The squad strengths are similar. The fame and reputations of the two managers are similar. In fact, there are so many similarities between the two teams this season that it is very difficult to say that one is better than the other and even more difficult to say which one that is.
Manchester City have a world class goalkeeper prone to the occasional mistake. United also have a world class goalkeeper who makes less mistakes so United have the edge here. (more…)
As of the very near future, the football population of Manchester will increase by at least two. John Stones will move the very short distance from Merseyside, assuming that he doesn’t already live in Cheshire, while Paul Pogba will re-locate from Turin in a return to his spiritual home.
There are similarities between the two but only in their situations, not in their football talents.
Stones is 22 years of age and, being English, has undoubtedly cost Manchester City a premium for this fact alone. He is not yet the finished article and was wanted by Chelsea and, reportedly, Manchester United, but he preferred to remain in the North West with City, showing a remarkable amount of common sense for one so young. (more…)
The Guardian calls them the “Magnificent Seven”, (that’s quite original for the Guardian!). These are the seven teams they reckon have a realistic chance of winning the Premier League title. They even have a natty little video to demonstrate which teams they are referring to. Have a look here, it’s quite good.
Now, even more realistically, which of the following managers will lift the trophy next May?
Arsene Wenger:
There isn’t much to say about Wenger that hasn’t already been said in his long time at Arsenal. There does seem to be some truth in the rumour that he is happy to finish in the top three, top four at a push, so that qualification for the Champion’s League is assured each year. This keeps the board happy but leaves the fans frustrated. Because this attitude seems to prevail at the Emirates, they will not win the title and may even struggle for top four this time out. (more…)
So, failing to qualify for the Champion’s League is not the disaster that all the “experts” predicted it would be. In fact it appears to have had little or no impact on the two main “failures” in England. These are the two teams who contested the final only eight years ago in Moscow! The ability of Manchester United and Chelsea to sign top players and managers does not appear to have been diminished at all.
It is probably true to say that a prolonged absence from the competition would begin to have a negative effect at some stage as a considerable amount of money can be made by appearing in Europe’s top competition. The loss of this money over a sustained period would prove harmful to the clubs trying to attract the best players and, by doing so, make qualifying again the following year a more difficult proposition. In this respect it is a vicious circle. (more…)
In the not too distant past the top clubs in Europe were the ones with the most money. This, to an extent, is still true today but the main difference is that a lot more clubs have the most money than previously.
Thinking back fifteen or twenty years ago there were the usual suspects in Real Madrid and Barcelona from Spain. Bayern Munich, at the time, were usually Germany’s sole representatives in the latter stages of any competition. Arsenal and Manchester United used to fight for the Premier League in England and the Milan clubs and Juventus usually offered Italian resistance. (more…)
This should not come as a major surprise to supporters of the two clubs. If they both stick to their original schedule Manchester United will have played five “warm-up” games and City three.
United will have faced Wigan Athletic, Borussia Dortmund, Galatasaray, Everton and Leicester City.
City will have played Bayern Munich, Borussia Dortmund and Arsenal.
In the past United have been known to organise another friendly prior to the start of the season, usually in the week leading up to the Community Shield. Given that their derby in China was cancelled they may still choose to fit in another game before the big kick off. It seems that United’s players have not yet reached the required level of fitness demanded by a Premier League title contender. (more…)
Looking at the genuine first team choices available to the two managers it is Manchester United who need the likes of Raphael Varane, John Stones or Leonardo Bonucci, more than Manchester City.
Pep can boast the services of Vincent Kompany, Eliaquim Mangala, Nicolas Otamendi and Jason Denayer, all of whom are current picks for their national squads. These, if no further signings are made, would probably be the four centre backs in the squad for next season.
Unfortunately, for City and Kompany, he is very injury prone and unless he can overcome this problem then a new signing will have to be made.
Mangala has never really found the form that convinced City to buy him and has been inconsistent to say the least. He did, however, seem to be coming into a bit of form towards the end of last season. (more…)
(The Jose Mourinho stall at Beijing market proves popular with the locals)
Manchester United and Manchester City flew to China. The idea being that they could take part in the International Champions Cup which would include two games each, one against each other and the remaining one against Borussia Dortmund.
In an eventful week for United they started by being hammered 4-1 by Dortmund before then taking two planes to fly to Beijing, one of which had to make an emergency landing in Tianjin due to bad weather. Quite why the weather was perfectly OK for the other plane to fly the remaining 66 miles or so to Beijing is anybody’s guess, but there you have it.
Next up in the comedy of errors was a Jose Mourinho press conference being held in the open air. This was because the room to be used was deemed as too hot. Obviously, in a massive modern stadium, air conditioning had not been considered necessary. What was ironic was that Pep Guardiola had given his press conference in the same room earlier in the day although, in fairness, he did sweat a lot. (more…)
The answer to the above question has to be “yes”. If not then we may as well award the trophy now and just play the season for fun, which wouldn’t be much fun. Here’s a quick look at the contenders.
CHELSEA:
Their best signing could turn out to be Antonio Conte. Having taken an unfancied Italy to a penalty shoot-out defeat to the very much fancied Germans in the Euros, he has already proven that he can get the best out of a team considered no more than slightly better than average. He has also experienced winning the title in Italy so, the only real question is, can he do it in England? (more…)
Next season there will be almost as much interest in who wins the battle of Manchester as there will be in who eventually wins the Premier League. Mainly in Manchester of course, but the battle will still be watched with a certain amount of interest from all places outside of the “M” postal code area.
It is unfortunate that the teams cannot be compared in the Champion’s League due to the shortcomings of each of the previous managers, both of whom underachieved in their final season.
Louis van Gaal underachieved by so much that United haven’t even qualified for the tournament and City will have to play a pre-qualifier, (which they should win), having finished in a lowly fourth position last time out. (more…)
WHY SAY ANYTHING? 