Just a short one today, but something that has been playing on my mind for a couple of weeks. We all knew that January was going to be a difficult month. We played a lot of games against good opposition, 4 of these were without captain Vincent Kompany, and many of them were without our midfield general Yaya Toure.
Clearly this was going to be a big loss (we also missed his brother somewhat as well with the absence of Kompany) and I felt that if we could come through January still on top of the pile then we were doing pretty well. We achieved that aim and ground out a few important victories, success over Tottenham for example was vital, on the downside however we crashed out of two cup competitions, something that none of us were particularly pleased about.
So if we isolate the league form, what was the effect of being without Toure? Well, we played 5 league games and we only lost of them (the annual away day defeat at Goodison), of the rest there were two scratchy 1-0 victories away at Wigan and Aston Villa, the thrilling victory over Spurs and the quite straight forward 3-0 defeat of Fulham. Now our home form has been superb throughout the season, and even without Toure we have looked pretty strong, granted the win over Tottenham was a bit shaky but that was more down to some lapses in defence as opposed to missing something in the midfield. Performances away from home though were a bit shakier...
The interesting thing to note however is that even before Yaya left in early January, our away form was already on the slide. During the festive season a listless 0-0 draw at West Brom and that ridiculous 1-0 defeat at the Stadium of Light hardly demonstrated a solid team away from home. Therefore blaming the absence of Toure for the uncertainty of victories at Villa and Wigan seems a little strange. It is an undeniable fact though that despite what results may say, his absence has been really noticeable.
It is difficult to pinpoint exactly what it is that we missed, but I think it was pretty well demonstrated in the first 19 seconds against Porto on Wednesday afternoon. The incisiveness of the ball he played to release Aguero for our first goal was something that we have really missed. Silva and Nasri are experts at those sorts of passes higher up the pitch, but as good as Barry, Milner, De Jong and co have all been, there was noone deeper that could take out the entire opposition midfield (and in this case defence) in just one pass. Our game was more ponderous in his absence and even though all year round we have been a team who have worked the ball carefully, when he is in the team we do it with more purpose somehow.
It is not just his technical attributes that we have lacked. His power and presence has also been sadly missing from our midfield, they are qualities that really aren't present in any of our other defensively minded midfield players and I wonder if that is something that Mancini may look at addressing. It is a bit of a concern that should the 28 year old suffer a long term injury we don't really have a ready made replacement, and having seen how much his absence harms us, finding someone similar appears important. It probably isn't as simple as that though, there are very few players in the world with his level of ability and professionals of that quality aren't going to be overly happy sitting on the bench and playing second fiddle to the Ivorian.
I do wonder if the the short term signing of David Pizarro is to bring that incisive passing into the team should Toure be absent, he has demonstrated already that he can be an excellent passer of a football but clearly he will not offer that physicality in the middle of the field.
It seems crazy to me that at times last year some of us questioned Toure, some weren't exactly sure what he brought to the team, 12 months on and he is one of the first names on the team sheet, and even though our league form may have stayed roughly the same, it was clear for all to see how much we missed him, i'm sure my relief to have him back for the run-in is shared by City fans everywhere.
There are a few big football stories dominating the back pages at the moment, the return of that odious cheat Luis Suarez, 'Arry and his mysterious tax bill and of course our 'brave English lion' John Terry, a man who I dislike almost as much as the aforementioned Liverpool striker.
The debate surrounding his removal as England captain got me thinking about City (in truth most things ultimately result in me thinking about City!). Whether or not you believe it was right that he had his role taken from him before a judgement had been made on his legal problems, it has brought about an interesting debate. I was listening to a piece on 5Live yesterday and the discussion had moved on from Terry and was now looking at whether in the modern game we need a captain at all.
It was being suggested that in this era there are no decisions left for the captain to make, the decision making part of the job no longer exists, so what is the role of the captain? Well personally I believe leadership on the field is vital to a successful team. It obviously can be argued that if you have a group of leaders then one specific captain is unnecessary, and I can definitely understand that point of view. Whether it be one leader as captain or 3 or 4 leaders spread throughout the team it is vital that they do their best to organise and motivate their team mates.
