After a blissful couple of years last season was a tough one for Manchester City fans albeit ‘tough’ is a relative concept in this cases.
Too quickly it seems they came to measure success in terms of trophies rather than being content with simply not fighting relegation season after season.
The FA Cup success of 2011 was quickly followed by their first league title since 1968 and the march towards domination of English – not to mention Manchester – football seemed inexorable and in many way inevitable.
However, a disappointing 2012/13 campaign saw City finish a distant second to United in the league, fail dismally in the Champions’ League group stages and lose the FA Cup final to Wigan following a toothless display at Wembley.
Many of City’s woes come down to a simple lack of firepower.
In their victorious Premier League season they netted 93 times compared to just 66 times last season.
Even fifth-placed Tottenham Hotspur managed to equal City’s total. Having a good defence is not enough because no matter how much football has changed one thing remains the same: goals win games! If you don’t score you can’t win.
The worrying thing for City fans is that they have lost two strikers since January and so far at least not replaced either of them.
Mario Ballotelli and Carlos Tevez might have been difficult characters both on and off the pitch but they were capable of worrying defences and scoring goals. Tevez managed 58 goals in 107 games while Ballotelli scored 20 in 54 games.
Without a serious investment in at least two top-quality strikers City will struggle to make an impact on the race for the Premiership title and will fall short in the Champions’ League again.
But there is another danger.
Look at the teams who are coming up fast in the battle for Champions’ League qualification; Tottenham, Liverpool and Everton are all threatening to break the monopoly of those clubs who assume it’s their God-given right to finish in the top four year in and year out.
While City are not alone in this they are a potential casualty if they fail to act and act swiftly.
It might seem like an exaggeration to say that City risk not qualifying for the 2014 Champions League but as it stands they do have a serious lack of firepower in their ranks.
Both Sergio Aguero and Edin Dzeko are proven goal scorers but to rely on them alone in a possible 60-70 game season without some serious reinforcements would be a folly that could cost new manager Manuel Pellegrini his job before Santa is packing his sleigh.
The easy response to this problem is to throw money at it. That fails to take account of UEFA’s incoming financial fair play rules, something which as it stands is likely to affect City more than most clubs given the dramatic spending which has occurred in recent season.
Nor does it necessarily follow that a proven goal scorer in say German (I’m thinking of Borussia Dortmund’s Robert Lewandowski who has been linked with City) will automatically be a goal scoring success in English football.
Big money moves can have strange effects on people (look no further than Fernando Torres for an example of this).
The danger seems to lie in a lack of even medium-term planning by the management of the club and while it might seem like an exaggeration to say that City risk not qualifying for the 2014 Champions League but as it stands they do have a serious lack of firepower in their ranks.
Picture courtesy of Kancelaria Prezesa Rady Ministrów, with thanks.
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