Mancini's machinations

Plenty of newspapers previewed this week's game with a discussion of City's (relative lack of) business in the transfer market this summer. Mention was made of the players we've apparently tried and failed to sign since winning the league in the final minute of last season - Hazard, De Rossi, Van Persie, Agger, Luiz(?!), Martinez - with justification ranging from players not wanting to sit out matches to City's hands being tied by FFP. Of course, City being City, it's never 'Club makes decision not to sign ageing and/or injury-prone player in late 20s' or 'Club with vast array of attacking talent decides not to spend £20-30m+ on another attacker' but instead it's 'City find life at the top is harder than they thought' or 'City in chaos as manager wants to sign a player but board won't give him the money'. We are in a situation where we're damned if we do and damned if we don't: spend and we are castigated for our vulgarity; don't spend and suffer implications of complacency/lack of ambition/not being a true 'big club' and therefore unworthy of signing good players.

Eden Hazard has admittedly looked class in the opening games, but Chelsea haven't really been tested yet (even Torres has been scoring!); Van Persie obviously banged them in last season; apart from them, I don't see those other players making much of a difference, and given the choice between not overspending and having either of aforementioned two, I'd go for the former. Frankly, I think the club have been wise not to pay over the odds for anyone - Rodwell has shown that he is going to be a big player for us, and if you weigh up the costs and benefits of paying silly money for an attacker who doesn't really improve our squad that much then we've done the right thing in refusing to get dragged into a bidding war with our nearest rivals for the league (Chelsea and United, in that order). What Rodwell has done is addressed one of the only major weaknesses in our first team squad - Nigel De Jong as our main cover at centre mid - and the other main problems are centre half (Kompany is outstanding, Lescott is pretty good, Toure and Savic are awful) and sub keeper. Therefore, I would say that the only player I'd really consider paying an inflated price for, that is, the only player whose improvement to the side would outweigh the potential issues with FFP, would be Thomas Vermaelen. He's a good age, he's a fantastic defender, he can play football, he scores goals, he's left-sided (and Belgian!) so he would fit well with Kompany - signing him would be perfect for us.

I have actually been wondering if Mancini's public grumbling over transfer policy isn't just a bit more Mancini mind games - trying to trick his competitors into thinking they can press home an advantage by splurging on overpriced, unproven gambles. Perhaps I'm being overgenerous by suggesting he is capable of being so Machiavellian, but he is ruthless, and he has a habit of claiming to believe something that is clearly at odds with his real opinion. However, this ruthless, contrary streak also led me to consider whether his team selection at Liverpool wasn't a message to Marwood - in selecting De Jong, Kolarov and Kolo Toure, he picked the three worst players in our first team squad to start at Anfield. I can't imagine that he can actually believe these are players capable or worthy of defending a league title, and can only conclude that he is making a point - either buy me some players, or I'll have to use this garbage on a regular basis. The only way our starting XI could have been weaker would have been to include Savic instead of Kompany (and Pants instead of Hart), a prospect that simply does not bear thinking about.

So, overall, the ideal situation would be De Jong sold (maybe back to Holland or Germany, or maybe Italy) and Kolo sold (someone Turkish perhaps?), with an experienced backup keeper brought in and the bulk of the budget spent on Vermaelen, with another Rodwell-style signing or two to keep the squad healthy. I don't think we need to panic, but to be serious about defending the title we could do with a few new faces. I'm sure Mancini knows what he wants, and I'm also pretty sure he knows how to get it.

City 3-2 Southampton

Of course, the scoreline and sequence of scoring was very similar to the last game of last season, but really I think the performance yesterday was very encouraging. I was naturally extremely worried when Aguero went down (not least because I had him as my captain in my fantasy team!), and with knee injuries you fear the worst, but he's apparently played it down on Twitter so hopefully he won't be out for too long.

As for the rest of the match, Tevez looked lean and bright, and it was only wayward finishing that prevented us from taking a considerable lead. Silva's pathetic penalty was frustrating, as you feel that Sergio would have buried it (as would Tevez), but when Tevez put us in front I felt that it would just be a case of how many we'd score. We missed several chances at 1-0, and played some great football - one interchange up the right was a joy to behold.

The major criticism was obviously the failure to make the chances count - Lambert's finish was great, and Davis did well, but when those goals went in we'd had 80% possession in the second half. Even after we'd scored the third goal Southampton were playing tidy football, and had us worried at times, and they look like Swansea's successors as a good footballing side up from the Championship. We showed good character though, and seemed to step up a gear when we needed to, something United and other recent winners of the league have been doing for years, so I'm not too worried with the performance overall. It's perhaps a bit tricky to play a promoted side - they are an unknown quantity to an extent, and have the adrenaline and so on from being back in the Prem (neither Reading nor West Ham lost) - but just like last year, we rode out the difficult parts of the match to come through and win.

My only slight concern is our defending - we conceded the fewest in the league last season, but the goals we've let in this season have been sloppy. Both Chelsea goals in the Community Shield came from poor clearances from our defenders (even before Pantimilon spilt it) which were then recycled and ended up in the net, and yesterday we had a couple of chances to clear the first, and the second came from Rodwell's poor pass (that aside, he actually looked quite assured). Hopefully this will just be early season rustiness, because we can't afford to give goals away - Mancini claims it's because all of the defenders were away with national sides so he's not had chance to work with them.

Overall though, I don't think there's any cause to panic - we still look confident and dangerous going forward, and are developing the knack of winning games from a losing position. Final word on Kompany - there aren't many centre-backs in the division who have the confidence to lash in a left foot shot first time from the edge of the box, and his quick reactions meant Saints didn't have time to regroup before Yaya squirmed it out to Dzeko. Class.