Are Man City The New Chelsea?
From Rags to Riches!!
Are Man City the ‘New Chelsea’?
This I believe is very wide off the mark, having just watched Chelsea’s first 2 games of the season.
Man City tipped by many to be title contenders after another huge spending spree this summer, their disjointed performance against spurs …… (and away at Sunderland….{ED}) …… merely showed just how wrong everyone will be.
It is understandable why some would make the comparison as both the teams have risen to prominence in the transfer market over the last few years due to the arrival of a wealthy Goliath.
Maybe there has been a sense of deja vu over the approach in the signing of players at Eastland, especially as we can all remember the first summer of Roman Abramovich era at our beloved bridge, yet in comparison the City home is built on sand.
On many occasion we have been accused of having no history, buying the title, but often it is the accusers who need to do their history.
When Roman began our Russian revolution in 2003, Chelsea had finished in the top six for seven season in a row, had qualified for the CL and won 4 major trophies since 1997.
John Terry and Frank Lampard were already a big part and settled in the first team and new arrivals were built around them. In contrast, city were just making up thenumbers in the prem, then Thaksin Shinawatra first brought mass investment in 2007, then he was bought out by Abu Dhabi just a few months later and they became the richest club overnight.
Chelsea had established a blueprint for success by mixing the old with the new, but I can guarantee that the powers that be at city will not have such patience and room for sentiment.
Established players that have come through the youth system at Eastland have already been upended, whilst Craig Bellamy was the best player they had last year is also on his way, surplus to requirements. Its not surprising that they play disjointed and as individuals against spurs.
As coaches go Mancini is not convincing either and is looking like a manager who is on borrowed time. I remember Ranieri wearing the same look, then came Jose.
During that time Chelsea were and still are one of the biggest clubs in England, Mourinho took us to these levels of which there are still fruits of his labour evident today.
Jose is now at Real Madrid but the best signing that City could ever make would be to lure Mourinho to wave his stern hand over their team. Only then could they deservedly claim to be compared to Chelsea.
Manuela Matern (CSG Member)
Whilst it is tempting to see the similarities in both situations , you were spot on in analysing the kind of head start chelsea had with the aquisition of Lamps and the emergence of terry , mancity alas are putting together the whole team out of scratch, selling loyals like Dunne and co.plus they seem to have overhauled chelsea’s 6/7 season spending already, which seems too dangerous
wasnt there an article similar to this in the London Evening Standard a couple of weeks ago written by Simon Johnson ?:-
http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/standard…/article-23867981-comparing-manchester-city-with-chelsea-is-a-bit-rich.do
Manuela has written this for other publications but, as a new member of the CSG she has asked if we want to publish these as well, this of course we agreed to do.
Whether she is the same as the writer for the one you mention Samsungjake I’m not sure, I’m sure Manuela will be able to tell you though.