Manchester City Forums

Elano scar>>>>>>>elanos car

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I been a star since Pat Benatar[/color]

Bit out of context but great post nonetheless

I'm not sure 5th itself is required. 6th might be OK provided it gets us a UEFA (Europa - whatever) Cup place and we can show progress in several areas.
By the start of 2010-11 we should have a squad to cope with the additional games and unless two unexpected clubs win the domestic cups 6th will be good enough to qualify.
But we must show "progress" and different people will define it in different ways, hence the difficulty in assessing the manager.
If we go for a high-scoring set up, we'll probably concede more as KK discovered. So one sign of progress will be scoring more with an improved goal difference. Alternatively we could try to improve the goal difference by reducing the number of goals conceded.
A decent run in the domestic cups would also be nice, and it's hard to see a worse run than this season. Brighton was par for the course, but should we see Forest as an anomaly as we hadn't previously lost a home FA Cup tie to a lower division team for over 40 years?
As an aside, would two cup finals and eleventh place be an acceptable sign of progress?
There are those who say progress must be based on league results alone as cup runs (or lack thereof) are heavily influenced by the draw. Others disagree and fondly remember the stink of stale urine that was the most vivid memory of the old Wembley.
Either way, I can't see the owners ditching Hughes this summer so we've got him (or are stuck with him) for a while yet. I wonder if that will change if we end the season with a couple of defeats.
As for comparing Hughes to others, Hodgson nearly presided over Fulham's relegation last season so does that make him a poor manager, or does this season's top half position make him a good manager? His record on the continent suggests he's good, his limited time at Blackburn suggests otherwise.
If he's benefitting from stable ownership at Fulham the comparision with Hughes becomes null and void simply because Hughes isn't at a club with stable ownership.
The other points in favour of managers such as Zola and Hodgson is that they took over "teams", not a squad of badly matched individuals as assembled by Sven during his panic buying phase.
We can pick the bones out of this one as long as we like, but there are too many factors to reach concensus.

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Did you write that, mramb? Only the "great post nonetheless" suggests that you didn't - Unless you've had a humbilical*. I just wanted to know who to credit. It is indeed a good post.


* A word I just made up. It's means a humble bypass.

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Cut along dotted line
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Nope not me, guy called Ged.

I don't contribute enough around this place anymore, I'm going to make a concerted effort starting soon. Then we'll see who's a Cumbria wanker
Good word btw

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Should that not read Cumbrian wanker?

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The Senior Member

Very interesting and well balanced post

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If all brides are beautiful, where do ugly wives come from?

Thanks

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The Senior Member

I'm definitely looking forward to next season but then I always have done - with just one exception. That was after the end of Pearce's time, when I had just about lost the will to live, never mind the wil to watch City. I was dreading the next season then which is why the first half of the season under Sven was such a pleasant surprise for me (and many others I suspect) and continued to cast a rosy glow over the season as a whole even after we got found out and the mid-season transfer window proved to be an effective non-event. I was looking forward to this season but soon after it started I began to fear the worst and started to have visions of our having to go into administration or worse. The sudden arrival of the present owners had a "with one bound Jack was free" quality to it and again it made me feel pretty cheerful for the rest of the season.

As to what to expect next season and how to interpret ths one I think it makes more sense if you look at things in four to five season blocks rather than on a season by season basis. Essentially one period came to an end with KK's disastrous set of transfers in the January window of our first season back in the Prem under him. At that point we stopped moving up as we had been and we had three seasons of paralysis under him and then SP. The upside was we avoided going back down and consolidated our position in the Prem. The downside, much worse, was that we became steadily less and less solvent and so unable to address the problems in the team that were getting ever more obvious. We were like a house that hadn't had any money spent on it for a while and was gradually deteriorating. Dr T and Sven did the football equivalent of putting a lick of fresh paint on things and tarting the house up without dealing with the major problems and it did the job inasmuch as the 'house' got sold. I think this year we saw the start of dealing with some problems that have been around since the Keegan revolution went haywire and others (non-playing ones) that have been around much longer. Next year will see if we have started to steadily improve again. We should also see a lot of players leaving for one reason or another and a fair number coming in. I don't expect dramatic success - we are back to a five year plan with the critical difference that we now have the hundreds and hundreds of millions of pounds that you need for such a plan to have even a chance of succeeding.

The good things this year were Ireland's emergence as a really class player, some excellent attacking play at home and the start of addressing some of the clear weaknesses in the team. The down points were the deterioration of our defense - or rather its exposure after we switched from the defensive system we had under Sven and SP to a more attacking one - the fact that our away form (a longstanding problem under the previous three managers) got even worse, and the way several players went backwards this year, notably Richards who really needs to catch a grip if his promise is not to come to nothing.

