The Tevez farce

What a disgrace Tevez has been to the Champions League and his club by refusing to play when asked to do so at the Allianz Arena.

Goes to show that you can buy lots of talent, but you cannot buy team unity and a sense of commitment to the club and its fans.

Man City has loads of money evidently, they could purchase the most talented players in the world and create a team many of their fellow peers can only dream about.

When Mancini claimed he did not have enough players and they are mostly tired out after the recent spate of games, I thought the Italian must have gone cuckoo... afterall many managers in the world will love to have any player from his massive squad in their first eleven.

But for now, I probably get what Mancini is saying. He is desperate... not for player numbers but for passionate players who will die for the City cause. Obviously, it is easier said than done. Mancini has some blame to take, he was too quick to ship Wright Phillips and Michael Johnson away. These are players who are ardent City fans, they lived and breathed the cause but were deemed "not good enough" for his squad of mega stars. Even Craig Bellamy was a hard worker who is the ultimate professional when asked to do the job. Mancini chose to place his trust in a bunch of spoilt and unruly "superstars", notably Balotelli and now Carlos Tevez.  They had shown time and again they will rather not be at Man City, which means its only the financial rewards that have their greedy agents wanting to keep them on Man City's roster.

Mancini has a big problem to handle. Squad disunity is infectious. And when there is no obvious leader at the club, Mancini runs the risk of losing his dressing room to the sulkers like Carlos and Mario. Edin Dzeko throwing his weight around after being substituted speaks further volumes of how much respect the players have for the manager's decisions.

Man City has the hallmark of a ill disciplined group of super egos. No disrespect to Mancini, but Mourinho have at least on his Real Madrid squad a team of players that will stand behind him no matter what nonsensical stunts he throw, i.e. poking the eye of the Barca assistant coach or ignoring the press. Mourinho always has an upper hand because he always knew how to get the players to be on his side, sometimes to the extent of player and manager against club and board.

This could be just a start of Mancini stamping his authority. We will see Carlos condemned to the reserves for sure. Dzeko probably got a earful or a fine for his stupid protests after being substituted. We will see how Mancini deals with his boy star Balotelli when he steps out of line again.

Imagine Tevez pulling his weight at Man Utd. Then again, he will never be able to take it that far with Sir Alex at the fore.

Hargreaves haunting

The goalscoring return of Owen Hargreaves for Manchester City was the highlight of the day for most footballing fans.

It was good to see Hargreaves return to the big time after such a horrible time with injuries, but I don't think any Man Utd fan will have enjoyed that piece of news too well. Afterall, Hargreaves is a Man Utd fan and we know what he has done for the club when we were wildly successful in all tournaments in 2008.

There is no doubt Hargreaves's quality, the thing was we deemed him surplus to requirements with Pogba and a slew of talent, leaving him to join the bitter rivals and noisy neighbors that is Man City. Now if Hargreaves keeps his fitness without aggravating a dodgy knee, he is set to become one of the best comeback players ever.

Will Hargreaves come haunting Man Utd? Almost certainly, he will play no part in major games for Man City, but there is no doubt he could play a key role as a squad player for Man City in a widely expected tight race for the BPL title between the Manchester rivals.

Football Capital at Manchester?

Football capitals, I can think of a few... Barcelona will hold claim to that, being the most successful club in Eurpe in recent history. But there really is only one football club in Barca, so you cannot really claim that it is THE capital based on club rivalry. Real Madrid and Atletico Madrid has a nice rivalry going on there, but Real is clearly seen as a bully in the La Liga these days, the wealth gap is so wide its offensive to even watch them play. So Madrid is out for me too.

Milan has two huge clubs, Inter and AC Milan. Both are competitive clubs at domestic and European level. But the Italian Serie A has been plagued with scandals, protests and crowd trouble, taking the lustre off the Milan clubs.

Rome? Rome can boast the fiercest rivalry in football. It is rooted in genuine hatred and politics. Lazio and Roma fans are passionate, Lazio often associated with the left wing extremists, and Roma often linked to the establishment.

