Forget the Special One, Moyes should be worried about the Quiet One across town
Forget the Special One, Moyes should be worried about the Quiet One across town
Manuel Pellegrini has not said much, but City's swift, silent recruiting is marking them out as real contenders
Cool and calculated: Manuel 'The Engineer' Pellegrini has assembled a very capable squad
Gallo Images
It's the quiet ones you have to watch out for, so they say.
And
while Chelsea and Manchester United are battering 10 bells out of each
other over Wayne Rooney, the Premier League’s one-time noisy neighbours
are calmly assembling a team capable of wresting back the title and
finally making some impact in the Champions League, writes Dave Kidd of the Sunday People.
When Rooney handed in his transfer request in 2010, his likeliest destination was a crosstown move to Manchester City.
But
that was in the era of City’s boardroom gob artist Garry Cook – the man
who claimed Kaka had ‘bottled it’ by not signing for him; the man who
approved the plastering of provocative Carlos Tevez posters along
Deansgate.
This time, with Rooney’s relationship with United at breaking point, City are not getting involved.
Partly because the City hierarchy no longer feel the need to get involved in ego-jousting contests.
Their club is now a permanent member of football’s elite and they do not need to make statements of intent.
But
it is also because City no longer believe that Rooney is worth the
hassle. That he is too high maintenance and that his powers are on the
wane.
It is not as if City are being frugal with their cash. All
talk of youth development and ‘holistic’ approaches are so much pie in
the sky for the Blue Moonies just now.
Jesus Navas, Fernandinho,
Alvaro Negredo and Stevan Jovetic have cost the Abu Dhabi oilmen a cool
£84million. So we can expect another hike at the petrol pumps soon.
Indeed,
the City board are only doing what Roberto Mancini demanded of them
last summer – refusing to stand still by making top-end signings. Roberto Mancini will be watching on ruefully as City show
the urgency and strength in the transfer market that was so absent last
summer
Reuters
Mancini’s plea fell on deaf ears, with bit-part players such
as Javi Garcia, Scott Sinclair, Jack Rodwell and Maicon unable to
improve City and so the title was meekly surrendered. Now City are
backing their new manager, Manuel Pellegrini, who intends to add extra
width and attacking intent.
And while all may change in the heat
of battle, there seems to be a quiet air of professionalism about
Pellegrini, reminiscent of Carlo Ancelotti’s arrival in English
football. A coach happy to concentrate on coaching, rather than
upsetting his bosses, and a likeable man-manager allowing footballers to
enjoy their football.
Ancelotti, of course, won Chelsea the
double in his first season, and in eye-catching style. While City have
been getting their big business done early, United and Chelsea are
struggling to do so.
Of the three new managers at the Premier League summit, Pellegrini has attracted the fewest headlines.
Which will not bother the current regime at the Etihad Stadium one jot.
Jose
Mourinho is the irresistible box-office idol, while United’s life after
Alex Ferguson cannot help but fascinate. And whether Rooney ends up at
Chelsea or not, this proposed deal means that the first shots have been
fired in anger among the Premier League’s new order.
Would
Mourinho have made his stark ‘Rooney or bust’ comment had Ferguson still
been in the Old Trafford hot seat, rather than David Moyes?
Would
Ferguson and David Gill have upset the remarkably sensitive Rooney camp
by down-playing the striker’s importance to United, as Moyes and new
chief executive Ed Woodward did last weekend?
If United truly wish
to keep Rooney, this was not the best way to handle a fragile ego.
Should they wish to sell, it was not the most effective tactic for
driving up his market value. Rooney's transfer tug-of-war is becoming a distraction for City's rivals
Getty
Yet if United do end up selling Rooney to a direct rival,
this should not necessarily be seen as a sign of post-Ferguson
weakness.
If Moyes does not see Rooney as a major part of his plans, he should back his own judgment and sell to anyone.
Great players have always left United and United have always carried on regardless.
Or
does Moyes fear that Rooney, with the arm of Mourinho around him, could
be restored to former glories, revelling in his status as the ‘main
man’, the rampaging No.9, at Stamford Bridge?
Then what if
Mourinho’s play for Rooney fails? United could be left with a
discontented player, neither willing to be a squad man, nor deserving
of such status.
And Mourinho would be bruised by early failure, with the signing of any other striker looking like a fall-back and a letdown.
Then there would be only one winner from this saga of the summer.
The quiet man, Manuel Pellegrini. Watch out for him.
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