I expect that in the Summer we will try to fix a couple of crucial weak points. That means getting at least one, maybe two, really good centre backs - ones that can play the ball out of defense so that the DM does not have to sit so deep - a big centre forward who can both hold the ball up and get on the end of balls and score (we have been playing all season a system that depends on our having such a player without actually having one to make it work), and a box-to-box ball winning midfielder so we aren't jiggered if we don't have the ball. As I say I'm looking forward to next year, optimistic and hopeful but not confident - as is proper for a City fan!

'nuvver good post really

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Morning sweetcheeks

andanuvver

This season - the two halves:

Someone brought this up on another thread and it actually surprised me.

In the first half of the Premiership season, our record was P19 W6 D3 L10, giving 21 points. So far, with 18 out of 19 games behind us in the second half our record is P18 W8 D2 L8, giving 26 points with the possibility of finishing with 29. And that second half has involved away games at 5 of the top 6 teams.

Now if we can turn in two halves of 29 points or slightly better next season, we will be looking to challenge for 5th place. So we have actually finished the season stronger, as Hughes said we would.

So here's a question for the "hang 'im and flog 'im" brigade. Would you be happy if Hughes can deliver 58 - 60 points or more, given that we will see the full benefit of the money already spent and that to be spent, next season? Because there's now irrefutable evidence that he potentially can.

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Yo what you doing up at this hour?

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Hungover and can't sleep.

I always wake up early when I've been drinking the night before, it's just a toss up whether I can get some water down my neck and doze off again or start tossing and turning and have to get up. Unfortunately today was the latter.

Two decent posts, by the way.

I only post Pro-Hughes sentiment

That's rubs btw, I still don't get hangovers, not looking forward to them.

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Good, it's needed to counter some of the rubbish that gets spouted around here.

what. We're about to fall out.

Yeah never had one, tis very odd. A few days ago I accidentally pissed all over my friends shoes and floor though when drunk. Swings and roundabouts really.
I have a massive problem with drinking in that I get massive blackouts, which I didn't use to before uni. I did some reading and found out this is called amniestic alcohol disorder which is where the alcohol stops the part of the brain which transfers short-term memory into long term. I never recover the memories, and it seems to be directly related to the speed at which I drink rather than the actual amount.

This thread just got heavy.

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Doesn't everyone get blackouts? *is worried*

When you say massive how massive are we talking, because if I've had a particularly heavy night it's normal that I'll be missing an hour or two when I wake up. I've only really had what I'd classify as a massive blackout once, when at a friend's party, and I ended up trying to sleep in his parents' bed and started a massive argument with them when they tried to throw me out and then sat on the kerb outside crying.

I woke up the next day and without knowing how I'd got home or into bed I turned to my girlfriend and said 'whatever I did I'm very, very sorry'. She told me all about it and all I had was a dreamlike recollection of being angry.

Actually the other day I was quite worried, I went out into town for a couple of hours, nothing too heavy, then when I came back in the door someone asked me where I'd been and I literally could not remember where the fuck I'd just been for two hours. I had to sit and think about it, there was just a hole in my head and then it suddenly came back to me. Odd.

I think most people get the occasional blackout, but this happens to me very very often. For every five nights out, to say I'd lose memories from three of them is probably being conservative. And it's generally a couple of hours, maybe 2-4. It wouldn't upset me so much but I've woken up to find that I'd done stuff that's just totally not in my nature normally (had a go at my girlfriend/friends etc)
I've found that if I'm fine provided I stay away from most spirits and go slower than I normally do, but it's self control I lack.
Sleep in his parents' bed with them?

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I usually dont know how i got home, but i remember the rest of the night.
Woke up one morning in bed with my hand full of blood. Coudnt remember a thing. Got a bit worried. But turned out id just tried to take a for sale sign and sliced my palm in the process. My mate had blood hand prints all over his house.
I dont drink often, so when i do, i usually get extra tipsy.

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Allegedly

Never had a blackout in all my life. I am 46 and have had some mammoth drinking sessions in the past, you guys are pussies:whistle:

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If all brides are beautiful, where do ugly wives come from?

Unfortunately not, that would have been glorious.

With hindsight I couldn't have chosen a better place to go off the rails, I mean they had a life size fucking picture of my friend in the kitchen. They were asking for it. The dad has a PHD in astrophysics or astrobiology or something which he apparently used as an excuse to say to people in the morning "Drink some water, I'm a doctor so I know it'll help"