To bring it back to City, I am beginning to wonder if this is something that we are short of. Clearly Vincent Kompany was the best choice for club captain, he is vocal, intelligent and understands what is expected of him and the team. When he was out serving his suspension, we were not the same side, we didn't look as organised and there was something missing, and I wonder if they can be put down to the lack of leadership on the field. Last year Carlos Tevez may have worn the arm band, but we all new that it was Kompany who was rallying the troops.
Someone else who may be less vocal, but has the same qualities is Yaya Toure, and with him missing as well we had a bit of a 'quiet' team through January. As skilled as Samir Nasri, David Silva and Sergio Aguero are, screaming instructions and lifting their team mates is never really going to be part of their make up. It was Micah Richards who wore the armband for most of the month, and there is no one more deserving of that role, his work rate and drive are a fantastic example for the team, but does he really have what it takes to lead his men into battle? I am not so sure.
It is not just an issue of rallying the team, organisation comes into the art of leadership. If we are honest, we beat Fulham quite easily on Saturday and if the truth be known we probably never really got out of first gear. I still felt however that defensively there was something lacking, now obviously we missed the quality of Kompany in terms of his defensive ability (which team wouldn't?), but we also lacked that organisation at the back and at times our back line looked a bit all over the place.
What can we take from this therefore? Well to return to my original point, it made me consider if perhaps we were short on leaders in our current squad. We have a quiet team, and maybe we could do with one or two more capable of barking instructions. Hopefully Kompany will be back on Sunday, and the return of Yaya is imminent and these additions will help massively, but we could always do with more. De Rossi would definitely have helped with that, but that move is now dead in the water.
I am not saying we need to go out and buy a load of other teams captains, but I think it is something that should possibly be considered as time passes, the role of the captain may be diminishing, but to be successful, good leadership is a must!
Firstly I would like to wish you all a Happy New Year, and I hope you had a good Christmas. Things have been quiet on here, mostly because the run up to the festive period was ridiculously busy for me, and then I returned to my parents for the holiday season so didn't really have much opportunity to update the blog, now that things are back to normal, it will be a lot more regular again.
I think the best place to start is by previewing the coming month. The importance of January can not be underestimated, we are essentially playing every 3 days for the foreseeable future. In comparison our title rivals have a much easier month, their schedule has been freed up massively after they were knocked out of the Carling Cup by Crystal Palace, they play 4 games between now and February, compared to our 5, it may only be one game, but it could make the world of difference. The title is often won and lost in this month and I think this year could be the same. As we all know United still have to play many of the bigger teams away from home, whereas we only have a trip to the Emirates left, if we can end this month on top or trailing by no more than 4 points, I think we can and probably will take the title.
In terms of league competition we will meet Wigan away, where you would expect us to take 3 points with a weakened team, and then old rivals Tottenham visit Eastlands, Spurs will be a really difficult challenge as always and should they provide an upset they will be even more embroiled in the title race than they already are!
Off the field January is also highly important as well, the transfer window opened on the early hours of New Years Day and will remain that way until the end of the month, this time however things are a bit different, with FFP looming larger than ever we have to be even more responsible than windows gone by. On that very subject there seems to be an element of tension between Roberto Mancini and the powers that be in Abu Dhabi. The suggestions in the newspapers in the last few days seem to indicate that the Italian wanted to bring in a midfielder and a winger over the Summer but was not authorised to do so. It wouldn't take a genius to work out that those 2 targets were probably Daniele De Rossi and Italian winger Alessio Cerci, one of those is seemingly a target for this January.
The impending departure of Yaya Toure is going to make what is already a challenging month even more difficult, and De Rossi could really make it a lot more straight forward. The belief was originally that the club had to sell some players to buy, and it is thought that whilst not all of the incoming money would be made available for new players, some of it would be. As far as I can see if we do manage to finally move on a certain moody Argentine striker, we will have an extra £250,000 a week in the wage budget and around £20million in the transfer pot. Not enough to bring in rafts of new players but potentially enough for De Rossi.
