Hughes & Robinho will be gone within the year ! ..........(IMO)

The mere fact that Hughes was surprised at the Berbatov bid means that those above are not running things past him. By January when the next window opens he'll be under severe pressure. They want to win the Champions League within 3 years apparantly. Expect him to be a Dead Man Walking by next Spring and his high profile Continental successor already lined up and openly talked about.

Robinho wanted to go to Chelsea. Nobody in Brazil's heard of City, they refer to United as Manchester. They're not in the Champions League and will be hard pushed to even make it for next season. He's not a happy man and isn't even pretending to be. Expect theatrics and sulking and disappearing whilst on International duty.

However, make no mistake about it, they will be a force to be reckoned with, and what this once again brings home, is that our Club ( the greatest Club in the World ) are in the hands of a a bunch of Yank opportunists, who aren't even that wealthy comparatively speaking.

Thank God Berbatov was so determined to play for us and only us, not leaving the ground until after midnight therefore not even entertaining the idea of playing for anyone else, thank God for Fergie, meeting him at the airport and acting quickly when it really mattered.

At this moment in time, I love 'em both.

Originally Posted by Fountz

The mere fact that Hughes was surprised at the Berbatov bid means that those above are not running things past him. By January when the next window opens he'll be under severe pressure. They want to win the Champions League within 3 years apparantly. Expect him to be a Dead Man Walking by next Spring and his high profile Continental successor already lined up and openly talked about.

Robinho wanted to go to Chelsea. Nobody in Brazil's heard of City, they refer to United as Manchester. They're not in the Champions League and will be hard pushed to even make it for next season. He's not a happy man and isn't even pretending to be. Expect theatrics and sulking and disappearing whilst on International duty.

However, make no mistake about it, they will be a force to be reckoned with, and what this once again brings home, is that our Club ( the greatest Club in the World ) are in the hands of a a bunch of Yank opportunists, who aren't even that wealthy comparatively speaking.

Thank God Berbatov was so determined to play for us and only us, not leaving the ground until after midnight therefore not even entertaining the idea of playing for anyone else, thank God for Fergie, meeting him at the airport and acting quickly when it really mattered.

At this moment in time, I love 'em both.

the look on his face yesterday was priceless.....

Robinho threatened to sit on the bench for a year rather than play another game for Madrid.

City are a club of opportunity for him ala Veron for us a couple of years ago.....he just wanted to get out anywhere. As Fountz said his agent will be arranging his next move as we speak.

They will gather all the late 20 something superstars (with egos to match)from around the world who will chase the Arab gold and Hughes (at first) will have to try and forge a team out of them.....best of British you blue @#%&!s.

@#%&!o though he is, calderon had it bang on that he hasn't moved there for 'football reasons'.

Until they make top 4 they are shopping for a certain type of player, those who just want as much as cash as possible.


when they make top 4, different players will be interested..

Even when / if they are top 4, we will still be able to fight our corner, the players who aren't interested in coming to United because we can't / won't match the wages they are offering aren't the players we want anyway..

see - Shevchenko etc

Absolutely nailed on: in a few months there will be a very undignified and public pursuit of a new manager, probably Mourinho or Hiddink.

Hughes is a decent manager but not Champions League standard.

These rich blokes will be banking on CL qualification asap because it's the only thing they have to attract the top players (bar the money), and Hughes is not the man for that. He's the new Ranieri and will be £#%&!ed off in January.

Agree about Robinho too.

in fact i posted something quite similar yesterday at the height of the giddiness:

http://utdforum.com/forum/showpost.p...6&postcount=21

http://utdforum.com/forum/showpost.p...&postcount=519


as i said, this looks like the next act in city's comedy soap opera. does anyone in their right minds think that bidding for four strikers/attacking players from different leagues at the same time (villa, gomez, berbatov, robinho) on the final day of the window makes sense? this is a bunch of owners who will very much want to play with their new toy. hughes will be in for a bit of a shock after working at blackburn for so long. in fact, i remember an interview with somebody formerly with the club who said that he only appreciated just how well blackburn is run when he went elsewhere. hughes is no mug and there's no way his idea of strengthening city's team is signing four attackers. if they'd put bids in for a quality defensive m/f and a centre-back i'd be more concerned.

