Back to business

It's been awhile but sadly assignments have to be done. I'm back for the meantime.

At any rate let's focus our attention on the Premiership. Yes the same league that grabs attention every single day and pushes its rivals to the not so glamorous sidelines. Think about it. The coverage of Bundesliga, Serie A and La Liga news is an entire galaxy apart from the Premiership. The again we feed the craze so we only have ourselves to blame. But how can you ignore a league in which Robinho joins a mid table team for a British record fee.

Yes, the inevitable topic of ADUG springs up. All I can say is that I went to bed on Monday night and all seemed well. When I woke up, City were suddenly the world's richest club and had broken the British transfer record, signing Robinho for £32.5m. Just 24 hours before, he was declaring his love for Chelsea. Now while most people are getting on his back for following the financially smart option, I thought he had no other choice. Chelsea simply did not want to stump up the extra £4m to get their man. City did. As a result, instead of Robinho aiming to win the Premiership with Chelsea, he's aiming to bring it to City for the first time in their history. Scary. Their owners have already declared their intent on bringing the best football players in the world to this "superclub". Ronaldo, Fabregas, Torres and Messi are just a few names they have made public. This undoubtedly has sparked off rumours of Mark Hughes having no authority over players brought into the club. So far, this has been denied but the situation will certainly crop up again come January 1. It will be interesting to see how Sparky takes control of this cash rich club. He could never have envisaged this situation when he first took over. It's now up to him to deliver, and fast, otherwise we could see a new face in place before the end of the season.

Speaking of sackings and resignations, Newcastle and West Ham have both lost their managers within 24 hours of each other. Kevin Keegan officially resigned from the managerial position at Newcastle yesterday, following Alan Curbishley's example the day before. Both of them cited problems with their clubs' transfer policies leading to their exits. This isn't exactly anything new but it's coming up with increasing regularity. Since when did directors up in the air-conditioned offices bring in players? What good does it do for the club? These directors don't work with the players on the training ground everyday. They don't know their strengths and weaknesses as well as the manager. So why would they have a say in who the club brings in? A manager is the only one who knows his team better than anyone else. Therefore he should be the sole one in charge of bringing in players and moving them out. This relatively simple concept is incomprehensible to many fat men saddled with the uneviable task of carrying chequebooks to offices. If they desperately want to take control of a club, don't hire a manager. Or play fantasy football. Either option works although the former is the most attractive to neutrals.

"I have been left with no choice other than to leave," said Keegan. Some may say this is nothing new from the man who left Newcastle once and England as well instead of sticking it out. But this time you feel it's different. It's like playing Football Manager and not having control over who to buy. What's the point?

We've already seen the consequences of Andriy Shevchenko's nightmare at Chelsea. It took them two years to get rid of him and probably didn't help their objective of breaking even in the coming years. On a completely unrelated note, imagine if Abramovich died tomorrow. Chelsea's reign at the top would end earlier than one cycle of Newcastle's Next Top Manager.

Back onto more pleasant matters (from my perspective at least), Man Utd finally signed Dimitar Berbatov after almost an entire summers of countless stories and rumours. I never really thought they would miss out on him, just a bit frustrated that it took so long to reach a conclusion. They ended up paying over £30m for Berbatov anyway. Why couldn't the deal be reached two weeks ago? We might have a 100% record in the league as well as a Super Cup in our trophy cabinet. Not that it's an important trophy, just for the sake of saying we've won it. At any rate, the goals should start flowing once Berbatov settles in. With support from Tevez/Rooney and Ronaldo, this season should be nothing short of spectacular for Man Utd.

And a slight mention for Amr Zaki here. The Wigan striker has already shown the Premiership what a capable striker he is and Steve Bruce may have got himself a steal. Then again someone else could easily steal him come January. Money is not an issue for most clubs these days. The same can't be said of Wigan.

World Cup qualifiers to look forward to this weekend. Too much for me to keep track off and too much focus on England. So I will talk about neither. However if Andorra do score against England, there's an unavoidable topic to discuss. It would be unheard of. Almost the same as Malaysia stringing 5 passes among themselves without losing the ball.