It is not just big names that will be on the way, it would appear that Nedum Onuoha will finally move on for around £2.5million, Wayne Bridge could be removed from the wage bill as well, these departures would also free up some important finances.
It would be a dream to end January in both domestic cup competitions, still 3 or more points clear on top of the table, and it would be even more special if we had secured De Rossi and offloaded Tevez. If that dream is going to become reality we will need to work incredibly hard and obviously some players will have to step up to the plate, Edin Dzeko needs to re find his form and confidence, and Samir Nasri, who personally I think has performed pretty well overall, needs to continue to develop his game and find his exact role in the team.
Things are undeniably going swimmingly, but this month could really make or break the rest of our season, so lets all get behind the team and try to make sure that the dream becomes reality!
After all the build up, the night we have all been waiting for finally came, and what a night it was. It was emotional, exciting, thrilling and slightly disappointing all rolled into one. We have been building towards the Champions League since the day that ADUG bought the club and last night the dream was realised, and for spells of the game we looked more than capable of mixing it at the highest level of club football, unfortunately there were also periods where we looked slightly overawed by the occasion.
As 'that' music built to a crescendo I think we all had high expectations, personally I felt it was a game that we had to win to get out of what is clearly going to be a particularly brutal group for the 4 teams involved. I was very aware of the talents of the Italian side but I must now admit to be surprised by just how good they actually were, their attacking trio of Hamsik, Lavezzi and Cavani caused problems, but the more noticeable thing for me was just how organised and defensively astute they were. For the majority of the game they were barraged by City attacks which they managed to repel repeatedly.
The first half saw City firmly on top, driven on by a superb atmosphere they flew out of the traps and created numerous chances in the opening period. Nasri, Aguero, Silva and Dzeko were reunited as the front 4 and Napoli had to work hard to contain the effervescent attacking play. Richards and Clichy were surprisingly omitted in favour of Zabaleta and Kolarov, it was a decision that I am not sure ultimately helped the team. The width provided by the former 2 was sadly absent, the attacking threat of the South American and the Serb sadly not as impressive. I suppose the thinking is that they would offer more defensively, but in a game we really needed to win I am not sure it was the correct decision.
City carved out a flurry of good chances, Dzeko saw a shot somewhere miss the far post, Toure slammed the crossbar with perhaps the best chance of the half. We also caused problems from corners with Dzeko again seeing a header flash wide. The only chance the Italians had was to be fair a pretty awesome effort, as Ezequiel Lavezzi turned away from Kompany and curled a wonderful effort past Hart only to see it crash against the crossbar. It is credit to City that Napoli didn't even play badly and yet at half time they had been under immense pressure, which they had stood up too extremely well.
The second half was a bit of a different story, whether City were running out of idea's or Napoli decided to push out more, they were much more involved. Our defense began to be put under more pressure and worryingly they didn't handle it particularly well, Kompany in particular seemed to not be on top of his game and made a few errors that lead to opportunities for the Serie A side. The opening goal came from another City move that perhaps saw us over commit somewhat, Gareth Barry pushed a long way up the field and tried an out of character back heel in an attempt to find Nasri it never got to its destination however, Christian Maggio raced onto the loose ball and flew through the worryingly empty centre of the field before he fed the ball to Cavani who slotted the ball cooly past Hart to give the visiting side the lead. It was a goal that had been coming in the second half, and proved that just one mistake will be pounced on in this competition. 
City to their credit rallied well and became more urgent, but they still seemed to lack the cutting edge that they couldn't find in the first half either, they were patient and worked some nice passing triangles but were unable to pick their way through the defense. 5 mins after Napoli had taken the lead, we were awarded a free kick on the edge of the box, at perfect range for Kolarov, he curled the ball beautifully into the net and brought the teams level, it was nothing more than they deserved. The game then went into overdrive with both sides trading blows and to be fair it could have been snatched by either team, both threw the kitchen sink at it and City had a great chance to take a win with Sergio Aguero meeting a cross to only turn it against the bar, it was extremely unlucky.