London maybe? Chelsea, Arsenal and Tottenham have seemingly fallen off the charts haven't they? Chelsea in a still in a draggy period of transition from post Mourinho and a rookie manager AVB at the helm when it comes to the BPL, Arsenal's problems seem to mount every few weeks with injuries, low morale and loss of form, Tottenham's coffers are drying up now and they have little to spend on new players given that their own star players want to leave. Not good signs for London.

We need not then speak about Ligue 1 or the mega-oil rich Russian League, none of which has produced a European Champion nor capture the imagination of fans. The German League has only 2 teams, Dortmund and Munich so it isn't a world of difference from the La Liga either.

So that leaves us with the most exciting rivalry that is sure to fill the entire season with action and passion. The Manchester rivalry. The Reds are obviously the proven champions having won the Premier League a record 19 times, and you have the Sky Blues (the pretenders of sorts). But City fans have a huge backer in Qatari royalty, they have money to burn and a cool customer of a manager in Mancini who is bent on success.

Manchester is the new capital of football, the way both sides dismiss opponents these days spark nighmarish fears in opposing defences. It seems a match cannot end with either side putting at least 3-4 goals past the opposition. With a stellar cast of superstars and budding talent on both sides, the Manchester rivalry promise to lift Manchester into the upper echelons of footballing history.

Arsenal on the decline...

Its almost like a perfect storm, when anything that can go wrong will go wrong.

I always hesitate to write a  negative post on Arsene Wenger. I have a lot of respect for the French manager who has brought to football fans an attacking brand of football that has inspired coaches all over the world. Its pretty football, easy on the eyes but not always effective enough.

But recent developments have left Arsenal fans exasperated. It is too early in the season to predict if they will finish out of the top four (an unthinkable prospect since Wenger took over) but the signs are ominous. Arsene surely must take the blame for some poor managment decisions.

1.) No Fabregas, Nasri and Clichy... the latter two lost to Man City (closest competitors these days), Fabregas a crybaby demanding a Catalan reunion which smacks of childishness in my opinion. Wenger should have seen it coming, he should have sought replacements early in the window, he hesitated, Arsenal become the big losers, Barcelona and Man City got themselves fair bargains.

2.) Arteta, Benayoun, Mertesacker, Gervinho and Santos are not the typical A-listers Arsenal fans are looking for. For Arsenal, a morale boost was required, a big signing could have given this team a much needed lift... Arsene could have done well to sign a Eden Hazard or Gary Cahill.

3.) Arsenal just lost their best defender Vermaelen to surgery. Bad luck maybe but Arsene should have strengthened the backline a whole lot better. It is obvious Koscielny, Djourou and Squillaci are not BPL-standard central defenders. The 8-2 defeat at Old Trafford was a kind reminder by his old "friend"... Alex Ferguson.

4.) An inexperienced and paper thin squad. He failed to add even though it was plain obvious to everyone else that the team was uninspiring. The youth policy was meant to bed youngsters, but throwing them onto the field with no leader, no brute (i.e Tony Adams, Martin Keown) meant the team was bound to cut up by a rampant Man Utd.

5.) Money not reinvested meant fans will never be appeased. Losing the club captain and charismatic playmaker are big blows to the fan. It will have helped the fans to accpet the loss by spending on a star in the making like Eden Hazard or Marvin Martin, Arsene held back, the opportunity is lost to turn a crisis into a victory.

I hope Arsene Wenger could turn this around. He has never been tested on such a scale before, I hope he gets through it unscathed.

Fergie's new fledgings

Could this be true?

A second era of fledgings since the Beckham, Giggs, Scholes, Neville era?

The hot topic in the new season is all about the new crop of youngsters who combined to thrash Arsenal 8-2, the biggest loss inflicted on any Arsenal side since from long ago.

Such promising talent that Sir Alex could afford to ignore the likelihood of signing Weslet Sneijder, a world class talent in football.

I am excited to see the season pan out, and while many are quick to point out that teams don't win championships with kids, Man Utd is NOT a team of kids... its a team of kids and evergreens like Giggsy. Experience and youthful exuberance is a potent mix in football and when the chemistry is right, you get the Arsenal performance at Old Trafford.

Glory Glory Man Utd.