Will the Blue Moon rise or fall in 2008?

Rewind almost 12 months and Man City fans probably didn’t know what was going to hit them after a pretty successful Christmas/New Year period. Stuart Pearce’s side had been a bit up-and-down for the pre-Christmas part of their Premiership campaign in 2006 but 3 victories from 3 games from boxing day to New Years Day would have instilled a belief in City fans that better times were around the corner and that the year 2007 was one that held promise for them and hopefully a decent final league position. Unfortunately for Man City the year 2007 (at least the part of it that included Stuart Pearce as manager) would not be so kind besides the promising and in hindsight false dawn that occurred last New Years Day when two Samaras goals earned them victory against Everton.

After that win (and doesn’t it look strange to see the words Samaras and goals together?!), little did Man City fans know that they were about to embark on a goal drought at their home ground of epic proportions (they were not going to score at home for what was remaining of the 2006-07 season). Additionally due in large part to the aforementioned point, they were to be dragged into a relegation battle that threatened at times to take them down to the Championship. Add to this the embarrassing bust-up between Barton and Dabo, the ignominious honour of becoming the team who has scored the least goals at home in a season ever in the top flight (with a paltry 10), and the eventual sacking of Stuart Pearce meant it was a pretty miserable second half of season 2006-07 for Man City and their supporters.

Fast forward to today and it couldn’t be more different for City. They sit 5th in the league, they’re unbeaten at home in the league and due to their chairman’s millions, not to mention a world-class manager and a high league position, they now have a real reason to look towards January with optimism due to the fact they should be in an ideal position to add some genuine quality to their playing squad.

Before their final game of 2007 against Liverpool tomorrow, Sven-Göran Eriksson is armed with the knowledge that, should they take all three points off Liverpool, they will finish the year in 4th position on the table. It really is a remarkable position for them to be in considering how quickly this particular squad was assembled before the season started.

Let’s take a look at a few factors that will go a long way towards helping to determine why it is unlikely that Man City will suffer a similar fade-out to the one suffered after the New Year last season:

Sven


City supporters must be having a bit of a chuckle looking on at what’s happening with a team like Newcastle. The “give him more time” brigade in the English media are working overtime trying to do just that and defend the performance of Sam Allardyce overlooking the fact that managers like Sven and to a lesser extent Ramos at Spurs are showing that good managers are almost always able to get good results quite quickly (without the need for “time”). It must be a little embarrassing for many of them that wrote so disparagingly about Sven that he has so quickly turned City’s fortunes around for them, especially when their darling Big Sam (who don’t forget many in England thought was good enough to take over their national team…) is overseeing some of the least attractive football played by a team in the premiership for many a year.

The brutal reality is in the Premiership at the moment, the top clubs are not-so-coincidentally managed by top foreign (meaning non-English in this case) managers. City, by the virtue of having Sven in charge must feel pretty confident that their good form will continue into next year unlike last year under “Psycho” Pearce. There is quite a large group of teams below City with, if one is honest, similar or even possibly better playing lists than City. Where City can gain an edge over the teams snapping at their heels is with their super-cool and experienced manager. Sven’s experience in the run-in will be priceless and may well be the difference between a place in Europe or not. How he integrates any new signings into the line-up will also be crucial but, judging him on how he performed with his pre-season signings, in Sven City seem to have a manager who would rank in the top four in the Premiership when it comes to man management.

Sven and “Psycho” are like chalk and cheese in many ways; for City fans they will be hoping that under Sven their second half of the season will follow suit and turn out to be the opposite to what happened under Pearce.

January transfer window

Having spent much of my time on Man City fan forums it can be estimated that every couple of minutes someone posts a comment that contains some sort of speculation about who City will bring in over January. Rarely have I ever seen a group of fans so excited by a transfer window. And with good reason, I reckon. They now have some serious Thai money behind them, a high league position snapping at the heels of the “top 4” and a manager with contacts all around the world.

After the success this year of Elano, Petrov and co. who were signed in the pre-season, expectations are high for January and have been fanned further by the loan-signing already of young Mexican starlet Nery Castillo from the old stomping ground of Elano at Shakhtar Donetsk.

Who will City sign then? Don’t ask me; they have been linked with pretty much every player in the world over the last four months and it would be impossible and ultimately a waste of time to give a list of everyone they have been linked with in this article. I will say that I think City could do with signing another striker (even though Castillo has been signed) as their current batch, while showing the odd glimpse of promise, are not going to keep City up where they are now on the table. That is why they need to add to their stable of strikers (remembering the exciting Bojinov will be returning early in 2008 and without a doubt Sven will be letting go a striker or two).

