Hated or adored but never ignored.

Yesterday was a big day for Manchester City, and as you would expect it produced a tremendous amount of bitter, jealous and hateful ramblings from certain journalists and opposition fans alike. It does seem that whenever City do something impressive there's someone else there to slate them or bring up some rumour in an attempt to put City back down a peg or two.


There's 3 in particular that have gone into print between yesterday and this morning that I'll pick out, and I don't normally do this but they need naming and shaming for the complete and utter tosh that they've produced. Araiz Baqi (SportPulse), Sami Mokbel (Mail Online) and Luke Edwards (The Telegraph), take a bow.

Lets start with the bitter nonce from SportPulse who went with "Manchester City sign Aguero - Football in desperate need of Financial fair play" as a headline. Now far be it from me to be the grammar police but you can figure the kind of intellect we're facing when someone starts to use random capitals in a sentence. You can also immediately feel the bitter hatred simply oozing from a headline like that.

Baqi kindly points out in bold letters that City have purchased Aguero for £38 million and is said to earn €225,000 per week. Thanks for that, I'm sure we wouldn't have been able to read those figures otherwise. And after the usual spiel about his scoring record and past clubs we get down to the good part.


The article goes on to mention the problem Mancini will have in choosing who plays as striker and then lists the players he believes to fill that role at City. "Mario Balotelli, Alex Nimely, Craig Bellamy, Carlos Tevez, Roque Santa Cruz, Adam Johnson, Emmanuel Adebayor, and Edin Dzeko are all players who will be competing" for the striker spot apparently.


Where do you start with that rubbish? Ah yes, I'm sure you've spotted one of the most glaring mistakes here, Adam Johnson is not a striker, never has been and never will be Baqi you fool. Next in line is Alex Nimely, yes he is a striker but the young lad is hardly a first team regular after making one appearance is he? Add to that RSC, Ade and Bellers who are all on their way out of the club and Tevez who is also heading for the exit and that leaves Edin and Mario left on the list to compete with and John Guidetti trying to break into the squad.


That's 3 'main' strikers with 2 young lads coming through the ranks once all the players have been sorted. Hardly excessive is it considering United had 4 'main' strikers in 1999 is it?


So where does he go now? The only natural progression is to list City's signings in bold print since Sheikh Mansour took over and jibe that this has only managed to 'buy' a solitary FA Cup. 


"All City could manage with these spendings was a single FA Cup" so gleefully stated before continuing "If such a huge amount of transfer budget was handed over to an intelligent mind, like that of Sir Alex Ferguson, Jose Mourinho..."


By Christ what is this idiot dribbling on about? The money spent took a side from being relegation fodder to joint 2nd in the league and ended a 35 year trophy drought. And City still haven't spent what certain other teams have, the only thing people don't like is how fast they've been able to spend it. I can guarantee that he wouldn't be complaining if his club (probably the rags) were given an open cheque book like City have. And of course he's conveniently leaving out the ridiculous transfer sums other clubs spent on players over the years. It's total hypocrisy with a massive dose of jealousy on top.


After banging on a little more about City being the footballing equivalent of the Antichrist he then urges FIFA to get control of the amount clubs (he means City of course) are spending because, and wait for it, "Football is about how a Club can achieve glory by team work, not by spending power." And I agree a football team has to show team work to achieve glory, but how many leagues or trophies are won by teams that aren't in the top 3-4 biggest spending clubs in any given league? At the end of the day you can buy as many players as you like but if they can't play together you wont get anywhere. He's obviously not thought this through.


The idiot them witters on about how many 'targets' City have because Mancini has mentioned them in passing at some point over the last 12 months as though we're actually looking at buying them all. Clearly not the case and appallingly misleading.


To end his pathetic tirade the buffoon then calls upon Platini and Blatter to implement the FFP rules immediately "before more damage can be done." Damage done to what? The status-quo that has been in place since the wide commercialisation of football meaning the rich get richer and the poor just look on in despair?


The funny thing about this is that almost every top team in Europe wouldn't be able to get a European licence to play football because very few of them actually meet the criteria in the FFP rules at this moment in time. The person that wrote this article is a total cretin.


Click here http://sportpulse.net/content/manchester-city-sign-sergio-aguero-football-desperate-need-financial-fair-play-1330 to let him know what you think.

