Across eleven stunning months Chelsea, Liverpool and Manchester united have all taken hits from Sheikh ManCity’s powerfully reorganised sky blue armoury…
Right back at the start of the Eastland’s revolution last August, a ‘Chelski’ who had been able to steamroller across the world signing superstars at will were dealt a hammer blow when City swooped for the brilliant Robinho. The Chelsea replica shirts bearing his name are still doing the rounds, so assured were Chelsea’s hierarchy that no-one could stand in their way.
That same day another development occurred that some across Planet Blue regard as another statement of City’s intent towards the Premier League establishment.
City bid for Tottenham’s want away striker Dimitar Berbatov, a player that the rags had courted for months. The Blues offer was accepted by Spurs, thus forcing the rags to up their own offer into the area previously reserved for their younger mega million signings of previous seasons. Clearly concerned at City’s audacity, Taggart drove to Ringway himself that night to collect the player in a bid to ensure the Glazer family were not themselves ‘Robinho-ed.’
Fast forward to this summer on the back of massive reorganisation in all aspects of off the pitch life at a SportCity suddenly basking in a previously unheard of stability. Liverpool were next.
Aston Villa skipper and England’s big engined midfielder Gareth Barry was surprisingly swooped for in what we’ve now come to recognise as the City boardroom’s stealth bomber mode.
Liverpool’s squabbling US owners had given the go ahead for Rafa Benitez to pursue Barry for months but as Harry Redknapp recently acknowledged, like Spurs, Liverpool were ‘blown out of the water’ by City’s transfer market might. A fuming Benitez has since revealed a City move for the excellent Fernando Torres.
Only an extraordinarily quiet Arsenal have yet to be thwarted in similar circumstances by City Chairman Khaldoon Al Mubarak, Chief Executive Officer Garry Cook and their big hitting business team. But as recent revelations of a City bid for Robin Van Persie and heightened debate over alledged negotiations for Emmanual Adebayor have shown, no team in ‘The Sky Four’ are immune from ‘liddle ciddy’s’ fearless daring.
Now we have the erstwhile rags hitman Carlos Tevez on board. A player absolutely adored by the swamp’s day trippers, City midfield maestro Pablo Zabaleta recently talked of the amazing sight of watching his mate play in front of 76,000 people all screaming ‘Argentina, Argentina!’ and ‘sign him up!’
How hollow does The Sun’s campaign to keep Tevez a rag look this morning. Whichever way any rag dresses it up this morning, losing Tevez to Manchester City has got to sting.
In the meantime, we wait for City’s astounding move for the intriguingly silent Chelsea and England Captain John Terry to reach a conclusion before Chelsea fly to America and City to South Africa.
As previously discussed here, City’s bid for Terry arrows right to the heart of ‘The Big Four’s’ increasingly boring Celtic-Rangers twice over Premier League monopoly.
But what we must not lose sight of in amongst the gobsmacking signings of Robinho, Barry and Tevez is that Mark Hughes, who has thus far proved himself a pretty shrewd operator in the transfer market is continuing to assemble an exciting young City squad with a fascinating balance of established international stars and homegrown academy talent.
Hughes is cleverly instilling Premier League experience through the backbone of the squad and in key areas, communication in English is becoming almost absolute.
We new this would be a seismic summer of change at Eastlands and that is exactly what it is proving to be, but few would have expected City to go after the Premier League’s overly accepted elite clubs so boldly.
Certainly City fans, and many neutrals can look forward to the start of The Blues domestic focused campaign next month with absolute relish.
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