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More exits to follow Robinho at Eastlands? | With Robinho finally getting his wish to leave the Eastlands on a six-month loan deal to Santos, a bigger issue could be forthcoming at the City of Manchester Stadium. Despite manager Roberto Mancini’s repeated encouragement for Robinho to stay at the club, the Italian’s failure to promise first-team football to City’s record signing proved the decisive factor in the Brazilian star’s departure. Now, with three long days before the close of the January transfer window, more faces could follow Robinho out the door in pursuit of playing regularly ahead of this summer’s World Cup in South Africa.
Striker Benjani has been linked with a move away already while a lack of first-team football in the coming months could force a few others to reconsider their futures as well. For instance, when Michael Johnson returns from injury, he will be battling for playing time in a midfield that is already packed to its maximum capacity. Similarly, when Roque Santa Cruz returns from his latest injury setback, City will have too many strikers to choose from once again.
In the defense, Jolean Lescott would want to come back and start in order to secure a spot on the flight to South Africa with Fabio Capello’s England squad. Vincent Kompany and Kolo Toure will surely give Lescott a run for his money, which could mean curtains for one of those players by the time the transfer window reopens in the summer.
As a result, Roberto Mancini will have more to think about than just the embarrassing 3-1 destruction at Old Trafford that saw his side exiting the Carling Cup in midweek. He will have another shot at getting to Wembley via the FA Cup but more importantly, he needs to make sure his team stays focused on building up the club rather than thinking about quitting.
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City’s problem was Hughes, he got itchy wallett when he arrived and bought far too much of the same, instead of thinking like he had to do at Rovers he just went and bought whoever he felt like without thinking, couple of decent signings a lot of let downs, money could have been spent elsewhere on only 1 or 2 additions to the squad he inherited and kept it much tighter.
The comment to Simon also applies to everyone else’s feelings: a 3-1 defeat at Old Trafford is NOT much better than the 4-1 defeat that I accidentally stated in the first version of the article. Like I already said, this article asks City to worry about keeping the squad together following Robinho’s departure but you guys seem stuck on the one typo about the Carling Cup semifinal. That makes it pretty clear how bad you feel about your embarrassing defeat – that’s right, it was downright embarrassing for a club that spent so much over the summer. I rest my case!
Innocent mistake. The article is called “More exits to follow Robinho at Eastlands?”. And yeah I think there’s a good chance Benjani leaves, as well as Santa Cruz, although I haven’t heard anything serious about the latter. Concerning the defense, I hope Lescott gets playing time and makes the WC team because that increases the chance of the US beating England.
Terrible article, very disappointing.
How can a 4-3 aggregate loss, in injury time, to one of the best teams in Europe playing their strongest team available, despite all City’s injury problems and the ACN effect on Kolo and Ade be described as embarrassing or as a destruction?
Shoddy cheap work, just looking for a reaction without worring about accuracy of content.
Simon, I appreciate your input but completely disagree with your analysis of the article. First of all, you’re stuck on criticizing one sentence of my article – or let me say ONE WORD – which by the way is not even close to being central to the article. It’s a shame that you missed the main point of this article – City’s need to keep their team together.
Now onto your allegation of this being shoddy cheap work in need of a reaction, well I don’t think so. City fans need to start living with the kind of expectations that come with their club’s fat wallet. You lost 4-3 on the aggregate but my comment was not about the aggregate but rather about that SECOND LEG at Old Trafford. On that night, City did NOT play well, contrary to whatever you guys have to argue. Rather, you were hammered 3-1, and yes that is destruction because if Man City wants to think of itself as being in the same league as the top four clubs, then it has to consider a 3-1 loss an embarrassment. If this was Arsenal, Chelsea, or Liverpool – all teams who have also had their share of injuries – that lost by 3-1 on the night, their fans would be pretty upset rather than defending their team by pointing out the AGGREGATE score.
The typo has been fixed in regards to the scoreline and my apologies to anyone offended by that. But the real issue behind the article is the pressure on Roberto Mancini to keep his overloaded squad together on the same page.
@Millenium: No way I can agree with your second point. If this was a dilemma every club faced, football would be A LOT more competitive than it is right now. This dilemma is only faced by clubs like City, Chelsea, and Real Madrid, who often buy a bunch of players before offloading them the following season for throwaway prices. This is the first time City has lost a huge player (its record signing) in this new era and the point of this article is to remind the club’s management to keep the squad together rather than creating another Robinho story in the near future.
I have the following two points:
1. The score is not 4-1, it is 3/1 for the second leg and 4/3 aggregate
2. The subject discuss a common issue for all clubs, it is not only a City problem.
Thus, i wonder, what is the objective of this subject?
4-1? Embarrassing? What game were you watching?
4-1 was it ? I could have sworn it was 3-1, and considering City won 2-1 at home so only lost the semi final by one goal it really wasnt that embarrassing, nice try though. As for ‘destruction’ Manchester City were the better team for well over an hour.
Another plastic with no idea of what they are talking about no doubt :)
Embarrassing, 4-1 I must have missed that one. Unless you mean the 3-1 that made it 4-3 on agg and the goal to beat us off was scored in injury time, so how’s that one embarrassing then please?
get your facts right mate – it was 3-1 and hardly embarrassing. With a bit more luck and a slightly better directed Adebayor header we could have won that match
It was 3 – 1 not 4 – 1 on wednesday, don’t add insult to injury!
Re: your article above. I was not aware that Man City were destroyed 4-1 in the midweek.