EVEN after four titles in five years, no one really hates them. Pep Guardiola attempted to portray Manchester City as the villains, making the spectacularly inaccurate comment, “Everybody in this country supports Liverpool — the media, everyone”. Sky’s Micah Richards complained that, “Liverpool seem to get all the love”. And after the stunning comeback that […]
EVEN after four titles in five years, no one really hates them.
Pep Guardiola attempted to portray Manchester City as the villains, making the spectacularly inaccurate comment, “Everybody in this country supports Liverpool — the media, everyone”.
Sky’s Micah Richards complained that, “Liverpool seem to get all the love”.
And after the stunning comeback that retained the Premier League crown against Aston Villa on Sunday, there was little jubilation from London-based City fans on the packed Avanti West Coast misery train back to the Smoke.
Having witnessed their team’s five-minute miracle, I overheard some City supporters spending the vast majority of their journey complaining that the club don’t get enough credit.
Not on the telly. Not in the papers. Not from “them”, whoever “they” are.
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But, of course, they don’t really want credit or respect. They want City to be loathed and feared as Manchester United were in the Alex Ferguson years, and as Liverpool still are.
And they definitely don’t want United fans supporting them in a title race against Liverpool, which they unanimously do.
The curious thing about City’s decade of domestic dominance — 14 major trophies in 12 seasons — is that nobody cares strongly enough to detest them.
Perhaps it would help if Guardiola was a fire-breathing monster who intimidated referees and possessed a Ferguson hairdryer, instead of just preaching beautiful football and getting mildly sarky if anyone criticises him.
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Or if City employed an attack dog like Roy Keane. But then nobody really does any more.
Perhaps it would help if City won the Champions League and Villa fans could no longer taunt them with inflatable European Cups.
Perhaps it would help if Guardiola was replaced by a manager with a modicum of footballing negativity.
Then City might be resented as Jose Mourinho’s Chelsea were. Even George Graham’s Arsenal.
It would certainly help if City fans started acting like Liverpool supporters, with their weird mix of arrogance — “This Means More” and “Imagine Being Us” — and misty-eyed Scouse separatism.
Including the FA Cup final booing of Prince William who, whatever your views on a hereditary monarchy, seems a nice lad.
But City supporters don’t behave like that.
On the plane back from Madrid, after a late meltdown against Real, the City fan next to me just shrugged: “I have also seen us lose home and away to Wycombe Wanderers in the same season, why complain about losing a Champions League semi-final?”
And on the tram back to Manchester Piccadilly on Sunday, the City fans’ songs were largely old school.
“We don’t win at home and we don’t win away, we lost last week and we lost today” and “This is how it feels to be City, this is how it feels to be small”.
And we recognise, that unlike other Big Six supporters, City fans have truly suffered — Third Division suffering, not just occasionally finishing sixth or seventh in the top flight — so we begrudge their successes far less.
Even given the vast tide of Abu Dhabi oil money which has carried them here.
Newcastle United, now richer than City and owned by a more vile regime, will be widely loathed before City are.
Especially as many in the Toon Army share the self-congratulatory belief of Liverpool’s fanbase that they genuinely care more about their club than the rest of us care about ours.
And although City represent a worldwide network of clubs, they still feel Mancunian. Unlike United and Liverpool shirts, you rarely see City colours worn in the south.
As a result, I can’t recall hearing any neutral expressing a preference for Jurgen Klopp’s side over Guardiola’s.
City fans aren’t alone in imagining media ‘agendas’ being drawn up against their club by conspiratorial journalists — but the truth is far more boring.
Whenever a group of football hacks congregate, the majority of conversations are prolonged moans about roadworks, red-eye flights and train cancellations.
None of us hate football clubs, we only truly hate Avanti West Coast trains.
I CAN’T write the ban, jail, hang or castrate all pitch invaders piece you will read elsewhere, because I invaded a pitch when my team won promotion last month.
Well, “invaded” is a bit strong. I sort of strolled on after several thousand others already had, and the stewards had given up.
With my team being Fulham, everything was amiable, people just took selfies and hoped the club shop would sell commemorative engraved cheeseboards to mark this success (they did).
But horrible attacks on Villa keeper Robin Olsen and Sheffield United’s Billy Sharp have changed my mind and rehabilitated me in the eyes of polite society. I won’t take such a stroll again.
Tory governments enjoy imposing punitive measures on football supporters, as those of us who were caged and threatened with ID cards in the 1980s can testify.
This lot will do the same given half a chance. So please, people, cool your boots, head home and slice yourself a nice piece of cheese instead.
SHOULD a player be booked for taking off his shirt, if wearing a man-bra underneath? Or should the humiliation of the man-bra “reveal” be punishment enough?
You may think this a trivial question.
But if Brentford’s Sergi Canos hadn’t been booked for showing his bra after equalising against Leeds, he would not have been sent off for a second yellow soon after, Brentford might have won, Burnley would have survived and Leeds would have dropped.
Forget protesting about Everton’s financial black hole, this is the argument that Burnley should be pursuing all the way to the High Court.
IT hasn’t yet been fully acknowledged just how weird the whole Ralf Rangnick thing was.
When Manchester United sacked Ole Gunnar Solskjaer in November, Champions League qualification was up for grabs and there were two major trophies still to play for.
Yet United announced a caretaker, Michael Carrick, would keep the seat warmed for an as-yet-unidentified interim, thus writing off the season.
Rangnick spent the following six months publicly slaughtering everything about United and privately confusing a dysfunctional squad, which was united only by the fact that none of them were having him.
ON Friday, Jurgen Klopp hoped aloud mid-table Aston Villa would show the same fighting spirit at Manchester City that mid-table Crystal Palace displayed at relegation-threatened Everton the previous night.
Steven Gerrard and his Villa side followed Klopp’s instructions perfectly.
Like Palace, they fought admirably, went 2-0 up and lost 3-2.
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While City and the Reds have made the Premier League table look uncompetitive — Klopp’s men finished 18 points clear of third-placed Chelsea — the title run-in tells a different story.
Liverpool conceded first in their last four Premier League matches, while City were two-down in their last two.
