Shinawatra Stupidity: It's Almost Criminal

When news broke earlier this season that Jose Mourinho was sacked as manager of Chelsea, few would have thought that by seasons end another Premiership manager would suffer the same fate for even more ludicrous reasons. But after a couple of weeks of rumours and innuendo it appears that Man City manager Sven-Goran Eriksson will be managing Man City for the final time when they travel to the Riverside to play Middlesbrough on the final day of the season. Such a decision has shocked the football world but especially Man City fans and for very good reason. When you look more deeply at the situation, what at first seems a rash decision by Man City owner Thaksin Shinawatra becomes even harder to fathom and even more ridiculous. I will explain exactly why.

Probably the best place to start in all of this to look at the reasons that are being bandied around as to why Shinawatra has made this startling decision.

Firstly the reason most bandied about: Sven has wasted 40 million pounds on transfers for questionable returns.

To put it bluntly, this is absolute poppycock. True, it is not a small amount of money but that sort of amount is not going to automatically catapult a team that just escaped relegation the previous season into a top 4 side. It takes a much, much longer time for such a transformation to happen. One needs only to look at Chelsea as an example of what I am talking about. Before Abramovich and his millions arrived at Stamford Bridge, Chelsea were consistently playing in the Champions League or at least challenging for Champions League spots. By definition, this means they had a pretty decent squad. The Russian billionaire’s millions were merely the final piece of the jig-saw for Chelsea that meant they were able to move from a top 4 team to a top 2 team. So in light of this, surely Shinawatra could not have expected that by laying out 40 million quid City would automatically turn into world-beaters….. could he?

One must also have a look at the players Sven has brought in to see that criticism of his signings is also wide of the mark. On a number of occasions during the year Sven talked about the need to sign players for the future so that City would build their team over time, rather than buy big names. He was always very clear from the start that he wanted to sign players with long-term success in mind rather than short-term success. It goes without saying that this is a smart move but many managers do not have the foresight or the courage to do this.

And when you look at the young players he has signed, you would have a hard time denying they do not have a bright future ahead of them. Corluka and Gelson have played the most out of the younger players Sven bought and, Corluka in particular, has been impressive and given much to the team already this term. Those two will only get better now that they have an English season under their belt. Garrido started well but faded a little: still at a price of just 1.5 million pounds the former Real Sociedad player can hardly be seen as a waste of money when you also factor in his young age. Bojinov was injured before we saw enough of him but from all reports looks a real prospect for the future and despite being young already has a few years experience under his belt in the Serie A so that shows he has quality. Caicedo at 19 (he joined during the January transfer window) and having to deal with a new language culture is excused from being evaluated, we will be able to judge him more fairly after a full pre-season and when he has settled in more. Finally for the young players brought in, Mexican Nery Castillo, on loan from Shakhtar Donetsk, was also unfortunately injured not long after he joined City and is another who cannot be realistically judged at this point in time.

Sven also brought in some more experienced names before the season started. Rolando Bianchi, bought for 8 million pounds was a failure and was loaned out to Lazio in January. Geovanni came on a free transfer and, winning goal against Manchester United aside, would realistically have to be seen as a failure. Benjani, brought in January, has been a bit hit and miss but I think overall, it is difficult to be too critical of his impact on the team. He came in when City’s form was not the greatest and subsequently has not had the best supply from the midfield and has played as a lone striker. His form has picked up at the end of the season though and he should be a solid contributor for City next year. Martin Petrov has been excellent in his first year playing down the left and while not the best defensively, has consistently caused problems for opposition defences. Elano, like Petrov, has been the major contributor towards giving City’s midfield an attacking edge that worries most opposition teams and, granted his second half of the year hasn’t been as good as his first, even when out of form still has had the ability to split a defence open with a pass as witnessed against Sunderland a few weeks ago and Fulham last week. Both Elano and Petrov have been great buys for City and credit must go to Sven for picking them out.

But for me the most important thing to keep in mind when assessing Sven and his transfer record is this: he had barely three weeks to orchestrate the majority of these transfers (with the rest coming via the notoriously difficult January window…) after he was hired meaning he had to act quickly to bolster a squad that the previous year had finished only a few points from relegation. When you examine it more closely and keep in mind Sven’s time constraints, it is a remarkable achievement that Bianchi and Geovanni were the only players bought in by him that could be considered out-and-out failures. A pretty good strike rate in a time-frame of 3 weeks if you ask me and if anything, Sven should be being thanked by Shinawatra for the great signings he made in such a short time.

