a key reason why Shiekh Mansour chose Manchester City when he decided to buy a football team.

For me it is one of the best memories I have as a City supporter. I was lucky enough to be there and, while I won't go into the drama on the pitch that day, two off the pitch events have remained with me to this day.

At the full time whistle I was a bit of an emotional wreck. The drama of the last few minutes had been a true emotional rollercoaster and I'd felt the effects. A city fan was walking up the steps while we waited for extra time and stopped when he saw me, just gave me a big hug and just said 'I know', before walking off. It summed up for me how we all felt.

The second event happened a couple of hours after the game. I was staying with a friend who lived in London and met him after the game in the centre of London. He'd been watching the game in a pub and was telling me about the atmosphere there when I suddenly realised that I had no idea how good the game had been. In hindsight this seems absurd but I'd been so caught up in the emotional rollercoaster that it hadn't sunk in yet. So I asked him, and he looked at me as if I was stupid before saying it was one of the best games he'd ever seen.

What if.... the Mancini news hadn't broken when it did?

FA Cup Final 2013

The night before the 2013 FA Cup Final, strong rumours started circulating that Mancini would be sacked. By the morning all major newspapers and many other news sources were reporting this. There had been rumours for months that this may happen but nothing this strong. The question that has bugged me since then is why did it happen at that moment? And what was the source for this?

What I write here should not take anything away from Wigan's achievement. They were the better side on the day and fully deserved to win the FA Cup. However, there will always remain a big what if question about the day for me. What would have happened had this news not broken when it did? It clearly had an impact, not least among the fans who spent a lot of time letting the club now exactly what they though of it. How much impact did it have on the team that day is unclear. But given how poorly they played and the seeming lack of work rate from many players it isn't hard to suspect it did play a part.

So where did the story come from? It could hardly have come at a worse time than the day of the FA Cup Final. So was it leaked by someone who wanted to prevent Mancini winning the cup, which would have made it more difficult for the club to sack him? I have no idea but it remains a troubling possibility.

As for subsequent events, I don't think it had any impact on the decision to sack Mancini. That decision looks to have been made some time ago. All it ended up doing was forcing Manchester City to bring that forward a few weeks. It's likely he would have been sacked after the club returned from the post-season tour of the USA. So in the long run the only impact other than on the FA Cup Final is likely to be minor.

New York City and Financial Fair Play

In a revealing interview with Ferran Soriano in the Telegraph about the investment in New York City and the future of Manchester City, he claimed that "this project [NY City] has nothing to do with FFP". That may be true, that the investment is not designed to help with Financial Fair Play (FFP), but it surely has FFP implications for Manchester City.

The first and most obvious implication is how would the initial investment in the new franchise be accounted for? And will this spending be counted when City are assessed for FFP? Initial reports suggest that the fee to buy the franchise is $100 million, and a stadium will be built at a cost of of $340 million. Combined with the inevitable start-up costs this means a total investment in the region of $500 million looks likely. While this will be shared with the partners in this, the New York Yankees, and there may be borrowing against the stadium to finance its construction, it is inevitable that this will mean Manchester City spending a considerable amount of money in the short term.

So from an FFP point of view this looks like it should make it harder for Manchester City to pass. Under Financial Fair Play, clubs losses are limited to €45 million in the initial monitoring period so additional investment such as this, which is unlikely to see any return for a few years, should make it harder to pass. But the regulations are not straightforward and contain rules allowing the exclusion of certain types of expenditure from the FFP calculations.

One of the exclusions covers investment in infrastructure. This is designed to allow investment in new stadiums, training facilities etc. At face value it looks like investment in a new football team and stadium could be discounted from FFP under this exclusion. However, I'm sure that when the regulations were written, the intention was to exclude investment in the teams own stadium and training facilities. Additionally the new team is outside of UEFA, who are behind the regulations. This means this may well fall into a grey area within the regulations. It's likely it will be excluded (as I'm sure City will have had lawyers and accountants checking this) but this isn't certain.

Once the initial investment has been accounted for, there is the ongoing implications due to the day-to-day operations of both clubs. Firstly any profits from the new team should be able to be counted as they are from a football related activity. Secondly there is a great deal of scope for mutually beneficial commercial cooperation between all three parties in this (Man City, NY City and NY Yankees). For example, I would not be surprised to see all three selling each others merchandise. These should all have a positive impact by providing additional revenue, assuming NY City are financially successful.

There is also much scope for cooperation in player transfers, loans etc. This is unlikely to be a blatant mis-use of the system. For example, we won't see NY City buying Cristiano Ronaldo for £100 million then selling him to Manchester City for £1. The MLS single entity structure, and the involvement of the Yankees, mean this will not be possible. While the majority of the benefits are outside the scope of this blog, there could be benefits financially from the cooperation, one example being Man City having somewhere to send players out on loan easily (thereby reducing the wage bill). But this impact will be small and I'm sure UEFA will check any transfer fee's between the two clubs for 'fair value'.

It's the role of the NY Yankees that makes me think this won't have a major impact on FFP. There will be a temptation for some to think Man City could play financial games, shifting revenue and costs between the two in a similar way to what we have seen from other companies. But this would mean the Yankees losing out which should mean it won't happen. So as long as the initial investment can be excluded from FFP, it looks like this deal will only have a small positive effect as it will help increase revenues from the commercial side of the football club.