So, Friday 8th June 2007 and still no clear and present takeover or 29% stake buy out bid, then! Meanwhile, normal service is resumed at Eastlands where loyal Blues continue to pump their hard earned wedge into the club at the all new ‘De-Bokked’ City store in the hope that we’ll all get some uplifting news and direction soon.
Another week has gone by and just about every semi-available manager except Tony Soprano has been linked with the club. Come to think of it, had ‘T’ been in charge last season, there might well have been some on and off field discipline maintained.
Which reminds me. Stuart Pearce. He certainly has his pals in the media and at the Football Association doesn’t he? Now the England Under 21 coach is getting shedloads of praise for one win. Sounds familiar. At the risk of contracting stuck record syndrome I am again going to repeat that he only used so many of our Academy players because he had to. You have to ask yourself whether lads such as Miller, Samaras, Sturridge and Abdoun benefitted from his fatherly guidance as they were either regularly played out of position, appeared for 5 minutes or saw their confidence shattered. The final reckoning from this website at any rate is that a stunning 63% of our readers reckoned Pearce served up the least enjoyable football of all our managers over a couple of decades. End of.
So, back to the future. Quotes and statements from er, ‘interested parties’ during this secret squirrel time are hard to come by and sports hacks and Blues alike can only guess at what the next twist and turn at Eastlands will be.
You have to look further east to get a clearer indication of what the story might be. According to The Star in Malaysia, Thaksin Shinawatra remains very much in the mix. He is quoted as saying in Tokyo that ‘In getting involved in the football club in England or in the Premier League, we will allow another window open for the younger generation in Asia. That is what I think,” Make of that what you will. He might have to get his skates on however, as rumours are now bouncing around that City’s board have issued a 48 hour bid deadline to the exiled former Thailand PM.
They know as well as we do that nevermind the fact that our squad and pre season plans are currently in a state of ruin, the vultures are circling and now even our last line of defence Richard Dunne is being linked with other clubs. The urgency of our situation is reaching fever pitch.
It could all go absolutely pear shaped any day now of course, and we can only hope that the board have a Plan B ready to put in place before we lose any more ground on our rivals.
One thing that I am still holding out for is that a rival eleventh hour bid will come in from somewhere which dedicates itself to putting Manchester City fans first on the agenda. Get rotational fans representatives on the board, you name it. – Dreamland of course and the reality is that in the Premiership of 2007 big money will dictate how Football Companies are run.
My final word this week is on the upcoming sale of MCFC Academy graduate Joey Barton to The Barcodes. There were some great moments and his big engine gave us everything it had on many occasions. However, his lack of self discipline was becoming an increasing liability. Furthermore, when I consider his very often poor distribution and domination of set pieces that came to absolutely nothing, 5.5 million quid looks to be the first decent business this City board has done. That said, we need a midfield general and sharpish.
Over to you, City.
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