Are Man City about to become more scummier than Chelsea?

[Tam Seddon]

With their new rich owners? The premiershit is an actual joke!

[donnydarkoIRL]

I believe that Chelsea have cxleaned up their act since they've got funding.
They're no longer reputed for their thuggery as they once were.

[Dark Lord Al]

When Man City actually win something , i will start to take notice , until that point they are the second team in Manchester.

[gudnite vienna]

the premiership is taking over full stop... if ur world class then the prem is the place to be... even clubs such as Barcelona are not gona be able to compete soon...

[Master]

Anyone that can compete with Man Utd in their own City cannot be all bad.

[smashup]

Well Man City can swamp Chelsea for cash now so really they have no excuse not to be top 4 material in the next few years...
Cracking Man Utd is another story.
History proves that even buying the best players etc still does'nt shift em from being top dogs...Chelsea have tried it and mostly failed.
Simply doesn't work like that when you have Sir Alex in the driving seat

[Tam Seddon]

This guy is worth 460 billion pounds, Abromovich is worth 12 billion pounds. Does this put it into more perspective of how much this man is actually worth? And what he can do with Manchester City.

They signed Robinho for 32.5 million in one night and in January they will sign a heck of a lot more players. The front of the sun today will put it into a bit more perspective!

I hate sell out clubs, like Chelsea and by like looks of it, they are going to be x10 worse !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[Scrap]

As a manager I really rate Mark Hughes. Dont Kid yourself Man City have a Fantastic Fan base, they will have to expand the ground shortly.

[purtyboy]

I have no idea why Robinho would leave Madrid for ManCity... The best player in the world IMO Cristiano Ronaldo would of loved to be in Robinho's team. Oh well... speaking on man city they should start N.Castillo

[Memphis]

How long will Hughes last now?

January will be very interesting.

[Plopeater]

How long will Hughes last now?

January will be very interesting.

The new owners are talking about top 4 this year, the premier league next year, what happens come January when they're mid table. Will Sparky survive. It will certainly be interesting

[ono]

I have no idea why Robinho would leave Madrid for ManCity... The best player in the world IMO Cristiano Ronaldo would of loved to be in Robinho's team. Oh well... speaking on man city they should start N.Castillo

Ciy fan here...

Robinho burnt his bridges at Madrid. They tried to flog him as part exchange for the tranny from Man Utd...and understandably Robinho was pissed off. When they failed to buy the tranny, Real started with the 'your so important to us' crap, and Robinho didn't buy it. He called his own press conference because he wanted to leave and then Real stopped him from going to the Olympics...which actually made him cry.

He was going to the Chavs but Big Phil wouldn't meet the asking price so Big Al stepped in and slammed down £34.5m big ones.

Thing with Castillo is, i don't think he is anywhere near match fit. And he dislocated his shoulder and never regained his place....or fitness.

Hope he gets his chance though because i've seen too much good stuff from him in the past for us to just let him go.

[ono]

It's not a joke right now.

It might be if we start continually buying £20-£20m players but then again Man Utd have been doing it for a good few years...

Dwight Yorke (£12.8m - ten years ago)
Jaap Stam (£10.9m - ten years ago)
Ruud (£19m)
Veron (£30m)
Ferdinand (£30m)
Rooney (£27m)
Carrick (£18.6m)
Hargreaves (£18m)
Anderson (£18m)
Nani (£17.3m)
Berbatov (£31m)

Nobody seems to be arsed about them doing it.

Man City sign Robinho and suddenly it's unfair and the league is a joke?

It's the only way to break into the top 4. You can't do it with youth because the big 4 will buy the promising youngsters that come through at mid table teams. (shaun wright-phillips, frank lampard, joe cole, wayne rooney etc...)

Investment is the only way teams will catch up.

[Plopeater]

It's not a joke right now.

It might be if we start continually buying £20-£20m players but then again Man Utd have been doing it for a good few years...

Dwight Yorke (£12.8m - ten years ago)
Jaap Stam (£10.9m - ten years ago)
Ruud (£19m)
Veron (£30m)
Ferdinand (£30m)
Rooney (£27m)
Carrick (£18.6m)
Hargreaves (£18m)
Anderson (£18m)
Nani (£17.3m)
Berbatov (£31m)

Nobody seems to be arsed about them doing it.

Man City sign Robinho and suddenly it's unfair and the league is a joke?

It's the only way to break into the top 4. You can't do it with youth because the big 4 will buy the promising youngsters that come through at mid table teams. (shaun wright-phillips, frank lampard, joe cole, wayne rooney etc...)

Investment is the only way teams will catch up.

