The Emperor has spoken!
Manchester United manager Sir Alex Ferguson says Manchester City “are a small club with a small mentality”.
The Scot is unimpressed by City signing Carlos Tevez when the Argentine left Old Trafford at the end of last season.
A city-centre billboard appeared soon after, saying “Carlos Tevez, welcome to Manchester” under a sky-blue graphic.
“It’s City isn’t it? They’re a small club with a small mentality. All they can talk about is Manchester United; they can’t get away from it,” he said.
“They think taking Carlos Tevez away from Manchester United is a triumph. It is poor stuff.”
Manchester City have spent heavily in recent weeks, with Emmanuel Adebayor signing from Arsenal for about £25m, midfielder Barry coming from Aston Villa for £12m, Paraguayan frontman Santa Cruz costing £18m from Blackburn, and Tevez arriving for £25m.Ferguson, who was speaking on the Premier League champions’ pre-season tour in China, claimed that Adebayor had attempted to sign for Manchester United before committing to City.
“When someone offers you that kind of money, it is a big attraction,” said Ferguson. “That is the reason they have gone there.
“At the last minute, from what I can gather, either Emmanuel Adebayor or his agent phoned us after they had agreed a deal with City and then did the same with Chelsea. He was desperate to get to either Chelsea or us.” (BBC Sport)
I can’t help but agree with Sir Alex on just about every point he has made here but it is sure to elicit some kind of response from the Eastlands outfit who to be fair must have expected some kind of backlash following the creation of the Carlos Tevez billboard.
The money men at Man City will be keen to see their investment pay off but they should be prepared for any success to be further down the road than the next couple of seasons but it remains to be seen just how patient they will be. The biggest danger for the club and it’s management team is that Sheikh Mansour displays any rash knee jerk reactions should the club not progress as swiftly as he would like. After all you can’t so simply reverse history and no amount of big money signings will change that fact.