It is only fair to point out that City weren't particularly bad, but they also weren't allowed to be at their best, a draw was probably a fair result on the balance of 90mins but really we should have taken one or two of our other chances that would have secured a victory. Napoli to their credit were excellent, they defended well and countered with pace and precision, they will provide a really stern test for Bayern. As for us, next is a trip to the Allianz Arena which clearly will be incredibly difficult, a victory blows the group wide open, but i'd probably take a point.
What of the individual performers, lets see how it broke down:
Joe Hart: 6 - Nothing he could really do with the goal, looked nervous at times but remained in control when some of those in front of him seemed to be struggling.
Pablo Zabaleta: 6 - Full of energy and his work rate was excellent, he was willing but didn't really manage to offer anything offensively meaning we were woefully short of width at times. Battled hard and defended reasonably well however.
Vincent Kompany: 6 - Not one of his better performances at all, looks lost at times. He did make one excellent clearance off the line but was at fault on several attacks and could perhaps have done better at times.
Joleon Lescott: 7 - Maybe I am in the minority but I thought he had a decent game, should have done better with a header in the second half, but defensively he was sound and every high ball that came forward he won, his positioning wasn't perfect but he battled very hard.
Aleksandar Kolarov: 6 - A mixed night, as with Zabaleta he was rarely a threat coming forward but immense for playing a long time with a broken nose. He was willing and showed more effort than normal. The free kick he dispatched for our equaliser was superb and he deserves much credit for that.
Gareth Barry: 5 - He didn't really perform that badly for the most part but his catastrophic error in the second half lead directly to the goal we conceded. He began solidly, holding his position well, but as the game went on he got sucked too far up field and it cost us.
Yaya Toure: 7 - Struggled to get involved as an attacking threat, but mopped up extremely well. He worked hard and snuffed out many attacks using his power and experience to great effect, he was also incredibly unlucky to not give City the lead early on after a superb sweeping attack.
David Silva: 6 - Sadly there was no sparkle from the Spaniard who was snuffed out by an extremely organised Napoli defensive unit. He was counter acted by the denial of space there was no room for him to operate and sadly that made it difficult for the whole team.
Sergio Aguero: 6 - As with Silva there was just no space for the Argentine to play in, unlucky not to score late on when he hit the bar. Credit goes to him for the endeavour that he showed but there was just not enough room for him to operate to the best of his ability, too often came deep and wide for the ball.
Samir Nasri: 5 - Probably suffered the most from the lack of space outside the Napoli area, his delivery at times was lacking and he was involved in the mistake made for their goal, on another day more would have come off for the Frenchman but it wasn't a great day at the office for the new boy.
Edin Dzeko: 7 - Continued his good form sadly though without adding to his goal tally, he looked like a real threat early on and his touch and poise made him very hard to handle for the opposition defense, saw a couple of shots whistle narrowly wide and perhaps shouldn't have been subbed for Tevez.
Substitutes
Adam Johsnon: 7 - Added real impetus when he came on and offered something really different, the Italians didn't know how to deal with him and his introduction should have come much earlier.
Gael Clichy: 6 - Attacked with passion and verve, should have started the game to add the width we sadly missed for the majority.
Carlos Tevez: 5 - I will give him the benefit of the doubt and say that he still doesn't look fit and ready, but time is running out on that excuse.
Tough to call a man of the match really, because no one really shone that much more than anyone else, for the most part everyone did a good job, but were inhibited by some fantastic defending, but for all round game i'd probably plump for Yaya Toure. He did well in the new role that is he doing for the club, worked well defensively and his experience of the competition was clear to see, he also attacked well and picked the right times to do so. Went incredibly close to netting in the first half after a barnstorming run, Toure could be vital in our ongoing quest in the Champions League.