Midfield cover would be great as well and in particular for the excellent Hamman (at his age Didi can’t be expected to shoulder all the defensive midfield duties!). And, without being greedy, a defender and a goalkeeper would top things off nicely for City in January. The defence has been looking more and more shaky of late, and bringing in a world-class central defender would really add to the squads chances of staying where they are now. And as Sven doesn’t appear happy with Isaksson, a world-class stopper is probably needed due to the fact that, as impressive as Hart has been and notwithstanding the promise he shows for the future, having a keeper that young starting would be flirting with danger as it is a position where the best players are usually much older and more experienced.

If, as we have been promised, City both buy and sell players in January it has the potential to have a major impact on the second half of the season for them. The ability of Sven to, after having had a good 6 months now to have identified deficiencies in his squad, go out into the market-place and fix them, could well be the difference between a top 6 finish or not for City come the end of the season.

Home vs. Away form

City’s results at home have been stunning so far, away not so good. That is the way it looks on paper anyway. But on closer inspection I don’t think the gulf between City’s home and away form is as big as it is made out to be by some pundits. The quality of the teams that they have played away from home is better than the quality of team they have played at home and I think this has no doubt had an impact on this stark difference between home and away performances.

Here’s the deal; if the season turns out logically based on the quality of their opponents that they are meeting home and away City will start winning more games away and losing a couple at home as they start playing weaker teams away and stronger at home.

Put simply City have a real chance to improve and/or consolidate their position if the City of Manchester Stadium (COMS) continues to be a fortress regardless of the quality of teams coming there while at the same time they start getting some results against the weaker teams away from home. Obviously if their home performances deteriorate and their away performances stay the same, City will be finishing the season around the middle of the table.

Chelsea aside, City have been competitive and at times unlucky on their travels in every game. I’m pretty sure against weaker opposition that they will be facing away for the remainder of their season they will start to pick up wins on the road. It is their home form that will be the x-factor and ultimately determine how high they will finish the season. I have an inkling they will continue to be strong at home (it will be hard to match what they have done so far, admittedly…) so that bodes well for their final league position.


Regardless of how things in the next five months, ever fatalistic City fans can for once rest assured that surely, even for a team as historically schizophrenic as City, they can go into the New Year thinking that things can’t possibly be as bad as last year. That thought alone will bring comfort to many of their loyal fans. So if you hear an even louder than normal cheer when (notice that I’m saying when, not if) City scores their first goal of 2008 at COMS you will know why…

Guest Article: The Circus Comes To Town - Beckham Style

Aussie correspondent for Whenballmeetsfoot Martin Cassidy reports on the marketing phenomon/footballer David Beckham's sojourn down under with his team the LA Galaxy and analyses the massive reaction he has received.

Vincent

The David Beckham circus is in town this week with Sydney’s Olympic Stadium acting as the big top. The main event, an exhibition friendly between Sydney FC and LA Galaxy, was played there tonight in front of 80,295. To put that in context, it is the largest football crowd in Australia this year for an international or representative fixture, surpassing the 79,322 that attended the Wallabies vs NZ All Blacks at the MCG. The crowd is therefore larger than that for the Socceroos against a virtually full strength Argentina featuring Messi, Tevez, Mascherano, Heinze, etc. It is also only 1,100 short of the crowd at the NRL rugby league grand final at the same venue but larger than State of Origin. Such is the drawing power of David Beckham.

You would have had no trouble finding a seat to watch Sydney FC play Sunday evening in the A-League, at the smaller Sydney Football Stadium and at a much cheaper price. Incidentally, Beckham was at that game as a guest and was paraded before the crowd at half time. Add to that Sydney rested several players for tonight’s exhibition, including former Leeds United striker Michael Bridges who picked up a knock on the weekend. For LA, they came with their new coach Ruud Gullit and with several internationals including US national team hero Landon Donovan, although I don’t think they were the attraction. Rather the fact a reported 20,000 Galaxy shirts with “Beckham 23” have been sold in Sydney in the last few days suggests the spectators were there for one reason.