Manager mention and others

All this talk of managers. Isn't there the Euros to focus on? Well it would be appropriate to talk about at least one high profile move. Mark Hughes has just taken over at Man City and has already started talking about making them a force in England and Europe. His transfer budget is a key factor for him as he was always restricted by the tight budget at Blackburn. However, if his eye for cheap talent is anything to go by, he will use his summer funds wisely. Roque Santa Cruz and Morten Gamst Pedersen are just two of the bargains he pulled off in the transfer market. Large transfer kitties don't guarantee success, but you get the feeling Hughes will know how to use the money.

Names such as Ronaldinho and Jo are being bandied about by the media and my guess is that Hughes wouldn't mind those two at his club in the slightest. The undoubted quality of the two would be a boost for a squad full of talent but not enough to challenge at the highest level. Whereas many may think Ronaldinho's powers are on the wane, I believe that he has what it takes to succeed in the Premiership if he applies himself. His skills are undoubtedly still with him; you don't lose such skills in a single season. His brain is also capable of handling the high tempo game of the Premiership and although his strength is not of Drogba proportions, he certainly has enough to survive in the league. All he needs is his hunger and if his brother's claims are true, Ronaldinho may be lighting up the Premiership next season, should he move to City of course.

Hughes certainly has talked the talk. Let's now see if he can walk the walk.

Moving on to more pressing matters, Xavi scored a brilliant goal for Spain against USA in last night's friendly. Their lacklustre performance merely highlighted how they can change a game with one moment of magic, such is the quality of their squad. They missed chances, looked shaky at times but a brilliant piece of skill was what separated them from their opponents. Spain look like clear favourites for the Euros but they have the heavy burden of constant failure in major tournaments on their shoulders. Whether they will step up and prove everyone's predictions right is yet to be seen but success or failure would not surprise anyone.

Talking about favourites for the Euros is quite pointless as all the strong nations are hard to separate and any one of them could win it if they hit some form. The more interesting part of the Euros are the smaller nations looking to cause a shock or two. Croatia and Russia are two names that immediately spring to mind. You'll probably see these two names mentioned as darkhorses on every other site and I would agree with Croatia. Croatia may have lost Eduardo but Luka Modric and Niko Kranjcar are class midfielders and are key to Croatia's hope. They also topped their group in qualification and played some brilliant football at times, knocking England out in the process. Russia may have been touted as darkhorses but the loss of two of their key players raises doubts in my mind. Pavel Pogrebnyak is a major doubt for the tournament and is only rated at 50-50 by Guus Hiddink to feature at all. Meanwhile, Andrei Arshavin is suspended for the first two games and by this time Russia may have already been knocked out. Russia have other players worthy of mention such as Bystrov, Bilyaletdinov and Zyrianov but the loss of the main two will severely dent their hopes. They may prove me wrong but that's why I watch football. Nothing better than an underdog giving the favourites a real challenge.

Miss you Sven you're gone.

Thaksin Shinawatra has no shame. Sacking Sven. He didn't exactly get them into a relegation dogfight did he? He's achieved more in one season than many others had in five. He commands his players' respect, the fans' adulation and yet Thaksin seems to think that Manchester City is Thailand and he's still Prime Minister. He even had the nerve to ask Eriksson to accompany City on their tour to Thailand. Being the gentlemen that he is, he obliged but you can't help but wonder what compelled him to do so.

City played some brilliant football this season (acknowledgement from a Man Utd fan) and even managed to do the double over their derby rivals. They've had their shaky moments and embarrassing moments but ask any Man City supporter if they support Thaksin's decision. The answer is very likely to be a resounding no.

Apparently all billionaire football owners don't seem to understand that a winning team can't be built in a day. If Chelsea can't build a winning team in a season, what makes Thaksin think he can take City to that level in that period of time. He appeared to have a reasonable plan in shape when he first took over, giving Eriksson the goal of establishing City in the top half of the table. He did just that and managed to sneak them into Europe via the Fair Play League. And got sacked for it. It's baffling. Nonsensical. Brash. Idiotic. Almost any negative term can be applied to these rich owners who think they're playing Football Manager. Only it costs several hundred million pounds to play and in this world there are no saves and retries.

Unless City replace Eriksson with a manager of similar stature and bring in a few decent players, you can't see them progressing much further. Their current struggle to hold on to their best players may yet come back to haunt them. If the players have no motivation and desire to take the club to the next level, no amount of money Thaksin puts in can drag them there.

Moral of the story - patience is a virtue. Brashness only brings on the wrath of the fans and the ridicule of others. Thaksin got kicked out of Thailand. A few more brash decisions and he may get himself kicked out of Manchester as well.