By the end of last season it really wasn’t much fun being a City fan even by our own standards, not that I’m saying it has been a bed of roses for the last 3 decades, but the atmosphere amongst the fans was extremely low, somewhat disparate to past seasons of failure. We were even issued with paper clips and a rubber band; in a makeshift smile kit by one fanzine, as it was getting that hard to raise one.

The team had ended the season without scoring a home league goal since New Years Day, some 8 matches and 720 minutes of football, scoring only 10 in total the whole season, and missing 2 penalties in the last 2 home games just rubbed salt in our wounds. The football was negative, the team visibly lacked confidence, while we had to put up with the ranting of a rookie manager on the touchline, which though endearing at first, became embarrassing, when you heard some of the nonsense he was shouting, his actions were more akin to an annoying dad at a kids football game. The players simply had no room to breath and express themselves.

Fans were going into the summer praying that we got took over, looking on enviously at clubs such as Portsmouth, Villa, West Ham. Asking why it hadn’t happened to us yet?

Had we shot ourselves in the foot, with too much debt?

It didn’t surprise many when Pearce was told to pack his bags, most blues liked Pearce ‘the man’, but his style of football and failures in the transfer market were his undoing, he’d simply created a very dull side which lacked pace and creativity.

After a period of uncertainty with the club in limbo (which lead to one of the few top quality players in Distin moving on), things started to happen. Eventually the well documented, and drawn out, takeover happened by way of the ex-Thai Prime Minister Thaksin Sinawatra (nicknamed Frank Sinatra by fans), who after much speculation surprised us all by appointing Erikkson as the new manager, foreseeing all that would have been way beyond the imagination of even the most optimistic blue.

As a result media attention on the club has intensified 10 fold, with the tabloid hacks salivating at the prospect of Sven failing miserably, to justify their stance on his England regime. I expect the witch-hunt against Sven and the team will be prominent in the opening weeks of the season, especially if we start poorly. I also believe we can now expect a proportion of the red top reading public, who have been brainwashed into despising Sven, openly wanting to see City lose, simply because he is at the helm.

I have to admit, I was somewhat undecided on his appointment, but looking beyond the negativity portrayed to us by the media (his personal life included), the hard facts are that England hired one of the most successful European club bosses of the modern era, who’s reputation on the continent is still intact, mainly due to their much more realistic version that England players aren’t as great as English public/media think.

Sven himself has won more major trophies than the club itself! Simply put, City have hired the most high profile and successful manager in the clubs history. Something we wouldn’t have been able to do without the promise of the new chairman’s money to invest in the team. Despite what we are led to believe, Sven is officially the 2nd most successful England manager of all time behind Sir Alf Ramsay, losing only five competitive games, two of which were on penalties.

Since he has took over Sven has been a busy man in the transfer market, quickly realising that the squad lacked quality and had become wafer thin. He has used his pulling power (which is just as good in football as it is with the ladies), to acquire some excellent talent from abroad, who are well known to European and World football fans, but to the average British football fan who only watches the premiership then they are nobodies.

Attracting players of the calibre of Elano and Petrov as well as sort after young players in Corluka, Bianchi and Bonijov, would not have been possible without a high profile manager. It should be noted, all the aforementioned, cited Eriksson being the biggest factor as to why they joined.

I have already read criticism from so called experts, who incidentally, are out of a job in football, criticising Sven for buying abroad and ignoring England players. Totally ignoring the fact that the English market is vastly inflated, so much so that Liverpool want £20million for Crouch, Spurs paid £16m for Darren Bent, West Brom want £9m for Curtis Davis and Newcastle want £8m for an injury prone trouble maker in Kieron Dyer…and on top of that, English players seem to be able to command ridiculous wages. Instead we have looked to get more value for our money, and have bought a mixture of young and experienced internationals, none of whom are over 30, which had been a major failing of the past two regimes, and who don’t cost an arm and a leg in wages.

Expectations of the team have now been raised, and there is a bounce in the steps of the fans again, though most are realistic, understanding that this season is very much a settling in period for team and manager. I expect us to struggle for the first half of the season as the new players acclimatise to the premiership and get to know each other. A top half finish while playing decent football will leave many a blue content this season.

It’s certainly going to be an interesting season at Eastland’s, and the blue half of Manchester can’t wait.       

                                                                                                                                        (9/10)