Manchester City v Arsenal FC.

Hello! How are you?

I hope you’re doing well. Autumns speeding on, soon the leaves will be falling like something described in a 17th century haiku, floating down gently to cover up the sneaky dog-turds that apparently bless you with good luck should skid in one. Its at this time of year that the Premier League starts to gather pace what with both the Champion’s League and League Cup games starting , soon the fixtures will start to build up, and anything I write will be of the poorest hackity-hack quality, but hopefully it will keep the comments section open and that the main thing.

On Sunday the 22nd of September at 4.30pm (western European time) we find ourselves hauling our Mighty Cannon up the long and winding road, over hill and down dale and on to the northern marches of England to do battle against the oily-blues of the Etihad refinery.

The two matches against City, it could be argued are our main games this season, but to me that’s a load of hokey, as each game is tougher than tough when you come to preview it, basically every game is a bloody nightmare. There aren’t any easy games, yes sure, some less glamorous, And Leicester of course. But playing against this Rolls- Royce of a team, albeit financed in unethical ways, still means one heck of a match, and for many seasons past, meant a loss, and left us chewing over the bitter cud of disappointment. In recent seasons we have started to really challenge them, so perhaps we go into this game with a tad more confidence that we might have done some campaigns ago? Who can tell, not me, all permutations are possible; a thrashing, a win, a bore-draw or some kind of magical classic game that’s so exciting that neither side gets to razzed about if they lose. 

I realise over this season hangs the spectre of the 115 court case etc. All I can say is I wished the money-doping had never come in, because quite simply I’m biased and think Arsenal would have faired better, and for years we’ve had to watch people ploughing an incredible amount of money into their adopted clubs and run off laughing to themselves (and at us) with a big bag of silverware over their shoulder, as they flaunted every rule in the book, which all seemed both in-organic and nefarious?

At a deeper level it all seems so sad, despite the amount of ink wasted in trying to point this all out in days of yore and now we have to deal with all its bullshitting aftermath: either City get deducted masses of points and if we or whoever wins the league will have their victory over-shadowed by cries and whispers that ‘City would have won it had it not be for the deductions!’ – something that probably can’t/couldn’t ever be proved or disproved? They perhaps might get deducted only a few points and that will cause ‘internet controversy’ and rankle other clubs and bring forth the spewing of much bile for its leniency or new litigations, or in another potential punishment permutation possibility they might only get a massive fine which will only benefit the PL’s coffers as City’s backers won’t give a monkeys uncle about such matters. So basically, except for the PL, we could all lose out, each fan, each team, each club, including City, who will forever have the shadow of unfairness (cheating?) tarnishing their silverware, no matter how much they try to polish the stains away with PR spin. Then there’s the possibility that City’s lawyers will counter sue, and everything gets tied up in litigation for ages, and if things don’t work out well for the PL and they lose the counter actions and life as we knew it might change forever. As Frank Muir wrote: what a mess.

Of course its affected things in another way, (at the most important level) even to the point that the Cup final, which used to be an outstanding fixture in the calendar year, when in its day, any team stood a chance of, now seems not even remotely possible? Ask Watford.

I did have fond memories of City from the 1981 Cup final…

“Oh shut up, we’ve had enough of your tedious 1980’s cup final stories about you backing underdogs and them losing!”

“well its that or chatting about my favourite Hallmark films”

Obviously this be in the days before they were so oily-rich that they ended up with the grievious-gout of this court case. There was no way on earth that I would have supported the Spuds. I recall it was a grey day, with a heavy atmosphere in London and City played well, old Tommy Hutchinson scored with the biggest lunge of the 80’s for City’s opening goal. But later, near the end, when the Spudneys looked like they had no real way to get back in this game they were awarded a free kick, on the right hand-side of the area. Hoddle took it, and it was going well wide, so wide it would have sailed off to Walthamstow just for a laugh. But Tommy Hutchinson decided to intervene and give it the old 50p head, which meant it took a oblique trajectory and the ball went into his own net.Of course the Cup final replay happened later that week and despite Steve Mackenzie’s fantastic screamer of a goal, City peaked too early and later Ricky V went on his famous victory run (Grrr! Grrr!) and I went apoplectic, screaming at Caton to pull him down and watched in horror as big Joe Corrigan mis-timed coming out for the ball and that was that. Motson seemed even more happy than when the Spuds equalised in the first game. Big laughs.

The saddest moment versus City for me was getting shutdown in the League Cup final back in 2018, we were 2-0 down and Danny Welbeck was about to come on and he and Wenger were waiting to make the substitution, and City scored, basically finishing the game. Wenger was at a loss as he knew that was it, but he immediately swung round to look at the bench as his mind raced at a billion miles per second and realised that Welbeck was still the best option. He put his hand on Welbeck’s back to comfort him as if to say, “its ok, its ok” when we all knew it wasn’t. Dang that cut me up. That paternal figure, standing there, reviled by the finger-pointing, bile-frothing immaturity of the spoilt ‘out’ brigade etc who would be after his scalp post-game for not delivering their rightful orgasmic win, with Welbeck looking alone and broken, as lost as his other team members but with Wenger still trying to hold the line, still trying to shepherd the sheep and keep it together, despite the fact we’ve been taken the slaughter house. Sometimes you’re outplayed by a superior outfit, it has nothing to do with spinelessness or needing a new manager, it just sometimes doesn’t click, for millions of reasons and you’re quite simply beaten by a better team. Big deal. It happens! But perhaps tombs of doom should not be exhumed until the dolorous fumes of hurt diffuse over a very long period of time? Those are the kind of moments that also make football for me, do you have similar feelings? In recent years we’ve caught up a bit with the Blue Dreadnought, so here’s hoping. I suppose much relies on who doesn’t get injured or penalised against Atalanta? The odd thing is despite all of our punch-ups with City I don’t see them as rivals, do you? We have only a 21% win prediction for this game, seems a bit low?

Peps an outstanding manager by all accounts( although I notice he likes clubs with big accounts, which certainly helps to be outstanding) and his win ratio is in total 72.79% and at City its 72.60%. Both sides go into the game unbeaten in the PL, and I hope for us it remains that way. Well that’s it, lots of bits and pieces that I’m sure have driven you into early hibernation to escape from it. It could have been worse, I could have mentioned Oasis.

Even so, here’s to a great game for us and lucky horses! 

COYG and keep on keepin’ on!

Mills