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Can you BUY footballing sucess?

At the end of 2007/2008 season, Manchester City lost 8-1 to Middlesbrough, a team who had scored the fewest goals all season. How does a team who lose  8-1 to a team now sitting comfortably in the championship become a team competing for the Premier League in just over just two ½ years?

I would like to say it was done through hard work and consistent managers and players who have tried so hard but that is not the case. In this case money does the trick.

In the summer of 2008, City were taken over by the Abu Dhabi United Group. As a football fan myself, I would like to see English clubs do well and have good players so I saw this as a good move for City, who were a club who had always been in the league, had players like Elano, Petrov, who put on a good show and made the league interesting to watch.

Once the takeover was complete City or shall I say the City owners decided to start splashing the cash instantly by trying to offer more money for Dimitar Berbatov who was already on his way out of Spurs to Manchester United. This didn’t materialise because Berbatov wanted to go to United. But they had to buy to show intent so they broke the British transfer record fee to buy Robinho from Real Madrid for £32.5million. This was just the start of Manchester City’s spending.

During the summer of 2009 they spent over £100million in bringing in players like Tevez and Gareth Barry, and spent a further £100million in the summer of 2010 in bringing in the likes of James Milner and David Silva. They have spent over £250million bringing in players so you have to say they should be sitting near the top after spending that much money. But are they really a team? Are they role models to the young boys who want to play the beautiful game that is football? Is it right to buy success? Should the money they have be the power they have? These are questions that have been asked by the footballing world but have many different answers.

Last year, Tottenham pipped Man City to fourth spot which meant they, in two qualifying games, could be swapping shirts with Europe’s elite. Spurs were a team who in the beginning of 2008/2009 season were sitting bottom of the Premier League with two points from eight games. A year and a half later the team under Harry Redknapp are everybody’s second favourite team (some Arsenal fans hate to admit) and they play football like it should be played – fast, furious, entertaining and with a lovely philosophy: If you score, we’ll just score more than you! With players like Gareth Bale, Luka Modric, Aaron Lennon, and Rafael van der Vaart, Spurs have players that could walk into any team in the world yet cost less than the transfer fee of Mario Barotelli to City. They have taken the Champions league by storm, winning their group and being the joint top scorers with their buddies down Seven Sister’s road.

The point I am trying to make here is that Spurs broke into that top 4 with hard work and determination and effective man management skills from Harry Redknapp and with a bit of money – £8 million for van der Vaart – now have an amazing squad of players and a lovely team sprit. City, on the other hand have pictures in the Metro of their players – Emmanuel Adebayor and Kolo Toure fighting on their training ground and have details of their dressing room bust ups documented in the media. Is this setting a good example for all the young boys who want to play football?

To answer the question – Can you really buy success, the answer is yes you can. Chelsea did it (they have won 10 trophies during the ownership of Roman Abramovich) and unfortunately City are going to follow their footsteps but if you look at Chelsea now (currently in 4th place one point in front of Spurs and have a game in hand with Man United) all that money seems to be fading as they have an aging squad, are struggling to put in consistent performances and the team sprit is all of a sudden fading. Success you can buy but to be a team you need team sprit which is something you can’t buy. Arsenal haven’t spent but with their team sprit they are still in the run to win the Premier League and we don’t even need to mention Cities fiercest rivals Man United because they are unbeaten in the league and have 2 games in hand as I write this. Spurs are still in the running to win the league and their team sprit has been there for all to see. Its hard to look at teams like Aston Villa and Everton languishing mid-table and even in the relegation zone knowing that a year or two ago they to were trying to break that monopoly of the top 4- What would have happened if they got the money? Liverpool are also a team in crisis and had to sell important players (Alonso) to get money – What would have happened if they got the money at that time?

Manchester City have money and are going to spend and no one is going to stop them and all other teams can do is hope their best players don’t want to swap their current shirts to the light blue of Cities. Football is such an important sport in this country and means so much to the fans. To see a club like City, sitting top of the Premier League and having players just go there because they get a fat pay check at the end of the week disrespects football and its values and qualities. Football is not all about money, it’s about playing the beautiful game and I just hope City realise that sooner rather than later.

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