The other main reason given for Shinawatra wanting to dispense with Sven is that he wasn’t happy with the second half of the season compared to the first. Now no one, including I, will try and argue that Man City had a good second half of the season. But the question has to be asked, was this enough to sack a manager over? And really, how much blame can be attributed to Sven for this poor second half of the season?

City started well, amazingly well when you think about it. A swag of new players from different countries and cultures having joined shortly before the season started logically pointed to it being highly likely that City would have a difficult start to life under Sven. But instead City started the season like a house on fire and saw themselves sitting in the stratospheric top part of the table around the halfway point of the year. What happened then?

Fatigue, lack of experience, poorer home form, injuries to key players (especially in defence..). There were many factors. They also found out what it is like when you have to go to places like Reading or Birmingham when said teams are fighting for Premiership survival or even host a team like Fulham who are facing an all or nothing/final roll of the dice scenario. The second half of the season is never easy for teams in the middle of the table with comparatively little to play for in comparison to those at the top and the bottom of the table. The top teams step up their performances with the title/European places in their sites while the poorer teams realise they are in trouble and therefore fight tooth and nail for every point. City with a host of players new to the league probably got caught out a bit by just how hard teams will fight for a point in the latter part of the year. But they aren’t the only mid-table team that got knocked off by a relegation threatened team and I guarantee that this sort of thing will repeat itself every year the Premiership is in existence.

Was the manager at fault for the second half of the season? In a word, no. A smart owner would put down the second half of the season dip in form to a team that is inexperienced, a team that may be tiring a little and beginning to be stretched by injuries, a team that was no longer able to slip under the radar due to the element of surprise. Maybe Sven didn’t have the greatest second half of the year himself but he does not deserve the sole blame at all. That is an insane conclusion to draw.

A good follow-on to this that helps to illustrate my point is to compare City’s plight to another Premiership team taken over by a rich foreigner, Aston Villa. In Martin O’Neill’s/Randy Lerner’s first season they finished 11th and like City and Sven had a difficult period after Christmas. This year, O’Neill’s/Lerner’s second season Villa are currently 6th. The previous year before Lerner bought them, Villa had finished 16th. Funnily enough, they were one point behind Man City. City are one year behind Villa in their re-building schedule, and look to be sure to beat Villa’s effort of finishing 11th in their first year under a new manager/owner. Can anyone remember people calling for O’Neill’s head after they finished 11th? Of course not, it would have been crazy to do that at such an early point in what is quite clearly a long-term success plan. I argue that what Shinawatra is doing now is just as crazy and shows he has no appreciation for how a team becomes successful. Here’s a hint Frank: it doesn’t happen over night and doesn’t happen by getting rid of a manager who has met the target you asked of him!

The really sad thing about this whole episode is the tiny minority of City fans out there clinging to the fact that a manager like Mourinho has been lined up to take over. To those fans I ask them to think about this for a second. What world class manager would come to a club where they know the owner will meddle in team affairs and possibly give them the boot even if they meet pre-determined targets like Sven did (it was understood that even as recently as a couple of weeks ago Shinawatra was satisfied with a top 10 finish). The answer is either a very brave or a very stupid manager. Mourinho, after his experience with meddling Abramovich would surely think twice about joining a club with an owner who has shown such footballing stupidity as Shinawatra is doing here and now.

Manchester City are in the headlines again not because they have achieved their highest points total since the advent of the Premier League or because the promising youth that demonstrated their potential by winning the FA Youth Cup a few weeks ago looks close to blossoming and bolstering the first team in the near future. They are in the headlines because a rich owner with seemingly no knowledge of football has chosen at a whim to replace a world class and extremely popular manager. It is a sad day for City fans, make no mistake about it.

The only happy ending I can possibly see is if Shinawatra, the ultimate populist, realises how angry rank and file supporters of City are about this and feels he has no choice but to back down and show contrition to Sven over this whole mess. Because it is crystal clear when you understand all the facts in this story that for Manchester City to be a successful club, all Sven needs is time and sadly it seems he will not be given it.