In a recent interview Alex Ferguson told reporters that he felt Manchester City are a “small club” with a “small mentality” and despite the lavish spending from Mark Hughes, he still refuses to accept City as a threat. He also mentioned that all they (city and their fans) can do is talk about United.

Quite hypocritical then from Ferguson who nearly all of the time talks about other clubs.
Real Madrid: “I wouldn’t even sell them a virus.”
Chelsea: “their ageing squad will be struggling for honours next season” (but Ferguson has possibly one of the oldest teams in the league).
Manchester City: “small club, small mentality, not a threat”
And God knows how many insulting quotes about Arsenal and Liverpool there have been over the years. Fergie’s mind games are legendary.

Of course, there is an element of truth in what he’s saying. As I mentioned earlier he claims that all they talk about is United. Well Ferguson saying that has prompted me, and plenty of journalists and bloggers to write about him and comment on what he said. So he scores a point on that front.

The interview came in the wake of the massive billboard put up in Manchester depicting Carlos Tevez in sky blue and bearing the message “Welcome to Manchester.” Highlighting the fact that Manchester Utd don’t actually play in Manchester but the neighbouring Trafford. And that Carlos Tevez despite being an ex Utd player is very welcome at Eastlands, the club adding him to the current list of ten strikers. This wasn’t the work of some mad City fan but the club’s marketing department itself. And a very good job too.

And yet despite him saying that he doesn’t think City’s a threat there is no doubt that this marketing stunt definitely hurt him. Hughes said in an interview the very next day that the billboard was “supposed to annoy Ferguson.” No doubt this is just the start of some very interesting mind games between Hughes and Fergie over the coming season. It will be an interesting one on the pitch as well with City having their strongest squad in a long while and United’s ageing line up weakened by the departures of Ronaldo and Tevez.

Something Sir Alex can never resist commenting on is transfers. Mainly other clubs dealings. Of Emmanuel Adebayor he said; “When someone offers you that kind of money, it is a big attraction to people nowadays. That is the reason they have gone there. At the last minute, from what I can gather, either Emmanuel Adebayor or his agent phoned us (united) after they had agreed a deal with City and then did the same with Chelsea. He was desperate to get to either Chelsea or us.” Of Carlos Tevez he said; “They think taking Carlos Tevez away from Manchester United is a triumph. It is poor stuff.” And of City in general; “Do you know what City’s biggest triumph is? It’s getting those players there. I don’t know if they will do anything with them. It is not easy to get into that top four, so the biggest success of all is to just get the players there. They might not get beyond that.”

In the rest of the interview Ferguson concerned himself unsurprisingly with Arsenal. He can never resist it! And then, for once, he talked about his club and his players. He mentioned the obvious weaknesses they have in their ageing midfield and how they were going to replace his beloved Ronaldo. .

Hopefully then, City and all ten of our strikers can get one over United next season and reach their dream of a place in the top four. It will be very interesting to see how the most experienced manager in the premier league will take it if fourth place falls to City.

But, of course, we’re not without fault ourselves. Hughes seems to be relying far too heavily on attacking players and now that the John Terry deal has fallen through we are going after Joleon Lescott and Kolo Toure. Both are proving elusive. Let’s just hope that Hughes has a good defender on mind. And please, no more strikers!

This weeks signings of Tevez and Adebayor (with Terry still a faint possibility) have installed a belief in me that with the right attitude and some much needed luck, Manchester City can once again become one of England’s elite clubs

Cheesy, yes. But its true. We have one of the best squads we’ve had in many years and in Mark Hughes a manager who (so far) seems to know what he’s doing and has a very professional approach to things (although I know there is plenty of debate on that issue.)

One by one City are weakening the “top four.” We took Tevez from Utd without them getting a penny, Adebayor from Arsenal (who’ll probably prove to be our biggest rivals next year for fourth place), we’re still in discussions over Terry and we pinched Gareth Barry from under Liverpool’s nose. All these sides will be fielding weaker sides when the season kicks off again. Not to mention the fact that we can blow all of these clubs out the water when it comes to transfers.

The other managers, too, are taking notice. Ancelotti and the Chelsea hierarchy are taking our Terry bid seriously (something that never happened with kaka) showing that they regard us as one of the top teams in the league. Harry Redknapp and Rafael Benitez have started to make silly, snide remarks about how we’re “ruining football.” They’re scared. Simple.

Okay. I realise this sounds a bit arrogant and cocky and City fans have never been, should never be like that. Its probably something that comes with the money and my only worry about our future is if we lose the ability to laugh at ourselves like we always have done.

But since we became the richest club in the world this is the closest we’ve come yet to making the breakthrough. So we should get excited. Admittedly this could all go horribly wrong if the owners get bored and we have these huge wages to pay. Then we’ll be back where we started with the tag of “Typical City.” Whatever the debate about Hughes and his staff I’m backing him. For now…