I'm a Utd fan and agree with you that Utd do spend big and nobody seems to say anything. Thing is they sign 1 or 2 players a year and they're sometimes squad players to start with.

What will happen at City or only may is that they'll spend 100 mil in January on 5 1st team players, thats why people will comment.

I still think that City need to keep Richards, Johnson, Ireland, WPhillips, all young City players and Joe Hart, and combine this with experienced world class players, (Robinho, etc).

City have one of Englands most promising strikers in Sturridge yet there was talk of bids for Berbatov, Torres, Van Nistelrooy amongst other forwards. It makes you think which of those Hughes would want if he could choose.

I just hope for Englands sake the likes of Johnson, Sturridge and Hart don't get shoved to the background by big signings, otherwise we may miss the next Beckhams, Neville and Scholes.

[ono]

It's not a joke right now.

It might be if we start continually buying £20-£20m players but then again Man Utd have been doing it for a good few years...

Dwight Yorke (£12.8m - ten years ago)
Jaap Stam (£10.9m - ten years ago)
Ruud (£19m)
Veron (£30m)
Ferdinand (£30m)
Rooney (£27m)
Carrick (£18.6m)
Hargreaves (£18m)
Anderson (£18m)
Nani (£17.3m)
Berbatov (£31m)

Nobody seems to be arsed about them doing it.

Man City sign Robinho and suddenly it's unfair and the league is a joke?

It's the only way to break into the top 4. You can't do it with youth because the big 4 will buy the promising youngsters that come through at mid table teams. (shaun wright-phillips, frank lampard, joe cole, wayne rooney etc...)

Investment is the only way teams will catch up.

I'm a Utd fan and agree with you that Utd do spend big and nobody seems to say anything. Thing is they sign 1 or 2 players a year and they're sometimes squad players to start with.

What will happen at City or only may is that they'll spend 100 mil in January on 5 1st team players, thats why people will comment.

I still think that City need to keep Richards, Johnson, Ireland, WPhillips, all young City players and Joe Hart, and combine this with experienced world class players, (Robinho, etc).

City have one of Englands most promising strikers in Sturridge yet there was talk of bids for Berbatov, Torres, Van Nistelrooy amongst other forwards. It makes you think which of those Hughes would want if he could choose.

I just hope for Englands sake the likes of Johnson, Sturridge and Hart don't get shoved to the background by big signings, otherwise we may miss the next Beckhams, Neville and Scholes.

Yeah i hear what you're saying but at the end of the day, if these players are good enough - even if they end up having to leave, they will still be able to carry on their development elsewhere. We can talk about how it harms England all we want, but surely Capello omitting the likes of Richards, Hart, Agbonlahor (sp) and Young, but including the likes of Bullard, Upson and Heskey is harming our chances more severley.

I don't think much will happen in January. Nobody wants to sell at that time and Hughes won't buy unless we need to strengthen that area.

I also don't buy into us bidding for all the players we reportedly bid for (i've seen a few reports that suggest we did and didn't) . I know we moved for Berbatov but i saw that as a smokescreen to go for somebody less obvious - like Robinho. Even if we did bid for all them players, we would have only ended up with one of them...like we did. I think Dr Al wanted to make a statement more than anything and i believe we've done that.

I agree with Sturridge. He looks very promising and we should look to develop him. He's going to love playing alongside Robinho. I think Sturridge has enough potential to warrant us keeping him - even with the investment.

Not so much arsed about Michael Johnson. The media have done a good job of vastly over-rating him because England are desperate for somebody to come along in the Gerrard mold. He's simply not that good. Indeed if he was 'foreign' he would be valued at about £4-£5m. Ireland is a better player imo but he is pretty inconsistent. Micah is definitley safe.

I alos think the takeover has over-shadowed what Mark Hughes has done since taking over. He's already built a strong squad even without Robinho. He's brought in SWP to compliment Petrov which gives us better options out wide than most teams outside of the top 2. Kompany has come in to anchor the midfield and he looks superb. Zabaleta has come in to replace Corluka which is probably a good move as Corluka was becoming a bit of a defensive liability imo. Ben Haim is a very good squad player for anybody not in the top 2. And Jo has come in and he certainly has bags of potential. So before the takeover the squad was strong enough to compete for the 5th position at the very least anyway. The 3-0 wins over West Ham and Sunderland show we were already heading in the right direction.

Anyway i liked your post. It wasn't very anti-city and that's nice to see coming from a United fan. Any distain i had for United pretty much evaporated when i moved to Leeds and had to endure listening to their fans when they were riding high in the Champions League and we we're travelling to the likes of Gillingham and Mansfield on a wet Wednesday night. Good luck this season and the future - where hopefully Manchester can dominate European football