it's going to take a lot more than money to lift city up. they're not going to make the top four this year and it will be hard to bring in the kind of quality and quantity they need without that to offer. by the looks of things their targets are of the big name variety, not the team-building sort. plenty of headlines, plenty of giddiness, plenty of excitement for the owners, but not what is needed. if city start buying youngish british talent and giving the team a real spine and some defensive mettle then i'll take notice. but the first signs don't suggest that is too likely.

as far as i can see there are only three reasons a person (group etc.) might buy a football club. one is because you're a fan and it's your dream (jack walker); another is because you're a businessman and you want profit (the glazers); the last is because you're bored and you want a new toy, adulation and whatever prestige you can find (abramovich). i think we can discount the possibility of middle eastern oil despots being lifelong city fans, which leaves us with two possibilities. profit is clearly not the goal as they will never recoup the kinds of sums they're talking about. so we're left with the last and, as with abramovich, the question is what happens when they get bored. pumping money in is a short-term game. it's like cheating in a computer game: quick satisfaction which is quickly replaced by boredom. that's why, after a time, all of these clubs will need to become more or less self-financing. look at chelsea: still big players in the transfer market but there is clearly some budgetary restraint there. they're just not hurling money around like they were a few years ago and it's not because the mafioso has run out. it will be the same with city.

you're right about a big name coach as well. i'd expect them to take the abramovich route here and bring in somebody with a background in international football. all part of the project.

it's a shame, because city do have some history. not much, but they're real club with tradition, unlike chelsea. now they're going to be a brand and it's going to happen very quickly. with us it happened slowly, over a decade or more, and we have, to a degree, retained some sense of identity and some roots in the town. city are going to be submerged in the project, though. i doubt their fans will recognise the club in three years.

Good post borsuk.

I have three points though:

1) it's not a computer game. Boredom will arrive much less quickly in real life.

2) Chelsea are clearly more restrained, true, but they successfully bought two league titles - the thought of city coming close to that makes me sick.

3) siddy fans' giddyness is such that they would not care if the club changed its colours to red, white and black and its name to 'Manchester Untied', as long as they have some superstar Brazilians with 1,000 giddy points.

Some great posts on this thread.

It could all easily implode and perhaps will but not before City have won at least something. And that's something I have an irrational fear about.

City fans have for years clung onto the once false but now true accusation that Manchester is blue. Local (greater manchester based) fans supporting a club rooted in Manchester as opposed to our world franchise supported by cockneys.

This has always been easily countered by reminding City just how woefully shit they are and have always been. But I am now genuinely worried that this sound foundation stone, this status quo, will be upset.

It’s a black day as far as I can tell.

Originally Posted by My Name is Keith

City fans have for years clung onto the once false but now true accusation that Manchester is blue.

what?

Originally Posted by My Name is Keith

City fans have for years clung onto the once false but now true accusation that Manchester is blue. Local (greater manchester based) fans supporting a club rooted in Manchester as opposed to our world franchise supported by cockneys.

Disagree.

City fans have clung on to the theory that Manchester was Blue and was local fans supporting a local club. It was, in effect all that they had.

In reality it was and is different. Manchester is at least 65-70% red with City taking up the bulk of the remaining 25-30%

What this will actually do will be to remove the charade of them being the local club supported by locals. Their USP will be gone.

However, I do expect some silverware, an open top bus parade and much pseudo Mancunian giddyness and posturing.

I accept that United have far more supporters in Greater Manchester.

But of the people that actually attend games, I'm guessing that the two clubs are at least on a par now or they may just shade it.

They get a 45k average now and whilst we are in the 70's, a straw poll of people I meet whilst attending OT suggests that a £#%&! of a lot of us are about as Mancunian as Ken Livingston.

All it means is that United must get Fergie's successor absolutely right and before that Fergie has got to smarten up his fuggled thinking on who he wants to keep 'on the field' and in the squad.
I we aint careful United will be he Sunset Club and Citeh the Sunrise club.

Originally Posted by Zorg

Good post borsuk.

I have three points though:

1) it's not a computer game. Boredom will arrive much less quickly in real life.

