How close are City to United?

By: Rob | September 18th, 2009

So typically, Sir Alex Feguson has come out in the press today to announce that he’s never really seen Man City as a rival to Man United, only Liverpool. This is all partly mindgames, I imagine, but also partly frustration at how quickly its all come together at Eastlands.

Playing Man United this weekend is a good benchmark for City, to see how close they are to getting to the Champions. Unfortunately, they have £100m of strikers unavaliable through injuries or suspension, and will have to start up front with Craig Bellamy.

So perhaps this weekend won’t be a good indicator afterall. It’ll still leave the question, how close are City to becoming a proper rival to United, in every sense of the word?

First we should get rid of the History question, that United fans will wheel out. We all appriciate that City’s recent past is not as good as United, in fact United’s recent past is peerless, obviously. No-one has dominated the landscape like they have over the last 20 years.

But there is no denying that City have looked good this season. Still unbeaten, goals flying in, and that win against Arsenal last week proved they could do it against a Big Four side as well.

United meanwhile, haven’t looked anywhere near as impressive. Losing against newly promoted sides aside, even in victory they seem to have lacked the je ne sais quoi of previous United seasons. They are notioriously slow starters, and are usually unbeatable from Christmas onwards, but we can’t rely on this to happen every time. And while I’ve long since learned my lesson about writing United off at any point in the season, right now they don’t look like a team that is going to win the title.

I don’t think City will take the title either, incidently. They look good now, but there is question about strength in depth with any side that has to play Craig Bellamy up front at any time. They also have such a volitile mix in there, that at some point someone is going to get upset. Its just whether they can hold that off long enough to grab a Champions League place.

The implication then, is that this season United might finish, say 2nd, and City might finish 4th or 5th. Not a great much in that for my money, and I think Fergie is a bit wrong to just write off City as neaveau riche just yet.

Certainly though if they aren’t rivals this season, they could easily be next year. If City do manage to grab that 4th placed spot and grab a place in the Champions League, there is no end to the players that they could sign next summer. That is assuming Platini will let them, of course.

But you can see why the other chairmen are a bit fearful of City’s position and are sticking pressure on UEFA – if City can be in a Champions League spot and can offer whatever wages they like, who wouldn’t sign for them?

Perhaps this is the real reason for Fergie playing them down.