Johnny Baguette
Alert Team
Manchester City, England's under the radar Champions League Semi-Finalists 2016. What a night this could be in Manchester for a fanbase all too familiar with the words 'long suffering...'
'Where Were You When You Were Shit?!' shrieked the frustrated Stoke support in Manchester last Saturday. Clearly the memory of relegation to the third tier of English football alongside us in May 1998 has slipped the collective mindset of fans whom a while back thought they well and truly had our number.
City head into tonight's Big One off the back of an extraordinarily erratic season wherein can we honestly say that we have seen the team deliver the type of blistering performance that the squad are capable of more than a handful of times? This has made for very often perplexing watching particularly in a poor standard Premier League whereby the increasingly accepted norm is to admire sides who run themselves into the ground charging after long balls rather than those intent upon playing the beautiful game. City, who really should have walked it but for a persistent injury list have been their own worst enemies having stagnated tactically in a league where our points won per game had plummeted to a mid-table threatening 1.5 long before it was confirmed in advance that Pep Guardiola will be banging some heads together this summer. Yet in these novel circumstances Manuel Pellegrini has endeavoured to maintain progress in what became a definitive scrap to lift the League Cup whilst in Europe, he has steered his effective to within two matches of the biggest club competition final on the planet. But it's been an achievement shrouded in increasing derision and criticism from numerous hacks and learned TV pundits alike. After a perusal of the press the week in which City saw off PSG, you would be forgiven for thinking that only one club is still representing England in Europe and that's Liverpool.
The pisspoor BT Sport in particular have it right in for City and the Groundhog Day ordeal they put those of us outside the stadiums through beggars belief. With every Blues success it has worsened. The main negative backdrop for City match coverage usually focuses upon atmosphere, seats, money and as many references to the Stretford Galacticos as can be mustered. But above all that, it isn't just that the bitter opinions aired by the usual suspects are openly biased and unsupportive, the standard of punditry in itself is barrel scrapingly awful, at worst, a smug bandwaggoning soundbite dirge-fest.
Those of us unable to be there for what should be a sensational experience tonight will be in for more of the same from the dreadful BT but they should do so safe in the knowledge that we will never ever forget where we have come from, nor what we have endured throughout our club's history.
17 years ago, almost to the day, City lost 1-2 at home to Wycombe Wanderers in the aforementioned third tier. Ponder the link below. Tonight we find ourselves going into battle with 10 times European Cup winners Real Madrid. THIS is how it feels to be City in 2016.
Let's make this precious tonight.
http://www.chairboys.co.uk/onthenet/mancty99.htm
Read more: http://www.manchestercity.vitalfootball.co.uk/article.asp?a=565670#ixzz46wJQ9zQs
'Where Were You When You Were Shit?!' shrieked the frustrated Stoke support in Manchester last Saturday. Clearly the memory of relegation to the third tier of English football alongside us in May 1998 has slipped the collective mindset of fans whom a while back thought they well and truly had our number.
City head into tonight's Big One off the back of an extraordinarily erratic season wherein can we honestly say that we have seen the team deliver the type of blistering performance that the squad are capable of more than a handful of times? This has made for very often perplexing watching particularly in a poor standard Premier League whereby the increasingly accepted norm is to admire sides who run themselves into the ground charging after long balls rather than those intent upon playing the beautiful game. City, who really should have walked it but for a persistent injury list have been their own worst enemies having stagnated tactically in a league where our points won per game had plummeted to a mid-table threatening 1.5 long before it was confirmed in advance that Pep Guardiola will be banging some heads together this summer. Yet in these novel circumstances Manuel Pellegrini has endeavoured to maintain progress in what became a definitive scrap to lift the League Cup whilst in Europe, he has steered his effective to within two matches of the biggest club competition final on the planet. But it's been an achievement shrouded in increasing derision and criticism from numerous hacks and learned TV pundits alike. After a perusal of the press the week in which City saw off PSG, you would be forgiven for thinking that only one club is still representing England in Europe and that's Liverpool.
The pisspoor BT Sport in particular have it right in for City and the Groundhog Day ordeal they put those of us outside the stadiums through beggars belief. With every Blues success it has worsened. The main negative backdrop for City match coverage usually focuses upon atmosphere, seats, money and as many references to the Stretford Galacticos as can be mustered. But above all that, it isn't just that the bitter opinions aired by the usual suspects are openly biased and unsupportive, the standard of punditry in itself is barrel scrapingly awful, at worst, a smug bandwaggoning soundbite dirge-fest.
Those of us unable to be there for what should be a sensational experience tonight will be in for more of the same from the dreadful BT but they should do so safe in the knowledge that we will never ever forget where we have come from, nor what we have endured throughout our club's history.
17 years ago, almost to the day, City lost 1-2 at home to Wycombe Wanderers in the aforementioned third tier. Ponder the link below. Tonight we find ourselves going into battle with 10 times European Cup winners Real Madrid. THIS is how it feels to be City in 2016.
Let's make this precious tonight.
http://www.chairboys.co.uk/onthenet/mancty99.htm
Read more: http://www.manchestercity.vitalfootball.co.uk/article.asp?a=565670#ixzz46wJQ9zQs
