KOMPANY URGES CITY TO HEAP MISERY ON UNITED AS THEY STRUGGLE POST-FERGIE
VINCENT KOMPANY says Manchester City must continue to take advantage of the traumas being experienced across town at the club whose shadow they lived in for so many years.
City celebrate a decade of ownership by Abu Dhabi billionaire Sheikh Mansour today with Kompany surprisingly expressing some sympathy for Manchester United’s struggle to recapture the glory years they enjoyed under Sir Alex Ferguson.
But the City captain, who was signed two weeks before the takeover that transformed English football, says Pep Guardiola’s Premier League champions will be relentless in their bid to protect their local and national pre-eminence. Asked how much the balance of power in Manchester has shifted, Kompany said: “I’ll give the neighbours a little bit, I’ll have compassion for them, because Sir Alex Ferguson was such a big personality.
“You cannot take somebody like that out of a club and think that everything is going to continue like before.
“You always need a transition period. Manchester United is still dealing with a postFerguson era. So they will get that side of me, feeling compassionate. But any time it takes them to get back up, we need to take advantage of it.” They are certainly doing that. City have finished above United in the Premier League in six of the last seven seasons and in each of the five campaigns since Ferguson’s retired, including last season’s record-breaking title success which was their third championship in seven years.
Backed by the Sheikh’s petrodollars, they have spent well over £1billion on players over the last decade but Kompany hits back at the critics of the spend, spend, spend policy, arguing that it is only a case of them playing catch-up over a short space of time to match what major rivals like United, Chelsea and Liverpool have invested over a longer period.
“If you talk about City, what is fair?,” added the Belgian. “The status quo?
“Should City be in the third division and say we’ve got awesome fans with 30,000 in the stadium but we’re never really allowed to have success?
“Any kind of investment that’s been made by City over the years is to overtake 20 years of an advantage by any other club.” City are unrecognisable from the club Kompany, then 22, joined from Hamburg for £6million in August 2008.
There were not even doors on the toilets at their old training ground. Now they have every luxury imaginable at their £2bn state of the art Etihad training campus.
Of the many players City have signed over the past decade, Kompany recalls two for different reasons.
Brazilian striker Robinho – a £32m ‘statement signing’ by the Sheikh on the day the takeover was announced.
And Mario Balotelli for the attention he brought on the club.
“Robinho would make us look silly because he was doing keep-uppy with rolled-up socks,” recalled Kompany. “We were like, ‘When can we head it?!’ You’re looking at him thinking, ‘He’s extra-terrestrial! He raised standards and the profile of the club.”
As for the enigmatic Balotelli, Kompany said: “He had a heart of gold, but from the moment he arrived all of a sudden we had paparazzi hanging out of the trees, it was a little bit surreal.”
A bit like City’s journey over the last 10 years.