Nothing Man City do or don't do in the next few seasons will be discussed without mention of the billions of petrodollars spent on improving the team. This is understandable - the spending is, admittedly, on a scale never seen before in this country. Of course, it is highly unlikely that City would be anywhere near the position they are currently in without this level of investment, and it obviously gives us a massive advantage over other clubs who were in a similar position to us pre-takeover.
That said, I feel that the way we are presented in the media is slightly unfair. Our team is always referred to as (something along the lines of) 'Mancini's collection of millionaires' or 'Mancini's expensively assembled squad'. Why suggest that City are the only club with millionaires on the books? I know that 'everyone else does it' is not an excuse, but to mention the City players' wages and not those of every other team in the division creates the false impression that every week, Man City's band of super-rich mercenaries deign to leave their collection of Hummer limos and solid gold toilets to play moneyball against some scruffy urchins who were signed for a set of tracksuits and play for nothing more than their bus fare and a packet of L&B. The vast majority of Prem footballers are paid inconceivably large amounts; City, through a combination of luck and judgement, happen to be able to spend the most at this point in time. Clubs challenging for the league have been paying £20+ mill for players for years, people just don't like the fact that it is now us doing it.
The fact is, in order to break the Champions League hegemony of the 'Big Four' it has been necessary to spend this much. Every fan knows that the creation of the Premier League and the Champions League has led to a huge influx of wealth, but that this wealth has been unfairly distributed in a system designed to keep the rich clubs rich, leading to the situation where the league standings can be predicted before a ball has been kicked in August, a mid-table finish being considered a huge achievement, etc. This being the situation we found ourselves in, it is no surprise that the investment was eagerly accepted, and undertaken on a grand scale.
Every club who has won the league in the Premier League era has done so with the help of a lot of cash. The United team that won the league in 92-93 had plenty of expensive (for the time) signings; Blackburn in 95; Abramovic's Chelsea; even Arsenal had players like Overmars and Bergkamp who were bought for a lot of money (certainly more than what City were paying at the time, Lee Bradbury excepted). When I've suggested this to people, one reply is that our spending is arbitrary - that these clubs built on previous 'success' while ours just came out of the blue. City laid the foundations for their current fortunes in various ways: the season we had attendances of 30,000+ every week in Division Two and managed to climb out (look at Leeds, Shef Utd and Shef Wed); the excellent academy which showed we could be a sound investment; the stadium; the fan base.
Are these things any more or less arbitrary than the deliberately self-sustaining monopoly of the Champions League or the increase in revenue from selling replica shirts in Africa or duvet sets in Thailand? Each club has responded in different ways to the increased global profile of the English league. Should those who were not fortunate enough to have the best side at the beginning of the Premier League era be doomed to an eternity of mediocrity?
Some critics have suggested that Balotelli's admission that he hadn't heard of Man City before he came is an example of further proof that we do not 'deserve' to be at the top table - he's only there for the money, doesn't care about the club, etc. Of course, youngsters in other countries are more likely to have heard of United or Arsenal - these are the Champions League teams! Just as young kids in this country are more likely to have heard of Bayern Munich than Wolfsburg, so young players in other countries will have dreamt of playing for Liverpool or Chelsea rather than City. Does this mean, though, that we should just accept that this is how it should always be, tug our forelocks and be grateful for simply being named in the same league as United and Liverpool? I don't think so. How will this ever change, if clubs don't take whatever chance they get to raise their profile?
This is not to say I am completely comfortable with the money that's been spent. The ideal team to support would be made up of a good selection of youth team players, bargain signings to complement what's already there, and then a few megastar signings to get excited about. Richards, Hart, Kompany fit the first two categories; Aguero and Silva the latter. However, we also have quite a lot of players who are overpriced for what they do - Lescott, Milner, Barry (no surprise these are all English) - and some who would be a waste of money even if they came on a free (don't talk to me about Kolarov).
I am actually glad the Financial Fair Play is coming into operation, as this will at least give us the chance to say that we are in fact spending a 'fair' amount. It will only serve to further widen the gap between the richest clubs and the rest though, as there will be no chance of any teams in the future doing what we have. A wage cap and transfer cap would be a much fairer way of doing things, but I think I've gone on long enough.
It's still the same club, the same history, the same fans in the ground. If we shake the league up a bit, then great; if we shake the league up while playing some excellent, entertaining football, even better. Yes, there is a lot of money in football, and chances of success are largely based on who's got the deepest pockets. At the moment this happens to be City; even if it wasn't, we'd still be supporting them. I'm not going to accept criticism from the fans of the teams whose spending has led to the inflated market we were only able to enter three years ago, I just hope that we can beat them at their own game, if not this season then in the coming years.
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