2) Chelsea are clearly more restrained, true, but they successfully bought two league titles - the thought of city coming close to that makes me sick.

3) siddy fans' giddyness is such that they would not care if the club changed its colours to red, white and black and its name to 'Manchester Untied', as long as they have some superstar Brazilians with 1,000 giddy points.

1/ yeah, true. but it comes all the same. and there's the question of hubris: they won't want to win a meaningless title by spending umpteen gadzillions. they'll mouth the mantra of long-term, building the club, playing good football, working with the community etc. just like chelsea have been.

2/ again, true enough. but chelsea were a lot better under ranieri than city under ericsson or hughes. there was already the nucleus of a very decent side when abramovich arrived. city are way off challenging.

3/ true. thank £#%&! i live abroad now. no bitters here yet


in the end, though, there's only so much money you can spend. it's a cliche, but you can only have 11 on the field and even after you've bought your team of names you still have to manage it. look, again, at chelsea: they've bought everyone they wanted for the last, what, six years? eight years? really, there isn't a player they've tried to get who they haven't been able to afford. but their team is still struggling to match us. we are a club well run throughout on the footballing side. the coaching, the ethos, the psychology... all top class. you can't buy that.

and, however bad it might be watching the £#%&!ers lift some cup or other, it will all end in tears at both chelsea and city. the money goes, the club collapses. in the end, it's still city.

Don't be fooled Keith, city have lots of fans who come to matches from elsewhere, they just never mention it.

You're making the mistake the ABUs make - assuming that because they know (perhaps a lot of) United fans who aren't from Manchester, it must follow that there aren't (m)any from Manchester.

It's not logical, captain.

Originally Posted by borsuk

3/ true. thank £#%&! i live abroad now. no bitters here yet

cracovia

Originally Posted by denis lawless

cracovia

real fans. embarrassing small-time wisła lads celebrating beating barca 1-4 the other night

barca couldn't have been less arsed if they'd sent their grannies along instead

Originally Posted by borsuk

as far as i can see there are only three reasons a person (group etc.) might buy a football club. one is because you're a fan and it's your dream (jack walker); another is because you're a businessman and you want profit (the glazers); the last is because you're bored and you want a new toy, adulation and whatever prestige you can find (abramovich).

Used to wind me up no end when the Glazers took over and blinkered idiots were comparing them to Abramovich.

Abramovich has made his money and saw Chelsea as something to play with and put it back into.

The Glazers have made far less but saw United as an opportunity to make considerably more.

IMO.

Originally Posted by Zorg

Don't be fooled Keith, city have lots of fans who come to matches from elsewhere, they just never mention it.

You're making the mistake the ABUs make - assuming that because they know (perhaps a lot of) United fans who aren't from Manchester, it must follow that there aren't (m)any from Manchester.

It's not logical, captain.

I suppose you're right, to a point.

I've been having heated arguments with City fans for 25 years now and I think I know most of the pitfalls. But the erosion of local support has been going on at United for decades now whereas City have strengthened their local support in the last 10 years because of all the 'we're the only true manc club' propaganda.

Unquestionably, the divide is far smaller than it was.

Originally Posted by borsuk

real fans. embarrassing small-time wisła lads celebrating beating barca 1-4 the other night

barca couldn't have been less arsed if they'd sent their grannies along instead

60 years £#%&! all
60 years £#%&! all
60 years £#%&! all
60 years £#%&! all






as oppose to "beating" the world famous FC Shakhtyor Soligorsk 1-5 ...in the intertoto

Originally Posted by My Name is Keith

Unquestionably, the divide is far smaller than it was.

Disagree Keith. For all their good intentions and work in the community, they've been completely overshaddowed because we've totally dominated and they've won chuff all.

I'm from Sth Manchester, City's supposed core area. Back when I was growing up and we were mediocre at best, I was one of 2 to 3 United fans in the class at Primary School, there was a smattering of Liverpool, Leeds and Chelsea but the rest were City. By the time I attended the local Senior School it was at least 50/50.

I took my eldest to a Soccer Camp back at my old Primary School a few years ago, and the kids in United kits outnumbered the City Kits 4 or 5 to one.

Seriously, the majority of people in the Manchester area support United and particuarly the next generation. There's no question about that.