The match itself was billed as a showdown between the MLS and our A-League, although with Sydney battling to reach the finals and LA missing out on reaching theirs, not to mention them being in the off-season, I’m not sure it was much of a guide. That said, LA started quite well while Sydney were nervous in front of the biggest crowd to ever greet an A-League club and there were numerous early errors as the home side struggled to maintain possession in midfield. However, in the 20th minute former Brazil and Middlesbrough star Juninho slid through a wonderful pass for Alex Brosque and he finished well for the home team. The goal settled the nerves and led to more open play and more chances, Brosque soon netting his second and before long it was 3-0 inside half an hour. The highlight of the night came in the final minute of the first half, Sydney conceding a free kick in front of the D and Beckham curling a trademark free kick over the wall, into the top corner. As an indication, it was similar to the goal he scored against Greece, but obviously with less pressure.
The public got their money’s worth in the first half but the goals continued after the break, Sydney eventually winning 5-3. Despite the game being a “friendly”, LA learnt that concept doesn’t exist for Australians, although Galaxy gave as good as they got. Beckham was felled midway through the first half, caused partly by the slippery surface following earlier rain. He took a knock on his troubled left ankle and limped about for the next ten minutes, no doubt causing heart palpitations amongst organisers and Beckham’s employers alike. He obviously played on and stuck through the full 90 minutes, producing several majestic long-range diagonal passes and the aforementioned goal. An LA team mate was red carded late for a very sinister act, deliberately standing on a player’s arm after pushing him to the ground. The same player earlier kicked Juninho but despite several unattractive incidents, the crowd got what they came for and went home happy.

I believe $1 million was Galaxy’s appearance fee but organisers would certainly be happy due to the estimated $3.5 million in gate receipts, not to mention the unbelievably positive promotion this has been in the media and the associated benefit to sponsors. Which ultimately is what this exercise was about. Beckham is indeed a great player and this was probably his only ever match in Australia. Even so I never thought about travelling to Sydney for this event and had it been in Melbourne I am still not certain if I’d have paid the asking price. However 80,000 people did, Sydney caught Beckham fever with him featuring on the back and front page of the daily newspapers, and even Channel 10, having never shown real interest in soccer before, broadcast the game live. They had to import an SBS (theworldgame) commentator for the occasion but the subsequent news bulletin described Beckham as a “genius” and referred to this as “the most highly anticipated soccer match in Australian history.” Now Vinnie and I, and a few mates, did fly to Sydney and paid good money to attend the qualifier that saw Australia defeat Uruguay to reach our first World Cup in 32 years. If emotion and historical significance are anything to go by, I would suggest that was somewhat bigger, but anyway... such is the nature of Australian football in the eyes of mainstream media.

There has always been problems of this type in Australia, where frustration with the lack of knowledge of new converts clashes with the reality they are needed for the game to really grow. Indeed, long suffering fans may have thought the same about me in years past, so I should not complain. The fact is Beckham’s tour of Australia has been a huge success on all counts, be it cocktail parties, mingling with fans, sponsors’ events or his on-field job. Yesterday he kicked footballs on the harbour from one boat to another, as part of an Adidas promotion with representative players from AFL, rugby and league and never stopped smiling. Tonight he gave a performance surely beyond the promoters’ expectations and the game produced 8 goals, ideal for the audience who were probably more used to higher scores in other football codes and often use that fact to criticise this sport. So in light of the growth of A-League crowds, and governments offering bipartisan support for future development, including a 2018 World Cup bid, an opportunity to win over more converts can ultimately be nothing but good for the game.

Earlier this year the Socceroos opened their Asian Cup tournament against Oman, hardly one of our traditional sporting rivals. The match drew the highest ever average audience for a sporting event on Australian pay TV. This did not include the additional tens of thousands who watched the game in 3,600 accredited bars nationwide, and it was a Sunday night in mid-winter. Melbourne Victory has attracted three crowds of over 47,000 to A-League games in the past 12 months and for the first time ever, the Socceroos are preparing to enter a full and meaningful World Cup qualification campaign, meaning more big matches than ever will be played in Australia in the next year. That comes on top of 95,000 to watch a friendly against Greece last year and two internationals over 61,000 this year for Argentina and Uruguay.

Football, soccer if you will, was always regarded as the sleeping giant of Australian sport until at least 2005 and the win over Uruguay. If it needs David Beckham’s celebrity to stir certain sectors into realising what the sport has to offer, so be it. There is already considerable support in Australia with more kids registered than any other sport. With more people being attracted each year, and Beckham aiding that cause, the future is very bright. Just as long as we qualify for the next World Cup.