Now we get to another Aguero induced piece of diatribe. The Mail Online (the internet version of the Daily Mail) greets you with "City rebellion! Stars seething over new boy Aguero's mega-money deal" using the usual excitable and sensationalist terms.


"Nigel De Jong, Vincent Kompany and Micah Richards are unhappy with the new deals offered them, especially after learning that City a paying a club record signing Aguero £200,000 per week" ... apparently. I wonder how they know that seeing as his signing was only confirmed yesterday evening? Have they spoke to any of these players? Do we have any new quotes from them? Errr no.


At least Sami Mokbel uses quotes from thep layers themselves to back up this nonsense so a little credit is due. Oh hang on, sorry, scrap that last part. They use a single word from and old quote to back up this utter tosh.

De Jong mentioned that contract talks had stopped for now (this was whilst he was on the American tour and the fellows that deal with contracts were already in talks with Atletico and Aguero) and he used the word 'frustrated' once. This is the only bit that has any solid links with a player being supposedly unhappy with this story. Although De Jong said he wasn't worried about the negotiations and he was enjoying playing for the club.  

The writer even states that Richards has dismissed talks he is unhappy with contract negotiations (which he did on Twitter) but that hasn't stopped him being included in the article of players on the cusp of revolting against the Club. And god knows why Kompany is mentioned there's nothing even linking him with the article at all!


And it wouldn't be complete without the trusted old 'source' at the club spilling the beans would it? The good old Daily Fail doesn't disappoint us; "While efforts to bring the club's wage bill into line are commendable, it doesn't wash with the key members of the squad being offered less than half of what some of the top earners...will earn."


Honestly the guy who cleans the windows could have come out with a statement like that. There's nothing revealing, there's no exclusives, there's nothing of any note in what is said. They don't call it the Daily Fail for nothing you know.


Again, here's the link if you'd like to let them know what you think: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/football/article-2020036/Sergio-Aguero-causes-Manchester-City-rebellion-wages.html

And finally we come to the third piece, and I'm not sure if this fellow has actually seen a game of football in his life and just got his information off a Liverpool fan.


"Adam Johnson's move to Manchester City has gone badly for him and England" says Luke Edwards in the Telegraph.


Right from the get go you just know this is going to be one ugly article and hopelessly anti-City when he mentions competition for places at "the Etihad Stadium. Or, as it is known elsewhere, the-most-ludicrously-generous-sponsorship-deal-anywhere-in-the-world-in-the-history-of-the-game-ever."

Dear oh dear, jealous much? This guy clearly has an agenda and is of the opinion that Johnson, "once considered a modern day Sir Stanley Matthews" but who's career "has not progressed at Manchester City."

How many England caps did "the new Stanley Matthews" have before moving to City at 22 years old? None. Hardly a glowing record is it? But since joining City in January 2010 he has featured 6 times for England's full international side and become an established Premier League player. He would have featured more for England had it not been for Capello's quite frankly worrying selection process. How is that not a progression for a player? 


Although Luke acknowledges that City fans (rightly) point out that AJ makes more of an impact from the bench he fails to acknowledge how much game time Johnson has actually had, instead making it sound like he is almost forgotten about.


Johnson was missing for a good portion of the latter stages in the season through injury and Mancini openly stated that City missed him. That's hardly anything like being forgotten about is it? In fact AJ featured 39 times last season, around half as a sub, scoring 8 goals in the process. It is no secret that Adam needed to work on his stamina to warrant a regular starting place and that was the only reason why he didn't start more games.


There is no doubt that Johnson has talent but it's hardly City's fault if he was more  interested in going clubbing in the first half of last season prompting Mancini to publicly address the young wingers behaviour (amongst others in the squad). It's blindingly obvious Mancini wants Johnson to become the best he can be, it's up to Johnson to work at it now.


Once again here's the link: http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/sport/lukeedwards/100018007/adam-johnsons-move-to-man-city-has-gone-badly-for-him-and-england/


It truly is astonishing the lengths some journalists are going to to discredit City at the moment, and it's not getting any better. The higher up the league City go, the more they seem to revel in taking wildly inaccurate swipes at the Club. All this is without mentioning people within the sport (usually other managers who either see City as a threat to their status or ones jealous they don't have the same transfer funds) who contribute to the ever mounting pile of turd-like objections to what City are doing.