Raise that City banner high
Manchester City’s cocky nouveau riche attitude fell a peg or two last night as Manchester United deservedly reached the Carling Cup final. It was City’s biggest night in years and the Abu Dhabi-owned Bitters badly choked at the final hurdle. With City in the FA Cup it is premature to raise the “35 years” Stretford End banner, but surely that’s only a factor of time.
“This football club will be without doubt the biggest and best in the world,” the hapless City CEO Gary Cook said in a New York bar last week.
“People don’t like to hear it but I’ll make no excuses for saying it, and I will never stop saying it because I truly believe it with the resources and capabilities that we have – and when, not if, we’re at Wembley having beaten Man United yet again!”
Cook later backtracked and claimed to believe the meeting was “private” despite the presence of a TV camera crew. The CEO is widely mocked in football circles after City’s incompetent failed bid for former-AC Milan midfielder Kaká last year, where he accused the Italian outfit of “bottling it.” Classy. Not.
Then the Brummie lied to the national press, claiming not to have opened talks with manager Roberto Mancini before incumbant Mark Hughes found a P45 waiting in his Eastlands office.
Not that Mancini’s predictions have born any more fruit.
“When we go to Old Trafford, we will take that banner down,” said the former Italy international striker who no doubt believes City have the Premier League’s widest pitch, tallest floodlights and bluest shirts.
“This is the last year because we will win.”
Perhaps about time City stopped staring into that blue-tinted the crystal ball, eh?